Feeling at Home at Sea: Strategies

BACK AT THE POOL

You’ll adapt to open-water conditions much faster if you first sharpen a couple of skills in the pool.

1. Practice bilateral breathing. You can’t be certain of getting air on your more comfortable side during an open-water race. Wind and waves may be against you, and your landmarks may be on your “other” side, so you need to be able to roll your head either way at any time.

2. Practice swimming and looking up and forward two to three times per pool length. Visualize what you’re looking for before you lift your head. This will teach you to spot your landmarks right away, holding on to your rhythm and balance as you do.

3. Swim some 25-yard repeats with your eyes closed to test your ability to swim straight when the water’s murky and there’s nothing to guide on. Do this slowly in case you run into a lane line, and wait until you have a lane to yourself unless you enjoy getting a reputation as an unguided torpedo. Count strokes and open your eyes when you calculate you’re still four short of the wall. No accidents please. This will teach you to swim straight without a lane line for guidance.

BEFORE THE RACE

1. Obviously you want to do some swimming in a lake or the ocean first. You’ll get used to the absence of convenient guides like lane lines, and will learn to navigate instinctively using on-shore landmarks. Safety first: Swim with an experienced partner or in a group, or with an escort canoe or kayak. Be careful in cold water and stay close to shore. Hypothermia (lowered body temperature) can impair your coordination and cloud your judgment. A wetsuit, if you have one, will be good insulation.

ON RACE DAY

1. If you can’t swim out and check the course itself, at least study a map. Picture how important landmarks—notably the finish line—will look from the water. Check with the lifeguards for water temperature, prevailing currents, and, if it’s an ocean race, surf conditions.

2. Count how many buoys you have to pass or turn on, and on which side you need to pass them. Check bottom contours for the areas where you’ll be entering and leaving the water. How far can you run and “porpoise,” and where will you need to start swimming?

3. If wetsuits are allowed in the race, wear one. You’ll swim about 5 percent faster without working any harder for it.

DURING THE RACE

1. Open-water races usually begin with a mass (confusion) start. Stay off to the side, even if you have to swim a slightly longer course to the first buoy. You’ll be out of the middle of the pack, where a collision with a stray arm or leg could ruin your rhythm, knock your goggles off, or in rare cases, do some damage.

2. Look for someone slightly faster than you are to draft off. Drafting will let you swim a little faster with no more exertion, not to mention letting you get away with lifting your head for navigation much less often. You can just keep your face in the water and follow the pack. You can, that is, if your draftee knows where he’s going.

3. You may need to adjust your stroke for ocean swimming. Don’t worry. Methodical pool swimmers often find waves upset their rhythm, so don’t fight it. Just feel the swells and roll with them. A high-elbow recovery is also essential in choppy water. And since you’re more buoyant in saltwater than fresh, you can lay off the kick and just focus on your speed enhancing front-quadrant swimming and the rhythmic rolling of your hips for power.

4. If it’s a triathlon swim, don’t sprint at the end. Just hold your pace, keep your heart rate low, and save your energy for the bike and run. As you near shore, swim just until your hands touch bottom, then stand and begin running to shore with a high-knee gait.