I started triathlon a few years ago as a total non-swimmer. It would take me 50 mins or so to swim 1500m and I never had a problem finding my bike in T1…!
These days I’m much improved and will swim 1500m in 31-32 mins. That’s great, but now I have a new problem. As a back of the pack guy, I always had plenty of clean water to swim in. But now I’m right there in the MOP mixer and every race feels like hand to hand combat. I can never seem to get a rhythm going. Nor can I ever seem to get a good draft - everyone around me seems to going slower.
What’s the solution? Should I swim wider to find more space? Should I aim to swim the first 300m or so at a faster pace to try to get a better draft?
I usually swim wide to the first buoy, I don’t like to go out too fast any more - I’m fit and mostly in the front of my wave by then but my age creates some limitations. As for drafting I’m not sure that it does me any more good than having a clean space around me. Lately I’ve been doing 1/2 mile distances but I can see that for the 1.2 mile swims it would be possible to follow some feet in the last 2/3rd of the race.
Each race is different, so you could have a TT start (where you will encounter swimmers the whole route during the swim), an AG wave start (where you engage your AG only, but may overtake waves in front of you or may be overtaken by waves behind you), or mass start, where you have tons of people starting at once that eventually spread out in a line.
With that in mind, the best way to learn how to deal with close proximity of others is to just swim as often as possible in OWS settings with others. Just get comfortable with a group, because regardless of the race conditions, being more and more comfortable in open water in the first place will make everything easier.
Agreed. You have gears on you bike and you need gears in your swim. Doing swim intervals without rest is a good way to get confidence for the race. (e.g., 100yd sprint with a 300yd at css x 3 or 4 sets) Good luck!