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Open Water - the full story

Curiosity has got the better of me and having read Britspin's commnts on the Redditch Tri post I just had to come up with a cunning and devious way to get all the gory details - so here we go...



What was your worst ever open water moment? and - to get some positive vibes on this post - how did you get over it.



For me, it was my fisrt open water race - 1.5km swim - thankfully I was only doing the swim as I was part of a relay. The week before the weather was great! The night before there was some kind of gale blowing and so by the morning of the race the water was like a rough sea! The course was shortened due to the conditions which were hell! My team mates were most encouraging with their comments of "oh we're so glad we're not getting in there"!! Massive white horses hitting you head-on...really not very nice. I ended up doing breast-stroke for most of the outward leg, just to give myself chance to breathe.



Still, I managed to finish and the homeward leg - which, although a bit like surfing was much better and because of the direction of the waves - gave me a far better time than I expected (28.35mins) .



Since then, I've gone out far more in windy weather to practice and learnt to breathe on any side away from the waves when I need to whereas before I was a dedicated bi-lateral breather.



It's that time honoured bit of advice .... practice practice practice!!



So folks - what's yours.......

Comments

  • Hi i swim 'open water' from april (cold) to october (stil nice) so most training sessions this 'summer' have been a bit like what you've just described legalbeagle!! though my first sprint distance 750m swim across a very rough channel between an island and the mainland was my worst so far-leaking goggles,swallowed pints of salty water and got very disorientated[&:]
  • rizeyrizey Posts: 1
    Had a particulary "choppy" training swim recently that left both myself and training partner very green around the gills. The swell was such that we were up and down like a yo-yo and after about 45 mins the inevitable happened!
  • pacmanpacman Posts: 109
    The best / worst swim i had was an oly in Galway 2 years ago. It was a sea swim with a large swell and even though it was early July - it was freezing. We started out straight around the first buoy and then came left with the swell - this leg was about 300m we turned around the 2nd buoy and headed against the swell, wind and tide - suddenly it felt like what i imagine an endless pool feels like. I was swimming strong and getting no where. I could barely see buoy 3, just glimpses between waves, and i couldn't see anyone else either. After ages I felt a tapping on my head. I thought it must be a marshal telling me to get out (and that everyone else had already realised this) but as I looked up I could see the splash of heavy rain all around me. Eventually got to buoy 3 and then to shore - I was shattered!
  • epacseepacse Posts: 92
    Oh BIG BIG respect to those tales, i was feeling them as i was treading them!!

    Not got no see swims planned to be honest, and after reading them, don't want any....[:'(]

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