Open water swims
Hi EN peeps, I need some help / advice: I can't seem to swim effectively in wavy / choppy water? I swam in Lake Michigan today and my time was 2:14 / 100 - 2000 yards, I left feeling super frustrated as my pool times are drastically different. 139 / 100 - 3,000yds..
I've been practicing sighting like an alligator.. but other than this I'm at a loss as to what to even try!
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Any thoughts or suggestions?
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Next- wind/waves (and currents if there is one) can wreak havoc on your pace.
Finally the actual swimming part of open water swimming is quite a bit different from pool swimming for many reasons including the need to sight which can throw your body position and stroke of and also since the water is not calm but very dynamic- stroke rate needs to be higher, pull needs to happen all the way to the hips etc etc. Keep at it- you will find with practice it will come around, especially since you are already a decent swimmer.
-No trying to glide, keep stroke rate up, Im guilty of cheating in the pool but it always bites my in open water.
- Im not sure about your thoughts on sighting but I usually only sight every 10-20 strokes if I know the swim course well. And i keep some idea of place by the shore when breathing.
Another thing you can do is spend some of your pool time practicing sighting. Try it on a set of 50's or 100's sighting twice per length. I realized when I did this I dropped my hips a lot more than I thought!
Here is a related question: I haven't swam in open water while drafting since 2010. If I can manage to get behind someone and draft, I imagine it could completely change the pace I plan to swim based on race rehearsals where I was swimming alone. Thoughts? How much do people improve their pace when drafting in open water (per 100 yards)? I imagine this could affect where I "seed myself" in the swim start.
I'm planning to try and go out a bit fast in the water so I can try to get behind someone with a swim split that is better than what I could swim on my own. But I've also read to be careful not to go out too hard in the swim....Thoughts?
Thanks!
When I was able to draft, in IMs I used it as a breather, not as a means to shave seconds off my time. In other words, I would draft off someone going my pace, and work maybe 5% less while behind them. It was hard to find someone I could follow for more than 2-400 meters at a time. The shorter the race, though, the more I would try to take advantage of the boost in speed it provided.
-I agree on not going out too hot but I have heard Coach P say something about a "good effort over the first 400 then settle in." I kinda did this in my 70.3 in June.
-With drafting it all depends on if your good at it IMO. If it distracts you and messes up your form you could end up working harder to keep up with the person your following. You could give it a shot then just bail out if its not flowing well. I think there are too many variances to say how much you might improve your pace by drafting. Also make sure the person is sighting well and not zigzaging all over the place.
- The only time I feel like I got a bump in pace from drafting is when I did Honu 70.3 a couple years ago. I stated up front with a bunch of awn guys. It was my first long distance race so I figured they knew more than me and I went from 1:45/100yrds to 1:40. Could have been the ocean swim, salt water or tide also??
During my last IM I just followed someone's feet for probably 2500 meters. Didn't have to worry about sighting as the feet I was following were within a foot of the buoys. This is all relative as I'm not a fast swimmer (1:22 last IM) but when it's crowded or I'm following feet my pool times are closer to the open water times. I still have some sections of the swim where I just slow down and I'm slower than my pool times. I used to not like to swim in the crowd but my times in the crowded portions seem to indicate that it might be beneficial. Thankfully I am learning to just keep swimming when there is contact.
I appreciate your cautionary words Al and Josh: don't count on the draft to do much. That surprises me a bit, because you get a huge boost when drafting on a bike, and the resistance from water is much more. But then again, as Al pointed out, drafting has a greater effect the faster you go (from what I've read in the past). So maybe the benefit from drafting on a bike cannot be compared to drafting in the water?
@Tim Sullivan, I appreciate those words of hope. So far this season, my pool times (1:36 min/100 yards for 2200 yards going easy/medium intensity) have been way faster than my open water times (~1:53 min/100 yards for 2584 yards during a race rehearsal). So I'm hoping to split the difference in the actual race due to the taper, the race adrenaline and some drafting.
I'm partly just looking for reasons to believe that I can go faster that I have been in my race rehearsal OWSs. I'm probably going to (as Coach P suggested), go into the race imagining I swam my fastest possible time and what it would be if I swam my slowest possible time so I'm mentally prepared to see either thing on the watch as I get out of the water.
I'm also wondering how accurate my GPS watch is at assessing my OWS pace & distance. So that may be a factor.
Thanks guys!
-(Larry) Rob
I ended up having a great first 70.3 yesterday. I didn't draft much, because I underestimated my speed a bit and (it seemed) was passing people the whole swim. Plus I think I was swimming a lot tighter to the buoys than many other swimmers I saw. But I"m not a super fast swimmer (I went 35:38 and I seeded myself in the 36-40 min group), so that may relate, in part, to what you said above (slower swimmers are not as reliable).
Thanks again for the advice!
Sorry I'm late to the party. Just saw this. Which is timely, because I've been focusing a lot on improving my OW skills. When I'm fit and in shape, I can swim well in a pool about 99% of the time. In OW, however, I usually race well 50-75% of the time when I'm fit. The more adverse the OW conditions, the worse my performance. I'm no swim expert or coach, but here's some of the stuff I've discovered and have been working on implementing.
1) Straight. Continuously work on the the side-to-side imbalances in our stroke to make us go straight. The absence of that friendly black line on race day can wreck havoc. Breathing seems to screw up more strokes than any other element. If you breathe to the right, have someone photograph or video you. What is your left hand doing when your head is out of the water breathing to the right? 90% chance it's doing something completely different than what your right hand does on the other side when it's extending. Some people cross the left hand over the center line, many others flare it out to the left to balance. In open water, we tend to take much bigger breaths and keep our heads out longer (anxiety), so it only exacerbates the problem. Video is how you address; snorkel is the easiest way to fix.
2) Over-gliding. I did this. Big time. Stroke rate below 50 strokes per minute. Which works fine in a pool or in a down-current OW swim. But if there are adverse currents, you could be stopped dead in the water or - worse - actually go backwards in an OW swim. At first glance, the photo below doesn't look bad. But the biggest thing missing?
There is ZERO rearward power being applied to the water. His R hand is above the water doing nothing. His (over) stretched L hand is likewise completely useless. I think his stroke rate was something like 38 or 40 SPM. Imagine climbing a 10% grade hill on your bike and you tried the same thing - take a pedal stroke, then spin the crankset backwards one rotation, then crank again - power/glide/power/glide. In about 3 seconds, you and your bike will be horizontal on the pavement.
Compare below. He's at 90 SPM. His L hand enters on a downward trajectory and will catch and start the pull (way earlier than above) while his R hand finishes applying force past the hip. He has his foot on the gas at all times, just like you have to pedal continuously up that 10% grade if you have any hope of cresting it upright.
3) Recovery. When I swam at sub-50 SPM, I had a smooth, reasonably-high-elbow recovery where my out-of-water hand slowly and gracefully moved forward about 4-6 inches above the water surface. Great for a pool. But if there is decent chop or swells, or if I'm drafting off a big kicker who is leaving a big wake, my lead hand could get swallowed up before it has a chance to pierce the water and start that stroke. Some guys like Potts and Frodeno are so freakishly flexible that they can naturally rotate and keep their lead hands above the chop/swell/wake. Others employ a straight- or near-straight-arm recovery. Go YouTube some OW swimming by either of the Brownlee brothers or Harry Wiltshire (probably 3 of the top 10 fastest tri swimmers in the world) - they literally windmill at 89-92 SPM. Our personal limitations dictate what we can do to keep that recovering hand/arm above the fray.
4) Sighting. Takes a lot of practice. Here are some tips that have helped me get decent at it. I usually breathe to my left in a race. So, when my left hand is extending forward, I push straight down on the water, which causes the head to rise. It will also cause the feet to sink unless you arch your back. Which I do. When my eyes barely break the surface, I glance for my target. No focusing! If I'm looking for blurry orange, that's it. No looking around for it, no focusing. If I don't see it, head back down, and we'll try again in a stroke or two. As soon as my head goes down, I roll it over to the left to breathe. Do not try to breathe with both eyes out! Because you'd have to raise your head high enough in front of you to get your mouth out, which will shoot your feet down. If it's non-wetsuit, I'll give a little extra kick to re-balance everything. Practice in the pool (a lot) until it almost becomes a natural part of the stroke.
5) Strength. This is just my theory, and I'm only 98% certain of it's accuracy. The harder the conditions, the athletes with quick, powerful strokes always seem to come to the front. When Kona conditions are rough, you see the packs break apart and people like McNeice, Potts and Swallow separate themselves. Sadly, I'm more of a finesse/good conditions swimmer. But I'm gonna fix it. Here's a great video of Jodie (I think she's Cunnama now). Her stroke is no thing of beauty; it's a choppy slapfest. But she's going at 90 SPM and has her foot on the gas at all times.
This is just the tip of the ice berg. And this is just what I'm focusing on now.
MR
I like the fact that Gerry has adopted Matt Dixon's "grip and rip" approach. It's very similar to what Joel Filliol and Sheila Taormina have advocated - if you have a pretty solid stroke (i.e., you're balanced, symmetrical and have 90% of the other base swim techniques down), then stop worrying about achieving technique perfection and focus on strengthening the power phase - the catch and pull - even if the end result is something less than "pretty."
Personally, I think the vast majority of triathletes still have some pretty big technique issues to address before moving on to the grip/rip stage of swim training. Coach Rich advocated not moving onto catch/pull focus until you can swim an IM in 1:15 or under. Which is probably about right.
Back to turnover, the reality is, 99% of us will never swim a :44 IM swim at 90 SPM. I tend to lose control around 75 SPM, so the fact that some pros can apply 20 more strokes (a unit of power) every minute is no different than the same pro riding at 100 watts more than me. So, I had to be content in that 70-75 SPM range. But by slowly increasing my turnover from 50 to 70 SPM shaved about 12-15 seconds off of every 100 yards I swam. Which is 8-10 minutes in an IM. That, IMO, is how a 1:08 swimmer with sufficiently "good" technique can become a 1:00 swimmer.
If you have a wetronome, just try to figure out what your current stroke rate is. Take a Swim Smooth Ramp Test to determine your sweet spot and at what turnover you start to lose form and generate diminishing returns (again, I start to melt around 75). Then, slowly try to increase your turnover until it gets to a good range (Swim Smooth has charts showing ranges of turnover vs. speed). If you're doing it right, then you're engaging big chest/back muscles and aren't pulling with a straight-ish arm via weak should and bicep muscles. Dry-land band work is fantastic for developing these muscles. The only thing I don't like about the "grip/rip" terminology is that it implies brute strength straining - it conjures images of a weightlifting contest. Which is absolutely incorrect. If you're pulling like you're dead-lifting, you're doing it wrong. The catch and pull, like the rest of the stroke, should be smooth and very rhythmic. The coach tip that I received and like is: you don't want to feel like your arms are fighting their way backwards through resistant water; instead, we plant our hand/wrist/forearm in the water like a stake, then we smoothly rotate and propel our body forward past that stake. Stake-in-the-ground, grip-n-rip, whatever works for each of us.
MR