after getting hit, pulled legs, etc etc in OWS ...at what seems like the worst times(breathing)... any technique I think I had is out the window as well.

I have the same issue. my OWS times are no where close to my pool times even accounting for a bit of extra distance from lack of straight line swimming. I definitely think part of it is technique loss. Body rotation and head position likely my biggest issues in OW. The non-smooth surface doesnt allow me to get the same rhythm I have in the pool. It is about 10 seconds per 100 slower (and that includes a wetsuit).

That said I have been practicing a bit more. I have IMLP this weekend so we shall see. I can easily hold 1:45/100m in the pool for distance. I will be happy with 1:55/100m at IMLP.

ditto this

I gotta call BS here, no offense.

30 sec/100 faster in the pool from technique alone? What paces were you starting at?

And are you seeing that sort of time drop when you go back to your 'bad habits?'

Technique is super important, but honest to god, I've never seen a swimmer who I felt had the swim-specific fitness of a 1:30/100yd swimmer over distance but was so sloppy in the water that they were 2:00/100yds. Heck, even getting 10sec/100 from technique alone is a stretch for anyone who's under 1:50/100yds.



But with regards to your question, I strongly suspect that your main problem, if not your only problem with OWS vs pool differences in speed and technique, is the sighting. I'm constantly surprised that coaches do not emphasize doing sighting drills for triathlon swimmers, PARTICULARLY at the beginner to intermediate levels. When your a FOP strong swimmer, you're skilled and strong enough that sighting is nearly a non-issue, as you know your stroke and body well enough to smoothly integrate it without much practice. However, if you're a typical MOP triathlete, sighting is a BIG deal and will slow you down big time if you're bad at it.

If you doubt this, go to your pool which is as ideal an easy environment as you can get, and do your normal swimming with the added challenge of clearly sighting every 5th stroke. I'll bet you'll suffer not only a hit on your swim times, but even more importantly, a lot more fatigue and even slight panic from the added stress of fighting the leg drop from sighting inefficiently.

Practicing the sighting a lot to minimize the head lift and to get a good rhythm helps a lot as a MOPer. Adding sighting practice to my pool regimen before races (and I still don't do it enough and suffer the consequences accordingly) helps more than anything else to my OWS comfort - even more than practicing in OWS itself! I don't do anything crazy - but I will do a entire 45-60 minute freestyle workout forcing myself to sight every 5 stroke cycles to get that sighting rhythm and efficiency normalized.

You are busting my bubble. I am a solid low 1:40s swimmer, and was hoping that I could hire a coach to fix technique issues that would give me another 10-15 sec/100. I see people clearly way less fit than me just destroying me in the pool. I think of swimming more like golf or yoga-- it is all about technique and fitness just helps you do more of it. If I go all in, I can barely break 1:30. Yet, un-fit looking people can cruise all day under 1:30.

Back to the OP... I am a crapshoot at OWS pace compared to swim pace. Some OWS I am much slower. And in others, I am about the same as pool (or just a touch faster). I think my problems are sighting and form. However, when I am slower in OWS, it is usually within 10 seconds of my pool pace.

Yes, I have experienced something very similar. I have improved some in the pool, am much better than I used to be anyway, over the last ~9mo of swim training with an instructor. My actual races are not improved and probably worse. I did a swim with my triathlon coach and he said I was taking my head out of the water very badly, which I definitely don't do in the pool. I've been working on it. In any case, I swim 1:40 to 1:45 per 100scy in the pool, do 5-10s slower by myself in open water (if you can believe a Garmin watch for this), and do a further 5-10s slower in races where I tend to get stressed and do even worse things with my technique. I would ordinarily think that I'd swim faster in open water since I always use a wetsuit here. Not many answers for you, unfortunately, will be curious what others have to say.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

My emphasis. Language is a funny thing.

Don't get fooled by the un-fit people look. If they're swimming sub 1:30, they've got good pull power and an efficient body position. Even if they've got a gut and plenty of flab.

You don't have to 'look' fit in swimming to go fast. 9-month pregnant ex-competitive D1 swimmers who look like they're going to explode will still crush 99% of triathletes including the lean and mean top AGers in swim challenges.

Plenty of videos on youtube showing top elite world-class freestyle swimmers making sub 1:00/100 paces look easy. Don't look at that and conclude it's all technique and no power. I'd argue the nearly the complete opposite - these guys/girls are so powerful, they'd be nearly that speed even if they had to do YOUR (or my) stroke, complete with our errors. In fact, I'll guarantee that you could have them swim in a drag suit, one-armed tied to their waist, and even have them pop their entire head clear out of the water to their chin on every other stroke to further kill their great body position, and they'll STILL easily go sub 1:30/100yds, if not sub 1:20.

I'm going to "kind of" agree with you on this one. I'm a 1:45 swimmer in the pool at a comfortable sustainable (half or longer race) pace. I have team mates that are 5 to 10 seconds faster than me in the pool that go to absolute shit in the open water, where I swam as part of my job for the first 20 years of my adult life. Some of them are near 2:00 without a wetsuit and then back around 1:50 in a wet suit.

What I try to explain to them is that they are decoupling their stroke, both in the pool and in the open water, but in the open water that is a much bigger killer of technique. Decouple in the pool and as long as you are not dropping your legs you will only slow a little. Do it in the open water in wave action and you will almost stop between strokes.

There is a swim technique, whose name escapes me, that actually taught you to do this. It worked well in a pool but failed miserably in any kind of chop or current.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Yes, agree with you. My comment about that -30sec/100 was mean for pool vs pool comparison, not for pool vs OWS - a LOT more can go wrong in OWS that can easily turn a 1:30/100 swimmer into a 2:00/100 swimmer - it's definitely happened to me!

(In my last race, I got kicked so hard in the head that I both saw stars and my goggles went flying off my head. I was so stunned I had to literally stop for at least 30 seconds which itself wasn't so safe given I was in the front 20% at that point, and I never could get back to a hard swim effort after that.)

You exactly right just like golf. As my coach tells me and he is 100% right swimming is about 70% Technique and 30% Fitness. Very frustrating for most of us non swimmers to see over weight people smoking our butts with ease.

I'm fine in OW technique-wise once I settle in (just takes me longer if it's cold or amped up in a race)...
But, I always feel like my technique goes haywire in a wetsuit.
I'm not sure that I can really get to apples-to-apples enough to compare actual speed....with turns vs. meander, pool length vs. GPS variability (and meander).
I've never been able to swim the same OW course with/without wetsuit. And even then...meander...etc.

I feel like my legs and butt are sitting too high in the water that I'm kicking air more than I do without a wetsuit. I'm just going on faith that I'm actually faster in a wetsuit due to the buoyancy.

I am still slow in the pool (about 2:10 per 100 scy unless it is an all out sprint). But that is about 30s/min faster than I was before I started working with the coach, despite what the naysayers might claim. I did even have the distinction of being the last person out of the water at a race a few years ago.

If you look at the Garmin trace, I swim in a very straight line in open water. I just revert to picking my head up and sighting on almost every stroke like I have since forever. I don't always wear a wetsuit, but like you, my races can be even slower than my OW training. Last night was probably about as close to race conditions as I could get without having someone swim really close to me--we have recently had a lot rain, so the lake was full of branches that I kept running into.

There were stretches during the swim when I would remind myself to reach farther forward, pull all the way through, tighten my kick, etc..., and the Garmin trace reflects that, but it also really reflects the stretches where I wasn't doing that and the bad old habits came back.

Ok, I believe you then. At 2:10/100yd now, a coach may have gotten you from 2:40 to 2:10 with fixing some big form flaws alone.

If you're sighting on every stroke in OWS (sounds like you said you are), that's almost definitely why you're a lot slower in OWS and find it so hard. At 2:10/100yd pace, it's harder to sight than a FOPer since your forward momentum doesn't help keep you up as much.

But you just need to swim more - a lot more, to feel more comfortable in all OWS and to get that pace faster.

I'm a pretty crappy swimmer by swimmer standards. My OWS times are only slightly slower than pool. I attribute this to either turns in the pool, or currents or slight navigational errors in open water.

Some things come to mind.

You need to learn to ignore others in the water. If they hit you just keep swimming.

Need to learn to sight without interrupting the stroke rhythm. Frequent quick glances forward.

Finally, you may be relying on gliding in the water a little too much. That doesn't work as well in choppy open water. You'll stall much more readily than you would in the pool, and that would significantly slow you down. Solution is to increase cadence while OWS, and if you have to, to keep the cadence up, short stroke just a bit. Just a bit less reach and less gliding than in the pool, and higher cadence. This needs to be practiced of course. Not something you can just do on race day.

used to swim in a master's class with Susan Williams (Athens Olympics bronze, D1). We shared a lane once, when she was 9 months pregnant and slowed down to near my speed.. and I'm FOP of my AG swim at any tri race except Worlds..

translating pool speed to OWS needs two things
- sighting as lightheir says, practice this and develop other navigation strategies to minimize the need to sight. I use the sun to orient myself on each leg of the swim, and swim R of the main stem so on each breath (left) I can track the other swimmers.
- practice the new technique/stroke until it is ingrained. There aren't any shortcuts to this unfortunately..

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"It is a good feeling for old men who have begun to fear failure, any sort of failure, to set a schedule for exercise and stick to it. If an aging man can run a distance of three miles, for instance, he knows that whatever his other failures may be, he is not completely wasted away." Romain Gary, SI interview

I am oddly enough the exact opposite my open water swim times crush my pool swims. I don't really understand why but my wife says my turnover is much better in Open Water and I seem to get moving better and oddly more relaxed. I find myself thinking about transition and the bike leg while I'm out there just to occupy my time. My wife who is my swim instructor LOL always tells me I'm going to do better in open water than I do in the pool and she's yet to be wrong

Have technique-specific sessions in open water where your entire goal is to practice sighting if you feel open water technique is failing.

I have found that my issue with open water swimming is that I go entirely too hard for the first 100-200 yards/meters as the churn gets bad, such that my shoulders lock up and my technique subsequently degrades. I have also found that a good warmup really helps with these issues for me.

Super odd... but I have the exact opposite issue. I am a 1:30 OWS and a 1:45-1:50 pool swimmer. I'm going to blame the excess speed on wetsuits though. I've not had to race in a swimskin in either of the last two years.

Short course?
Current?
You're MUCH faster in a wetsuit?

If it's only 2 races, possibly the above, but if it's every race that you're 1:30 OWS (which should put you into the top 15% or higher in most triathlons in the swim leg), then you really are much, much better in OWS than the pool. (A 1:45/100 pool swim is slightly behind MOP for AG triathlon)

I always check my % standing in the OA and AG of the swim for all my PR triathlon swims because of things like short course and current that make you feel like a stud based on your recorded time, but less of a stud when you see that everyone else seemed to benefit from a 2-3 min speed bump.

Yes, mostly short course (Olympic/INTL) that said, my HIM in Madison was 1:35 pace. No currents that I've noticed or aware of, most areas I race in are smaller lakes (MN). So I do attribute a lot of the speed to wetsuit, also attribute a lot to race mentality. Admittedly, I have a hard time getting excited to swim back and forth, tracing the black line back to the "+"

Did that 1:35 pace get you top 15% in the swim? That's how you really get a sense as whether you really are much better with the wetsuit, or if the course just had some sort of assist.

385 out of 2452 = 15.7%

Great job! You ARE faster in OWS! (1:45-1:50 in the pool def won't get you up to top 15.7%!)

It's not that your technique turns to crap it's that your open water skills set sucks.

Fix that and you'll fix your problems.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

LH - As usual, you're hitting the nail here. Most former D1 swimmers can easily swim 1-arm fly, which pops the head out every stroke to breath, at 1:15/100 yd or faster.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Not sure where you got your 1:35 pace from. I looked you up in the 2017 results and the results say 35:31 with a 1:50/100 m pace. Converting to yards, that would be about a 1:41/100 yd pace. However, you are correct about being 385/2452 so your pace did get you in top 16% of the race in the swim. Also, that race was a legit 1.2 mi/1930 m swim, with no current assist, as the fastest swim of the day was a 25:45 by a 35-39 male age grouper.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I got my pace from my garmin file, link provided below.
https://connect.garmin.com/...ctivity/1791925043/1

Please don't laugh at my run... it was REALLY hot that day :p

It sounds like most people having trouble in open water don't do it as often as the pool, and I know that's the case for me. In fact, I usually only swim in open water during races and I know that I'm a lot more tense and have adrenaline going in races. In the pool I'm relaxed as can be, so I just feel more comfortable and able to focus on my form. In OWS I struggle to find a good breathing rhythm and a good stroke rhythm. Therefore I'd argue that a lot of my tension and difficultly finding good rhythm and mechanics is because of the adrenaline and tension from the race. For me a decent warm up swim does wonders to loosen me up so that I can have a more relaxed swim.

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"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

There are some things wetsuits can do beyond buoyancy. I have a hitch in my stroke where I bend my right knee and I think it slows me down in the pool. But in the wetsuit my knee doesn't bend as much and I am more efficient. I think high turnover swimmers with a straighter arm in recovery do better in open water than those with a bent elbow recovery. I am about the same in pool vs open water. In open water I have the suit in the pool I have walls to push off of . Having said that I also do well in open water without the suit. Do you draft quite effectively because if you do that will make you faster too.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

This isn't an OWS vs rarely swimming OWS situation. This situation which plagues many triathletes is partly a failure to address specific issues in training and partly a failure in one's OWS skill set.

Most triathletes waste their time when they go OWS. They swim from point A to point B and back. If they really wanted to become better OWS swimmers they should work on their OWS specific skill set. Now that still may get you from Point A to point B and back but it would rarely involve just swimming there and back.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

That's some great advice - can you just throw out some general OWS drills/skills or sample workout segments that you'd recommend for the typical MOP AGer who is less strong at OWS?

Well, I don't think it is legit to say you swam 1:35/100 yd b/c you swam an extra 80 yd, e.g. your file says you went 2192 yd vs 2112 yd which would be an exact 1.2 miles. Also, your file gives your time as 34:47 vs your "official time" of 35:31. In sum, I'd still argue you're going around 1:40 in this swim vs 1:45 in the pool, which is easily accounted for by the wetsuit. In any case, your swim is clearly your strong suit, at least as compared to triathletes.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Oh well, suppose I can't satisfy everyone, guess I wasn't really trying anyway; nor was I trying to make some outlandish claim. I looked at my garmin, compared that result to other results consistent with it, made an observation which resulted in my response to this thread.

I swam in high school, but running is usually my strength all things being relative. Did I mention it was hot that day?

Either way, that's a good swim showing!

I'd have to agree that swimming is your strength based on that day's showing though!

I gotta admit as well - I'm pretty skeptical that you're a mere 1:45/100yd paced swimmer for distance in the pool if you were on a HS swim team.

Sorry about the inquisition - I'm really not trying to muckrake your results and history here - it's just very atypical for someone to be that much faster in OWS than the pool, and that mediocre with pool results if they swam on a HS team!) and I'm genuinely curious. Again, nice swim on that HIM, and you trooped it through a very hot day it seems!