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The Open Water Swim:
Learning to Take Advantage of Your Competition

Written by Dr. Skiba

I learned a long time ago that open water swimming is not natural for most people. As a guy who learned to swim in the ocean, I have no fear of missing lane lines or neat stripes on the bottom. (To tell you the truth, I loathe the pool: the smelly chlorine, the rough walls, and the way the water tastes like old-lady perfume after the water aerobics class. It is all very uninspiring.) However, most people did not have the good fortune I did. They find comfort in the friendly confines of the pool, and look at an open-water swim start with a feeling of quiet dread. They know they are about to get hit with flying elbows and probably mowed under by faster swimmers. Once underway, they constantly break stroke and pop up, eyes searching wildly for the next buoy and sometimes, the nearest canoe.

You don’t need to feel that way. In this article, I am going to teach you how to open-water swim like a pro. We are not going to talk about stroke mechanics: talking about your stroke is kind of like whistling about Gary Coleman. It doesn’t make any sense, because it just doesn’t work. You are much better served by heading down to the pool with a friend who really does know how to swim, or with your coach. What we are going to talk about today is how to use your brain to get back to that beach faster than your competition.

First things first: safety must be your priority. You absolutely cannot experiment with open water swimming until you are a strong swimmer. If you can’t comfortably swim 1.5x the race distance at an easy pace, you should not be out there. Furthermore, you cannot think of a wetsuit as a safety device. If you don’t feel comfortable making a swim without a wetsuit, you should not feel better putting one on. (Incidentally, the only two open water rescues I ever made as a lifeguard (on the same day, and off-duty at that) involved surfers who lost their boards and were drowning despite their wetsuits).

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the swim itself and how to find your way.

Rule #1: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

Most of your competition shows up in the morning and waits for the gun. Don’t be that way. You need to arrive the preceding night or at least at the butt-crack of dawn, and scope out the course. Look down each line of buoys, and if possible, find a tall landmark beyond them; something easier to spot than the course markers. When you are surrounded by splashing bodies, you will be able to glance up, make a sighting, and keep right on going without a panicked search for a buoy. You are going to look up every ten strokes or so to make sure you are still on course. Don’t break stroke. Pull extra deep with one arm as you come up for a breath, look up as you reach forward for the next catch, pick out your landmark and put your head back down.

Rule #2: The fastest distance between two points may not be a straight line.

Rule #1 is great if you are fast enough to swim with perhaps the front third of the race. You may not be that quick. In fact, you might be a slowpoke. That is ok. You will get faster. For now, you need to use more brains and less brawn. Ask yourself a question: if you tried to swim from the front, would you be run over by more than half the field? If the answer is yes, there is no need confirm your suspicion. What you will do is start out at the far edge of the pack. Pick out your landmark, and when the gun goes off, swim fifty yards straight out, and then cut towards the landmark. As you come into the pack of swimmers, you should fall in line right with swimmers that are perhaps as fast as or a little faster than you. In other words, you will end up right where you ought to be. You will have covered a few extra yards, but you will not have been softened up by flying elbows or flailing feet.

Rule #3: Follow, but don’t be a follower.

As I cover in my book, drafting will save you a lot of time and energy: shame on you if you aren’t sitting on the heels of someone just a little faster than you. That said, just because they are faster than you doesn’t mean they are smarter. They may not be able to hold a line. You need to keep your head in the game. You need to be hanging out a foot or two behind that person in front of you, and you also need to continue sighting every ten strokes or so. The minute your free ride strays off course, you need to pull away and find the next pair of feet.

Rule #4: Make your move in the second half.

At or about the turnaround, all the hammerheads that redlined it at the start are starting to feel their arms getting heavier. This is where you start to pick it up, and start picking off the people in front of you. You may even consider leaving your draft as the swim finish nears. Everyone you pass now is one less you must chase down on the bike or the run. You need to concentrate on continuing this as you enter the finishing chute. How many athletes have you seen lollygagging their way to T1? Stay focused. As you exit the water, step around the slowpokes and make your way to the corrals.

“Hey smart guy,” you are asking by now, “Why are you telling me this in January?”

You are getting ready to start your new season. The time for you to lay the groundwork for these behaviors is now. During one swim every week or two, work on your open water skills. Practice coming up every ten strokes and sighting on the wall. (I like to use a small piece of electrical tape. Work on a smooth look. You should barely need to slow your stroke. As you get more experienced and your stroke becomes more balanced, you will be able to take fewer looks, perhaps every 15 to 20 strokes.

There are a couple of ways to practice picking your way through a crowd. One particularly effective way is showing up at the city pool during free swim, and finding you way through from one side to the other. For a slightly less manic (and safer) experience, pull one of the lane lines out during practice, and have a few of your friends swim in staggered fashion at different speeds. Work on getting around them quickly. Try different arrangements and speeds. As the season approaches, you can try this at a local lake or beach with as many people as you can bring (with appropriate lifeguard supervision, of course). The closer you can mimic the real thing, the better your training, and the more confident you will feel on race day.

As always, remember to train your brain. It is the fastest way to get faster.