# Transitioning from Pool to Open Water | Ep 534

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 9 Apr 2025, 28 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/100939923/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-3-7%2F3f80fc8b-5bac-7703-0643-e8147ad8ffe4.m4a

ATTENTION First Time IRONMAN / 70.3 Athletes: 🚀 Join Team Oxygenaddict's FREE IRONMAN Accelerator webclass and learn how to dominate your first IRONMAN in as little as 6-8 hours training per week: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/ironman-accelerator * * * * * * * * In this week's episode... This episode of the Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcastis all about transitioning from the pool to the open water in preparation for race season. Coach Rob talks through: Open water safety measures... Acclimating to cold water... Wearing the right wetsuit... Practicing navigation and breathing techniques... Simulating race conditions... Drafting... Starting techniques... Transitioning from swim to bike / run. * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict - the most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Book an application call to see if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply click this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Team Oxygenaddict on YouTube Team Oxygenaddict on Spotify Team Oxygenaddict on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:09] and hydration.com. Get 15% off your first order
[0:13] with the code Oxygen Fuel 25. Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:17] I'm your host coach Rob Wilby from Team Oxygen Addicts, and
[0:20] every week we'll bring you an episode of this podcast to help
[0:22] motivate and inspire you for your 70.3 and Ironman triathlon
[0:26] goals for this year. On this week's episode, I'm
[0:29] going to be talking about ways we can transfer swim fitness
[0:32] from the pool into open water ahead of race season.
[0:37] And I've got a tonne of great tips to help you take that
[0:39] confidence and fitness that you've built up in the pool into
[0:42] open water ready for your first races this year.
[0:45] And before we kick things off, there's two quick things you
[0:48] could do that would really help us out.
[0:50] Please, if you like this episode, please follow us on
[0:53] Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And if you're looking for
[0:56] coaching for Iron Man or 70.3 Triathlon this year, please get
[1:00] in touch. I think we've got the most
[1:01] comprehensive coaching programme for age group is out there
[1:04] specifically built for people with busy working lives and busy
[1:07] family lives. There's a link in the show notes
[1:09] to book a membership call. You can have a chat with me.
[1:12] We can talk about how we can best help you out this season.
[1:14] We've also currently got a special offer on of a season
[1:17] longer membership at a massive saving compared to our monthly
[1:20] prices and it's even better value than our usual annual
[1:23] membership price. So there's never been a better
[1:26] time to enquire about coaching. All right then let's jump right
[1:29] into it then and we'll talk about ways we can help you
[1:31] transfer your swim fitness into open water.
[1:34] OK, so first up, the 1st and most important thing I'm going
[1:37] to talk about today is around safety and ensuring your safety
[1:41] in open water. So as you transfer these fitness
[1:45] gains you've made over the winter into swimming in open
[1:47] water, the first thing I want you to do is make sure you swim
[1:50] at a managed venue where there's safety cover available, where
[1:54] they have a safety system there, and where you're not just
[1:57] turning up at an open lake to swim on your own.
[1:59] I'd highly recommend even in those situations that you don't
[2:02] swim alone, that you have a swim buddy to train with and you've
[2:05] got someone who's going to be watching out for you and you can
[2:08] work that kind of buddy system. And even if you swim as a
[2:11] different speeds, you can work out a system between yourselves
[2:14] where you can keep a track of what's going on.
[2:16] Now most managed swim venues have got a couple of important
[2:19] things. They've got boys marking out at
[2:23] Safe Swim Zone, they've got safety cover available, meaning
[2:26] they'll either be lifeguards or they'll be rescue cover out on
[2:29] kayaks. And the most important thing is
[2:32] if it's a managed swim venue, you can be really as, as sure as
[2:37] you can be, there's going to be no boating traffic in the water.
[2:41] And that's one of the most important things and it's why I
[2:43] think it's worth paying to go down and swim at a managed swim
[2:47] venue rather than just jumping into an open body of open body
[2:51] of water near you. Now we've got a venue near us
[2:53] where people have traditionally swim and it's a great place to
[2:58] go for a swim, but it also has ski boat access as well.
[3:02] And a story from my personal past here.
[3:03] I've been there, been for a swim on my own in years past, gone
[3:08] out. There's been nothing around
[3:09] there been no boats on the water.
[3:11] And I've swam 750 metres down the lake and as I've got down to
[3:15] the far end, a ski boat has been reversed down the jetty into the
[3:19] water. The ski boats then come out onto
[3:21] the water and I've had a very nervous swim, having to stick
[3:25] right over to the side of the lake and stay right away from
[3:27] where the boat is. This is back in the days before
[3:31] tow floats were even available, let alone before anybody used
[3:34] them. So I was really scared that the
[3:36] ski boat was going to come over and was going to get either too
[3:39] close to me or you can imagine the thoughts that were going
[3:41] through my head. So those are the things that you
[3:43] won't have to worry about if you're swimming at a managed
[3:46] venue, I'd highly recommend swimming with a tow float.
[3:50] There are loads of these available from all the big
[3:52] companies these days on a leash that goes around your waist.
[3:55] So you've got your own way to to stop and have a rest and and
[3:59] grab onto that if you do go dizzy or have some cold water
[4:03] shock or even to help another swimmer out.
[4:04] Essentially they're great to have swim with a brightly
[4:07] coloured swim hat on. And if you are swimming in the
[4:11] wild, which would be against my advice here, these things will
[4:15] give you a little bit of a little bit of protection.
[4:19] Well, not protection, but it'll help boats and other water users
[4:23] see you. Now, I was away down at the Lake
[4:26] District this past weekend, down very early in the morning and
[4:30] was chatting with an open water swimmer who was going out for a
[4:33] swim on his own. And we were down for sunrise
[4:37] actually. And this guy was very
[4:39] impressively getting fully kitted up.
[4:40] He had a big tow float behind him.
[4:42] He had a GoPro set up on the tow float.
[4:44] He had and full booties, gloves and and with chatting with him,
[4:49] he swam between 15 and 25 miles a week and Windermere on his
[4:53] own. So very well practised.
[4:56] But obviously Windermere is a is a lake that has a craft on
[4:59] there. So something that this guy did,
[5:02] he had a specifically designed fluorescent open water wet suit.
[5:08] The whole back of it was fluorescent orange, the back of
[5:10] the arms and the arms were fluorescent orange, and the back
[5:13] of his neoprene cap was fluorescent orange.
[5:17] And it was interesting. Me and my friends watched this
[5:19] guy swim away and it was amazing how much more visible he was
[5:24] because of the fluorescent orange on his suit.
[5:27] Then he would have been wearing a black suit.
[5:29] I was saying to my friends, you know, you can imagine how if he
[5:32] was just in a black suit and definitely if he wasn't swimming
[5:35] with a tow float, he wouldn't be visible from even a few 100
[5:38] yards away. So that's well worth
[5:41] considering. I think if you're someone who is
[5:42] going to go and do Wilder swims, those suits that are available,
[5:47] this particular 1 was an orca suit, so well worth looking
[5:49] into. Next up, let's talk about
[5:53] managing and preparing for the cold water and for the possible
[5:57] shock of it and the ways to acclimate to the cold water.
[6:01] So the first thing is the first swim of the season, unless
[6:04] you're getting in in the middle of summer, you've got to expect
[6:06] the water to be quite cold and you've got to expect it to be
[6:10] quite difficult to actually get in.
[6:12] And there's a period of acclimation involved in getting
[6:15] into the water before you can even swim.
[6:17] So one of the ways you can get used to this firstly as you can
[6:20] fill your wash basin at home with cold water and you can
[6:23] splash it on your face to get yourself used to the feeling of
[6:26] how unpleasant and cold it is. Next U you can dunk your face
[6:31] into the basin of cold water and if you make that water really,
[6:34] really cold, you'd be surprised how a, it is quite painful at
[6:38] 1st and how it makes you gasp and it makes you want to inhale
[6:42] and that's totally normal. It's a, it's called the gasp
[6:44] reflex and it's a physiological response to your face being into
[6:48] cold water and you do acclimate to it relatively quickly.
[6:51] So this is something you can do ahead of your first cold water
[6:55] swim of the year is every morning, fill that basin with
[6:58] cold water and get your face used to it.
[7:00] And I'm also a big believer that being in a cold shower really
[7:03] helps you acclimate the effect of the cold water as well.
[7:06] So just next time you're in the shower, gradually turn the
[7:08] temperature of the shower down and you'll find that over a
[7:11] period of 30 seconds to a minute, you can get to the point
[7:14] where you can certainly endure the water in its coldest setting
[7:18] and get used to how that feels on your head, on your face, on
[7:21] your body. All of this will help you start
[7:24] to acclimate to the cold water and reduce that cold water shock
[7:27] response. The first time you go down to
[7:31] the water to actually swim, I'd advise you to not just try and
[7:35] get in and start swimming. What I'd advise you to do is to
[7:38] go into the water, into, you know, between knee, thigh, waist
[7:42] deep water and just lie face down in the water and get used
[7:46] to that feeling for 30 seconds of your face, your head being in
[7:50] the water and it being really cold.
[7:52] You can acclimate to that feeling and within a couple of
[7:54] minutes you'll get through the point where it's really driving
[7:57] you to to breathe really, really quickly and you can acclimate to
[8:01] that. And also wearing 2 swim hats on
[8:04] your head can really help prevent the effect of the cold
[8:07] water making you gasp. You'll find there are companies
[8:11] out there that make neoprene swim caps.
[8:13] They make tea, make a really good thermal swim cap actually,
[8:16] that's great at keeping the cold out, but it isn't made of
[8:18] neoprene. So all of these different things
[8:21] you can experiment with and they will really help you sort of
[8:26] avoid the cold water shock elements a bit while you
[8:29] acclimate the cold water. The next thing you can do is you
[8:33] can practise really controlled breathing when you're in the
[8:35] cold water. You can start practising this
[8:37] when you're in the shower and you'll notice if you get into
[8:40] really cold water, you will you'll kind of lose control of
[8:43] your ability to regulate your own breathing for a while.
[8:46] And largely that's down to the temperature around your head and
[8:49] your face. So you can get used to this by
[8:51] being in the cold shower and very deliberately blowing the
[8:54] air out and inhaling deeply and blowing the air out again.
[8:58] And it doesn't take more than two or three sessions of this to
[9:01] get yourself to the point where you start to really acclimate
[9:05] that cold water. Next up is the idea of getting
[9:09] comfortable swimming without pool walls.
[9:12] So once you're acclimated to the water temperature in your
[9:16] initial open water swims, I'd encourage you to approach it as
[9:20] as you would in a pool, essentially as broken interval
[9:23] swimming. So don't try and just swim
[9:25] continuously the first time you get in the first swim, get in,
[9:29] swim to the first boy, stop there, take 30 seconds recovery,
[9:33] then swim to the next boy and treat it as interval training.
[9:36] Extend that to the point where you swim a full lap.
[9:39] Now again, most managed venues are going to have between a 400
[9:44] and a 750 metre marked lap. It's great to extend that to the
[9:48] point where you're continuously swimming another 400 metres.
[9:51] Doesn't sound like a long way, even for seasoned athletes.
[9:55] You'll be surprised that first swim back how far that 400 can
[9:58] feel. It's very different to touching
[10:00] the wall every 25 metres and once you've got to the point
[10:04] where you're comfortably swimming a lap, you can extend
[10:07] it to swim 2 laps. And eventually we're going to
[10:10] aim across a period of weeks and months to extend this so that
[10:14] you're comfortable completing the full race distance for
[10:17] either your 70.3 or your Iron Man before you go and do your
[10:21] event. So ideally, 3 to 4 weeks out
[10:24] from your goal race, you should be comfortable swimming
[10:26] continuously for the duration of what your goal race is going to
[10:30] be. And you've got the opportunity
[10:31] to do that two or three times before race day.
[10:34] Then Next up, sighting and navigation is something that is
[10:40] going to be very different in the open water than it is in the
[10:44] pool. I've seen the pool, you're
[10:45] following a black line. There's no real skill to that at
[10:48] all. So you can practise this in the
[10:50] pool. In the lead up to your open
[10:52] water swims, you're going to have to learn to sight so you
[10:55] can navigate where you're going and keep going in a straight
[10:58] line. So a great way to do this in the
[10:59] pool is to practise sighting every three to six strokes.
[11:03] Just lift your head up so that you're looking at the end of the
[11:06] pool. You can put a water down but put
[11:10] put something down at the end of the lane that you have to look
[11:13] up to make eye contact with. And this is replicating looking
[11:17] for a boy when you're swimming outdoors.
[11:19] And it gets you used to this idea that although you lift your
[11:22] head and your eyes clear of the water, it isn't automatic that
[11:26] your eyes can lock onto the thing that you're looking for.
[11:28] And there's a skill involved in this.
[11:30] So I think practising sighting every three to six strokes when
[11:33] you're in the pool and learning to lift your eyes, whether you
[11:36] do what's called crocodile eye sighting or lifting your whole
[11:40] head to to sight, I think that's well worth doing and building
[11:44] into your your swim so that you're doing it two times the
[11:48] length or even three times the length for every length that you
[11:50] swim in the lead up to the open water pool season.
[11:54] I think, like I said, having something at the end of the lane
[11:57] to deliberately fix your eyes on, it's a really good skill
[12:01] practise involved in this. Now, Next up, let's talk about
[12:04] adapting to swimming in a wet suit.
[12:06] So there are a couple of things here.
[12:08] The wet suit's obviously there, it's going to keep you warmer,
[12:11] but it's going to also change your body position in the water.
[12:14] And this can work in two ways. For athletes who are perhaps not
[12:19] such strong swimmers, it will help correct your body position.
[12:23] It will lift your hips, your bum, your legs up in the water
[12:25] and make you much flatter in the water.
[12:28] That's usually a positive and can and can lead sinky legged
[12:32] swimmers into being much faster and more relaxed in the water.
[12:36] For those of you who swam in childhood and a very balanced in
[12:40] the water, you can find the opposite.
[12:41] You can find that putting a wet suit on actually negatively
[12:46] affects your stroke and your balance in the water.
[12:48] So different manufacturers make different suits.
[12:51] Every manufacturer will make a suit aimed at good swimmers with
[12:55] with minimal flotation in and they'll make a suit aimed at
[12:59] beginners with much thicker legs in to help correct your your
[13:04] body position. So make sure you've got the suit
[13:06] that's right for your swim stroke.
[13:08] Your local shop will be able to advise you on this.
[13:11] The key thing here though is swimming in a wet suit is going
[13:14] to change your position in the water.
[13:16] So you have to get used to this. This idea that often people who
[13:20] are used to having sinky legs, they often feel as though their
[13:23] lower back is quite sore after this one for a while because the
[13:27] wet suit is doing the job that their muscles used to do and
[13:30] they end up kind of hyperextended around the lower
[13:32] back. So, so be aware of that.
[13:35] Key thing with the wet suit is to make sure it fits you really
[13:38] well, that it's tight fitting enough so that you can make sure
[13:44] that no water gets into the suit through the neck and through the
[13:47] collar. But also you've got to make sure
[13:50] that it's tight fitting enough that it's comfortable but not so
[13:54] tight it's restrictive. And that can be a challenge when
[13:58] perhaps you've never worn a wet suit before.
[14:00] So be aware of this. It should be tight enough so
[14:03] that probably it'd be a little bit uncomfortably tight when you
[14:06] put it on when it's dry, and it'll relax a little bit when
[14:08] it's wet. If it's a little bit baggy when
[14:11] you try it on and it's dry, the chances are something is going
[14:14] to let water in there and that water is going to pool at some
[14:17] point around the wet suit and that's not what you need at all.
[14:21] OK, this is a great point for us to make a little break and talk
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[14:55] OK, back to it then the next thing to talk about in open
[14:59] water is the challenge of breathing in unpredictable water
[15:02] conditions. So we can practise for this in
[15:05] the pool by learning to bilateral breathe.
[15:08] If we've got chop coming from One Direction, we often find
[15:12] that as we swim in a triangle, the chop will come from One
[15:15] Direction down one side of the triangle and from a different
[15:18] direction on the other side of the triangle.
[15:20] And ideally we're going to be breathing away from the wind, so
[15:23] the waves are not going to be getting blown into our face.
[15:26] You can see that on a day when there's any kind of chop moving
[15:30] on the water, it's going to be in your best interests to be
[15:33] able to breathe on both sides. So get used to the idea that the
[15:37] thing that's really going to sort of lead you to breathe on
[15:42] one side or the other is not necessarily ideally going to be
[15:46] which side you prefer to breathe on.
[15:48] It's going to be being able to choose to breathe away from the
[15:51] chop. So that's a really important
[15:54] point that you can practise in the pool.
[15:56] Get used to fully exhaling into the water to make sure that you
[15:59] stay relaxed. We've talked about this on
[16:01] previous episodes. And also I think a great thing
[16:04] to do here is in training train so that you breathe in different
[16:09] patterns so that you can simulate doing this in real race
[16:12] conditions. So it's great to be able to
[16:14] bilateral breathe. It's great to be able to
[16:17] practise swimming one length breathing on the right hand side
[16:20] to swim one length breathing on the left hand side to swim,
[16:23] breathing every stroke to swim, breathing every other stroke to
[16:27] swim, breathing every second stroke on the right and the
[16:29] left. If you've got all these tools in
[16:31] your arsenal, if the if the conditions on the day throw that
[16:35] up for you, then you're going to be really, really comfortable
[16:38] and confident breathing in the way that makes most sense around
[16:41] the weather conditions. Next up, let's talk about how we
[16:46] can simulate open water starts and training.
[16:50] So the two things to be aware of here.
[16:51] We might have a deep water start or we might have a beach start.
[16:56] So the beach start is where you'll as, as it sounds, you'll
[16:59] start standing on the beach and you'll be let into the water,
[17:02] usually in in groups of five or ten, and you'll run down the
[17:05] beach and into the water. A deep water start.
[17:08] They don't tend to use them quite so much these days,
[17:11] certainly in the big events, but in some of the smaller events
[17:14] we'll have everybody in the water all together and you'll be
[17:16] between two boys in the line. The starter's horn will go off
[17:20] and you have to go from treading water to swimming as the horn
[17:26] goes off. So it's great to practise both
[17:28] of those in training, find out ahead of time what the event
[17:32] you're going to be taking part in does and practise that.
[17:37] I think with the majority of the big events being on beach starts
[17:40] these days, it's great to practise at the end of your
[17:43] session when you've when you've done the swimming, you've done
[17:45] all the acclimation before you finish and you fully get out.
[17:49] It's great to practise running into the water, walking into the
[17:53] water, working out how deep the water's got to be, on your knees
[17:57] and waist before you feel you can safely either dive forward
[18:01] or flop forward into the water. Whatever makes the most comfort
[18:05] and sense for you I think is the way to go here.
[18:08] We've seen some Iron Man races where you do that off a beach,
[18:10] we've seen some of them where you have to do it off a pontoon.
[18:14] So it's good to have these options.
[18:16] Again, options in your armoury if you like, that you can choose
[18:19] from depending on what the race is going to ask you, but find
[18:23] out from race organise what that's going to be so there are
[18:26] no surprises on race day and so you can do the thing that makes
[18:30] the most sense for you. I went to a race over and I
[18:33] don't remember where it was now. We had to, we had to dive off a
[18:38] dock into the water and I'm a terrible dive.
[18:41] I was really uncomfortable and it was really obvious.
[18:44] Some of the guys I was racing against I had swimming trained
[18:47] as kids and were really confident diving from, you know,
[18:50] the side of this dock was a metre above the water and it
[18:52] felt like 10 metres. I wasn't confident at all diving
[18:56] off. My goggles came off as I dived
[18:57] in and I think honestly I would have been quicker to jump in
[19:01] feet first, put my hands over my goggles and then carry on
[19:04] swimming. Then I was trying to dive, going
[19:07] way too deep, coming up, having to adjust my goggles.
[19:09] So find out ahead of time what's going to happen and then there
[19:13] won't be any surprises on race day for you.
[19:18] Now then, tips for swimming in choppy water.
[19:21] We've already talked a little bit about the effect it's going
[19:24] to have on your breathing, but let's talk about the effect
[19:26] it'll have on your stroke. You won't glide anywhere near as
[19:30] much or even at all if you're swimming into chop created by
[19:35] the wind or swimming into waves, even if you're in a sea swim.
[19:39] So for athletes who have a long, smooth glidey stroke, it's often
[19:44] not as effective when they get themselves into rougher water
[19:47] conditions. And you'll see if you watch
[19:49] videos of successful swimmers in rough conditions.
[19:53] Good swimmers have got the ability to choose their cadence
[19:56] a bit like gears on a bike. They can choose to shorten their
[19:59] stroke and speed their stroke up whilst not working any harder.
[20:03] And that's a very difficult skill to get used to I think for
[20:06] the beginner swimmer. So be aware that if you're a
[20:08] swimmer who has only practised the kind of.
[20:12] Swim smooth Mr Smooth kind of swimming in the pool.
[20:16] That might not be what's most efficient on race day,
[20:19] especially if you've got to swim into waves and chop.
[20:21] So practise in the pool. If you get yourself a wetronome,
[20:25] like a swim metronome, you can make that beep at different
[20:29] tempos and you can find how many strokes per minute you usually
[20:32] do when you're comfortable at. And then practise by increasing
[20:35] that by 5 strokes a minute or 10 strokes a minute and see what
[20:39] effect it has as you try and swim 25 or 50 metres at a much
[20:43] higher than normal cadence. Because if you're going to have
[20:46] to do this on race day, it's great to be able to train to do
[20:50] it. And so you've got those tools to
[20:51] choose from, very, very similar to doing high and low cadence
[20:55] work on the turbo on the bike. It gives you extra tools to
[20:57] choose from on race day. And again, we've already talked
[21:01] about this, but I'm going to reiterate it again and stress it
[21:03] again. Practise breathing on both sides
[21:06] because that way you can choose to breathe away from the chop.
[21:10] You can even choose to breathe away from the sunrise if, and
[21:13] you know, lots of races start very early in the morning and
[21:16] it's quite uncomfortable if you've got to turn your head to
[21:19] look into the sun as it's coming up.
[21:21] So I've been able to choose to breathe on the other side can be
[21:24] very, very beneficial. Next up, let's talk about
[21:27] drafting in the water. Then you can go much faster in
[21:34] the water swimming behind somebody.
[21:36] Then you can go swimming under your own steam.
[21:40] You can also swim at the same pace in the water for much less
[21:44] energy than you would do otherwise.
[21:47] And the second one of those is usually what's most beneficial
[21:51] to most age group athletes. If you get in the mindset of I'm
[21:54] going to find a faster swimmer than me and try and get in
[21:57] behind them and they'll pull me along.
[21:58] Usually what happens is after 400 or 600 metres, it turns out
[22:03] they're actually swimming a bit too hard for you and you blow up
[22:07] and then it's really, really hard to recover, especially for
[22:11] a relatively inexperienced swimmer.
[22:13] What's much more effective for you is to find a swimmer who's
[22:16] swimming at about the same rate as you and then just to slot in
[22:20] behind them. And what you'll find is it feels
[22:22] almost effortless. And then if you experiment with
[22:25] this in training, if you are swimming with someone who's
[22:29] evenly matched with you, when you sit behind them, it will be
[22:32] almost effortless and you'll be thinking to yourself, this is
[22:35] almost a waste of time. It feels like I'm not doing
[22:38] anything here at all. But if you pull out to overtake
[22:40] that athlete, you'll find actually by the time you've
[22:43] accelerated up to the hip so you've got level with them, you
[22:47] don't actually have much more speed to go at and you don't end
[22:51] up very far in front of the person you're swimming with, if
[22:54] at all. So this is something really good
[22:57] to practise in open water in your training sessions.
[23:00] You can practise in the pool as well.
[23:02] And it's a very, very valuable skill to practise because the
[23:06] race craft of it will have arguably as much effect on your
[23:09] race day swim as the fitness you'll gain by swimming has as
[23:13] well. So try this with a swimmer who's
[23:16] a similar speed to you. Practise swimming just behind
[23:20] them. It's harder to do this in the
[23:22] pool because of the effect of the wall coming every 25 or 50
[23:25] metres, but you will get this noticeable effect of swimming
[23:28] for almost no effort and as you then transfer the same drill
[23:32] into open water. What can be great here is if one
[23:35] of you leads the swim to the first boy, and then you swap
[23:39] over and another one leads the swim to the second boy.
[23:42] And then by talking to each other and working out what
[23:46] you're going to do, you can experiment with how it feels to
[23:48] try and pull out from behind the swimmer who swims at the same
[23:52] pace as you to try to overtake them.
[23:54] And I think you'll find it surprising quite how little
[23:58] ground you make up trying to swim past the swimmer.
[24:01] Unless that swimmer completely blows up.
[24:03] And again, that's an anecdote for my personal swim history.
[24:07] It was quite a few swims into this where I realised the
[24:10] sensation of swimming behind somebody and feeling really,
[24:13] really easy. I was thinking to myself, I'm
[24:15] wasting time here, the race is getting away from me.
[24:18] I try and pull out around the athletes and swim by them, I'm
[24:21] fine. I only got level with the hips
[24:23] and I was going almost full gas to try and do that.
[24:27] I assumed the first time this happened that the swimmer had
[24:29] seen me coming somehow and had accelerated to stop me going by.
[24:33] And the reality was that's just how it is swimming with a
[24:36] swimmer who is the same kind of speed as you.
[24:39] So in a bigger event, if you can get in behind two or three
[24:42] people in a small group who are swimming at about the same speed
[24:45] as you, what you'll find is you get virtually a free ride all
[24:49] the way around. And that's exactly what you
[24:52] want. You want a free ride and you
[24:54] want to get out of the swim with it feeling virtually effortless
[24:57] without you being out of breath so you can put all of that
[25:00] energy into the back half of your run.
[25:03] One other little tip here, get comfortable following the
[25:06] athlete's feet, but practise not touching them too much because
[25:10] there's nothing more irritating for the swimmer in front and
[25:13] actually it's going to slow you down as well.
[25:15] If you keep touching or grabbing their feet and it interrupts
[25:18] their kick rhythm, then that's going to mean that what happens
[25:21] is you both end up swimming slower.
[25:24] Next tip, let's talk about transitioning from being
[25:27] horizontal to vertical quickly as you get to the end of the
[25:31] swim. So practise coming to the end of
[25:34] your swim, practise sighting on the exit and swimming until your
[25:38] hand actually touches the ground.
[25:40] That's a real good marker because often it'll look much
[25:42] shallower than it is as your fingers touch the ground.
[25:46] That's a really good point to stand up and you'll find you're
[25:48] probably in waist to thigh deep water at that point.
[25:52] Try and use high knees as you're wading out of the water until
[25:55] the point you can get your feet clear.
[25:57] And then one really good thing to practise here is to practise
[26:02] the routine you're going to have on race day as you leave the
[26:04] water. And the way I would suggest
[26:06] doing this is to leave your swim hat on, raise the goggles off
[26:10] your eyes and up onto your forehead so they're still there
[26:13] on your forehead. And at that point go for the
[26:16] zipper behind you. Undo the Velcro on the top of
[26:19] the neck. Pull the zipper down.
[26:21] Strip the wet suit over one shoulder, then down over the
[26:24] other. Pull it down over both arms as
[26:26] you're either walking or running up the beach.
[26:29] And then that way you don't have to worry about trying to hang on
[26:33] to your your goggles and your swim hat in a fist.
[26:37] Because what you're going to find is you'll get just the
[26:41] first will get stuck in the arm of the wet suit and you end up
[26:43] dropping your goggles. And then you wonder what's going
[26:45] on. So leave the goggles and the hat
[26:47] on your head and then just go with that as a routine.
[26:51] You can then even if you want to, you can turn round, you can
[26:54] put the wet suit back and then go back into the water and
[26:56] practises as we talked about earlier.
[26:59] And my final point for you here about open water is you'll build
[27:03] confidence through repeated open water exposure.
[27:07] Don't feel as though you have to accomplish all of this in your
[27:09] first session. The more you swim in open water,
[27:12] the more natural it's going to feel.
[27:14] The more you can train with people who know what they're
[27:17] doing, the better, but stay patient.
[27:20] The adaptation is going to take time, but consistent practise is
[27:24] going to lead to huge gains over time.
[27:28] OK, so I really hope that you've enjoyed this episode.
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[28:07] Remember, there's links in the show notes so you don't have to
[28:10] remember them. And until next week, have a
[28:12] great safe training and racing week.
[28:14] I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've been listening to the Oxygen
[28:17] Addict podcast. See ya.

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