Day 115: The Art of Open Water Swimming

While reading the latest issue of Triathlete Magazine we have been “discovering” a few places to get great information about swimming, biking and running. We started exploring this great site called Swim Smooth with a lot of information for beginners, intermediate and advance swimmers and of course also information related to triathlon swimming.

In this section we found an article with 5 tips for triathlon and open water swimming. We agree on the importance and also the great content of this article. Basically they cover 5 aspects that might look simple and even may be obvious to some people, but they explain each of them in a great way. The first thing to remember is to get used to wearing your wet suit. Great advice since using new cloths, or any gear on race day, always ends up being the worst idea! We actually are waiting for our wet suits to get to Costa Rica to start jumping in the pool with them. The second tip is to Overcome anxiety. We think that for newbies like us it might be even better to start at the end of the mass so that we don’t have to deal with the crowd kicking and stroking around. After that you can try to regain a few seconds on the bike or run leg of the race.

The third and fourth tips are to swim straight and master the art of sighting. Basic? Maybe. But not easy to do at all. Try swimming in water where you cannot see the straight line below yourself or even 20 cm below as you would in a pool. Add to that, waves that might not let you see far ahead. It is definitely more complicated than it sounds.

Finally: Draft Better! Meaning, swim behind or next to another swimmer to save some energy… Want some more details? Visit the website and check out the whole article. It’s totally worth your time!

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin