First Open Water Swim

Charger · 07-11-2009, 01:45 PM

Went out in the TN river today and did my first training OWS. I've got a sprint tri in a week with a 400m OWS and I needed to get the jitters out. It started off a bit rough, but once I started counting my strokes I was good to go. This helped me sight more often, and it kept my thoughts from drifting towards the negative. Next weeks race should be cake.

sharsell119 · 07-14-2009, 08:43 AM

Good suggestion on counting the strokes and giving your mind something else to focus on. I'll steal that tip, if I may.

sg516 · 07-19-2009, 06:44 AM

my first tri was an olympic and i had just learned to swim (other than flailing about in the pool) in the 6 months leading up to it. I was very nervous about the 1.5k ows and i did a similar thing. i tried to see how high up i could count prime numbers. it completely helped me get in a zone and when i came to the end it was like no time had passed at all. i did it in about 30 minutes but it felt like 10 minutes tops.

good luck on your tri. once you get past those immediate jitters the rest becomes automatic and fun. i think the pre race nerves were harder to deal with than the actually event.

sharsell119 · 07-29-2009, 05:39 PM

I did my first Olympic tri and first OWS this past weekend. I was pleasantly suprised that I didn't flip out about being in OW. I thought that might give me anxiety but it didn't. I didn't really get a chance to even count strokes because I was so busy navigating people in my wave. I'd read a zillion times that newbies (like me) should stay to the back of the wave, and to the outside, so I did. As it turned out, I was a much better swimmer than most in my wave so they held me up. Every 3-4 strokes I'd run into someone and have to breast stroke a little to sight and find clear water. I expected the field to thin out a bit after a few hundred meters, but it never really did. Sadly I never really was able to get into a full-blown rythym for more than about 20 strokes before having to adjust my swim to get around someone. But I wanted to come back and tell you that it turned out to be no big deal at all! If you can swim, you can swim. Period. It seems to be that simple!

Charger · 07-29-2009, 07:00 PM

Congrats on doing well and not freaking out. Next time you'll be able to get in closer to the front for the wave and really kick ass.

sg516 · 08-05-2009, 10:00 PM

you could do what someone did to me next time. the relay teams went after my wave so the swimmers where tearing it up. i had a dude swim completely over me without even slowing down. it kind of sucked being pushed under like that but i was too amazed at how fast the guy was going to be upset about it. haha.