Open water swim workouts

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m going to be in Greece for a month (tough life, I know) so all my training will be open water swimming in that wine-dark sea… it’s going to be a swim/run focus, not taking a bike unfortunately. There are some great mountain roads on this island (Evia/Euboia), but oh well.

Not sure how to set about structuring workouts in OW. I’m going to take paddles, and do some long swims with the paddles as a kind of strength workout. I find OW intervals tricky, because I don’t have a good sense of time on the swim, and I lose count of strokes. So I’m thinking of just heading out for 45 min steady then coming back as fast as possible, on the non-paddle days.
Any other ideas/suggestions ?

2

Wear a watch with a timer (e.g Polar) and do intervals…

For example:

15:00 ez warm-up
10x:20 on 1:00 fast!
5x4:00 on 5:00 ‘almost’ race pace
5x:20 on 1:00 fast!
10:00 ez warm down

You use the watch to set your swims intead of ‘distances’ (300, 400, etc) and you even get a workout between intervals as you tread water and recover.

It’s a pain to look at your watch, but it will give you a better feel for time in the water as well.

3

If you going to be on a Greek island for a month, then all you need to know is “Thello retsina” and “Efaristo para polu”. Forget structured OW workouts. Just relax and enjoy swimming in the wine dark sea (where my first wedding band rests lost only days after the ceremony) and just make sure you run before 9 AM.