How To Get More From Your Open Water Swims

Swimming, and open water swimming in particular, is not most triathletes' favorite part of triathlon training. It can be pretty overwhelming between the logistics and the distractions. All the sensory overload that comes with an open water swim, and pretty soon the swim is over and you've not thought about the training aspect of your swim at all. Well, I'm here to help you with that. Make sure that the next time you head to your open water swimming venue, you get the most out of your session. Arrive with a plan. We always say this when it comes to pool swims. Don't just show up and go, I'm going to do a swim. Have a plan written out of what exactly you want to do, what reps you're going to do, what skills you're going to work on. That is equally true for open water. Write down your plan before you go. Make sure you know roughly what you want to do. Take into account what is available at your open water location. If there's buoys that are a certain distance apart, put in those reps that are that distance long. Work on specific skills like satin, whatever. We'll get to some of the skills that you need to work on later on. Don't just show up to your open water swimming venue and go, I'm just going to go for a swim, because then you definitely won't get the most out of your session. It's always good to do a warmup, of course, but when you go to the open water, it's even more important. Firstly, you're going to get in cold water and you're going to want to swim pretty much straight away. Secondly, on your race, you may not be able to do a deep water warmup. You may have to do a dry land warmup. It's a good idea to practice this every time you go for the open water swim. It helps you procrastinate getting in the cold water just a little bit longer, too. Now, in swimming open water, it's always better to focus on time rather than distance. You see, you can use your GPS watch and it will record your distance, but generally, it's not that accurate in open water. Whereas, with time, you can do continuous efforts. Now, this is something you can't do in the pool. Do a continuous 10 minutes before you stop. 10 minutes might not sound that long. When you do a 10-minute rep in the pool, it doesn't even feel that long, but in the open water where you have no walls to push off, no little mini breaks at each wall, 10 minutes suddenly feels a lot longer. What you can do is set your watch to auto lap every 10 minutes and then it'll vibrate on your wrist as soon as 10 minutes is up and you can stop, take a little break, take a breath before you go again for your next rep. It's far better in the open water to set your setup, remember that plan we spoke about, to have certain time intervals like 5 by 3 minutes, 2 by 10 minutes, that kind of thing. We never recommend that you just do an hour continuous swim in the pool. However, doing a long continuous non-stop swim in the open water can actually be advantageous. Don't do this every time you go to the open water. Break it up most of the time, but occasionally, it's okay to just do a continuous swim and get that feeling of what you're going to have to deal with on race day. Most people get all the challenge they need simply from going to the open water, fighting the chop, and swimming continuously for once. If you feel like you need a little extra challenge, consider bringing your paddles to the open water swim. Now, I know you might think that paddles are just something that allows you to swim a little bit faster and a little bit easier to keep up with your mates, but actually, they're a very valuable tool for building your specific swim strength that you need for a long continuous triathlon swim. So, if you don't get much time with your paddles in the pool, bring them to your next open water swim. Now, one of the most obvious things to work on while you're in the open water is those open water skills. We often say you could practice your open water skills in the pool, things like satin, closing your eyes so you can swim in a straight line, that kind of thing. But obviously, it's better to practice these while you're in the open water. For satin, the best thing to do is to pick a landmark and try and swim straight towards it. Now, initially, you'll probably start every stroke or every second stroke because you're so terrified of going a little bit skewed. Try to resist this urge and try and keep your head in the water for five, maybe even ten strokes before you look up and check that you're on the right line. Initially, you might find that you're way off the line and you need to correct, but as you get better at it, you'll be able to swim in a straight line for ten strokes and reduce the number of times you have to start in that race, which will definitely make you more efficient. My next tip is pacing. Now, it's easy to think of pacing as something that you need to practice in the pool where you know exactly what pace you're swimming for, say, 100 or 200 or 300. However, in the open water on race day, you're going to have to judge your pace without the aid of your watch telling you what pace you're swimming because you can't really look at it, and it pays to be able to judge that. If you go to your open water swim venue and you have a certain distance that you know what that distance is, say, a 400-meter loop, or maybe it's 200 meters to that buoy and back, or even you measure it before you start, then you can practice holding a specific pace, maybe your goal race pace, for that distance and seeing how far on or off you are of that when you attempt it. Now, most people, when their feet touch ground again, they breathe a sigh of relief, and that's the open water swim done. Again, you're missing a trick because on race day, you're going to have to strip your wetsuit as quickly as possible. If you never practice that in training, it's going to be quite tricky on race day. I suggest that finish your open water swim once you've run out the water and stripped your wetsuit as quickly as possible, rather than leaving that to race day for the first time. Clearly, I need to practice a bit more. I hope today I've helped you get the most out of your next open water swim. I'm not saying every open water swim has to be a serious affair where you try to get the most out of yourself as possible. However, your race day self will definitely thank you for putting a bit of extra effort into making sure you are ready for that race day swim. Of course, if you do put a bit of extra effort in to make sure you get the most out of your open water swim, you can always reward yourself afterwards. Thanks for watching. Remember to hit the like button if you've enjoyed it and subscribe so you don't miss any of our future swimming videos. It's a tough job. Someone's got to do it.