There is a definite technique to open swimming. The pool has space for lane swimming, open swimming and at times lessons are given alongside. This will be my first year for open water swimming, so I’m on the look out for tips all the time. So far it looks as though open swim has some resemblance to open water:
- Turbulence and waves can be up to four lanes wide, without anti-wave ropes there is a little more turbulence than the lanes.
- Need for sighting – in this environment there is no point in being complacent about following the black line on the bottom of the pool. You may be swimming in a straight line down the pool, but another swimmer could be swimming in an equally straight line towards you. Apart from that social swimmers tend to swim towards faster swimmers and provide added interest to a swim. (If anybody has done any research on the subject, I would be interested to know if this is an effect of drafting/currents, as it seems to happen whenever I’m in an open swim.)
- Sighting practice – yesterday, when the pool was almost empty, I watched a lady swim 7 strokes, breathe to the left then keeping her head raised turned to the right with the following arm stroke before resuming with a further 7 or 8 strokes and breathing as before. It reminded me of Keri-Anne Payne’s video for about open water,
- Acclimatisation – many swimmers climb in the pool, hold onto the nose and fully submerge before starting to swim. I’ve been advised to do this as soon as I get into the lake to help the body to acclimatise to the lake temperature
- Dolphin – for open water starts! Some people (not just me) swim butterfly in the pool, after seeing this video do you think I could persuade triathletes to practice fly? Is this the most common type of start?
At the moment this is an inexperienced view, so all tips are welcome. Only five weeks to the Great North Swim, so I’ll have to climb into the wetsuit and dive into the lake one day soon. It should be cool!
just Trying to Swim...and Run... 