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Simulating Pool Workouts in Open Water
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Pre-COVID, I'd swim with my masters group in the pool 2-3 times a week and swim outdoors 1-2 more times a week.

Now it's nothing but open water, which I love. But I think I've lost a key part of the program with the lack of short and medium intervals we typically do at Masters. I'm beginning a 6-month ramp up to IM Arizona. (Yes, I know it's very unlikely that race is happening, but I like to pretend it is.)

Any advice for trying to get some speed in the open water? Can I just do a set of short intervals, measured by time rather than precise yardage?
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Re: Simulating Pool Workouts in Open Water [MadPansy] [ In reply to ]
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I'd say that a Fartlek style workout is going to work best. Set your garmin or whatever watch you're using to alert at a specific interval and then change speeds based off the alert.

For instance: 20x1 minute fast/1minute slow. It's a 40 minute workout with varied intensity.

The other option is to throw in some high turnover work every 3-5min.

For instance: Every time the alert beeps at 4 minutes, throw in a 50 stroke surge where you increase turnover for 50 strokes.

It's not the exact same but I find that stopping and treading water in open water is somewhat tedious and hard to do.

Mark Saroni
____________________________________________________________
COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3
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Re: Simulating Pool Workouts in Open Water [MadPansy] [ In reply to ]
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Some places I OWS have buoys that you can swim between for intervals.

In other cases I swim parallel to the shore and use landmarks (ex. lifeguard towers of telephone poles).

Just realize that OWS is not as controlled an environment as a pool, and that there is nothing magical about any specific length (ex. 100m) for repeats.

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
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Re: Simulating Pool Workouts in Open Water [MadPansy] [ In reply to ]
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I just count right hand entries and treat each one like one meter. This way I can do 50's and 100's. The good thing is you can pick one technical aspect of your stroke and repeat it 100 times in a 100. (example would be right hip rotation, or feeling my left heel just break the surface of the water, or feeling like I am push my chest down 100 times...or whatever. With no walls, no one in your lane and no one around (or probably hardly anyone around) its much more easy to internalize and focus on something your body is doing.
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