Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
Open Water Swimming
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Opps, submitted too early. I also wanted to say good luck to Blisters.
shes a box of frogs thats for sure
Did Pennington Flash tonight (last night!), first time there in the beginners group and really enjoyed it. Only my 3rd time OW and found it warm and great instructor too. Wish this was open before I did the Slateman in May - had a nightmare in the lake....
Did 2 laps of Bosworth and managed to get lost on lap 1, I almost went all the way round the 2nd island, when I stopped to look around I had no idea where I was or where everyone had gone. so with that little detour added on it was another record breaking distance for me, I'm guessing 1600mtrs yay
I didn't make it to bosy last night as I felt like crap. did a 35 mile ride on Wednesday and it poured down for the entire time. Wasn't wearing anything other than a jersey and by the time I got home I couldn't stop shaking and I felt sick. Made me feel like crap yesterday so thought it best to have a day off before the piglet on Sunday.
Saw a couple of girls and a chap in swimming cozzies last night, made me shiver just thinking about it, also saw a huge fish leap out of the way of a swimmer, as I got out I had a few weeds hanging off my head dreadlock style, a fun packed day, didn't see any pirates though, I've stopped asking as people think I'm odd, and thats bad in a group of triathletes
Hope you feel better soon GG
Cheers JP i actually feel ok now. All set for the piglet (my first tri since 2009) on Sunday.
Good luck GG, looks like good weather in the morning, hope you have fun
Well done JPG, I thought that the weeds seem to have grown alot in the last few weeks, you could nearly pull yourself along the out loop. Quite a few occasions i threw a lunp of weed during my stroke.
Weeds are OK. What I founds quite disconcerting was when I was fishing in a lake, some years ago. I must have been warm to have waded in barefoot, but there were little fish that decided to have a nibble. It was a bit spooky. Does that sort of thing happen at the mass start?
Blisters............with hundreds or even a thousand pair of legs all in rubber dredging up the water at the same time.you can guarantee that any little fishes wouyld have run for cover...............
remmber that in a wetsuit most of us resemble a whale
Did 2 1/2 laps of Bossy this morning, felt great, going for the big 3 laps next week, need to speed up a bit though
Training weekend at Dover for me, where I travelled a total of 13k and got stung by jelly fish 3 times. I've never seen jelly fish before and I'm made them into something horribel in my head, but to be honest, most of them I swam over and as all the stinkers are on the underside, if you keep position in the water then they are unlikely to get you.
I think the reason I was stung was because of the turbulant water at the mass start which caused some jelly fish to become over turned.
I also learnt that jelly fish stings are really minor. A quick shock when it happens as you aren't expecting it, but no worse that a static shock. I had been told that it was similar to nettel rash, but nettle rash is muh more painful and lasts for a lot longer. I could no longer feel the stings at all after 2 hours
I did my first open water swim in a race yesterday! How is sighting where your going?? I thought swimming front crawl and breathing would be hard! But it was staying on course. Any tips?? Apart from practising.
I think sighting is all about awareness in the water. When driving a car you don't just look straight ahead and line the car up to the left of the white line. You also look at other things to give you an awareness of your position on the road such as road signs, hedges, other cars. You can do the same in the water too and it can help you to avoid collisions with other swimmers
If there are weeds and a current then the weeds will all face in one direction. You can use them in a similar way to lines on the bottom of the pool, although you might want to be swimming at an angle to them rather than lining up with them depending on the direction you want to head in. This is a good trick over short distances and can keep you on line between sighting ahead of you.
Also look at the bank and try to keep in line with that. Make sure you draw an imaginary line along the bank and follow tthat rather than following the actual bends and curves in the bank. Again, this is good for short distances coupled with sighting ahead.
When sighting ahead, try to look for something beyond the buoy. Buoys are hard to see in the water especially if there is any chop or other swimmers around. So instead look for a landmark on the bank such as a tree, building or spire that is higher up and easier to spot. The boxes that contain the rescue rings located around a lake are good as they are bright and easy to see. If you get a chance you can walk around the lake and work out your sighting points before you get in the water. This makes it quicker for you to turn at each buoy.
When sighting, take a quick glance. Lift your head just enough so that your eyes are above the water line so that your position in the water isn't affected too much. If you can't see anything then don't worry about it and try again a couple of strokes later. Adjust in small increments as it is easy to over compensate and then check again before you go too far.
Don't trust the people around you to go in the right direction except during the first 100m or so of a mass start where you are fighting for position and space in the water.
S-Caz, I'm really new to the open water skills, and therefore make all the classic mistakes. I've found that over-compensation is the norm, so it's essential to sight-compensate-and immediately re-sight to verify your direction. Sighting from both left and right sides is another skill I've yet to learn.
I've only done lakes at the moment, river sighting is another concept to get my head around.
Being able to see anything underwater is going to be a novelty. Of the lakes I've swum, one is cloudy and the other is like soup. For race swimming, I just follow the others: the ones in the distance, not the one in front of my finger tips.
The rivers I swim in are quite cloudy but now that the weeds are growing and are only about a foot below the surfacce it is possible to see them soemtimes
I swim that slow I have learned to navigate by the stars
I'm doing a night swim on Friday. I think it is a full moon so it will be beautiful... except that the forecast is for rain so I won't get to see it through the clouds.
If anyone is near St. Neots on Saturday, there are a group of us swimming from dawn to dusk as a relay. It would be a good time for people of all abilities to give ow swimming a go as there will be plenty of people around to look after you. You don't have to take part in the relay as the idea is just to make the event as accessable as possible to eveyone so you can go in for 10 min or for a ccouple of hours - whichever you want.
Anyone doing bozzy tonight ?, would be nice to meet, I will identify myself by wearing a yellow zoggs swim cap and by standing with my right hand on my hip at the waters edge whilst looking wistfully into the horizon before having a mild panic attack upon entering the water
I'll be at bossie again tonight, aiming to be there for 6:15.... if i see EP or GG i'll make sure i say hello. `
Lovely swim in the Nene today. Escorted a beginner so it was a slow swim for me, but he stayed in the water nearly 2 hours
I was late from work last night so only managed 2 laps, it was really weedy (the lake, not my effort) I also practiced breathing on my left side and managed to swim in a full circle much to the amusement of the chap in the safety boat, I was really confused wondering why everyone was swimming the wrong way before I realised it was me, that was my 4th trip to Bozzy and Ive managed to get lost in the water on 2 of those occasions, saw some huge fish too by the ramp
EP & JP I will try and be at bosworth tomorrow inbetween 7and 7.30 depending on mad cycling skills with wetsuit in my backpack.
If I don't think about the fish JP they aren't there and I probably look like a whale so they can hide from me!!
Pixie I had a yellow hat while looking lost
Butter cup stick close to me if you want to avoid the fish as I splash and flounder so much that all living creatures vacate the area
I'll be biking tomorrow too (if I wake up in time) I might have a go without the wetsuit if its as warm as yesterday.
I'll be donning the yellow cap again and if not in the wetsuit I'll be the out of shape pasty bloke looking confused/lost in the water