Back at the lodge that night, we reviewed the lessons learned:
1. No matter how much you may have practiced efficiency in the pool, once the horn sounds, it's easy to lose your wits. All your instincts — not just competitive, but survival — are warning you not to fall back, lest you find yourself alone out there. Chasing the leaders (or anyone in front of you) is your main thought.
2. Unless you have a lot of experience in swimming races (and I mean at a fairly high level), and particularly in open -water racing, chasing quickly degenerates into churning, which brings rapid exhaustion, anxiety, loss of any sense of control, and no material gain in speed.
3. If you just stop chasing and find your own best, sustained, pace, you swim a lot better with a lot less effort.
Tortoises Swim Better than Hares
You wouldn't try to run with a world-class runner, or cycle with a world-class biker. This is even truer in the water, not just in how fast you may swim, but particularly in how hard. Your swimming experience dictates your race plan, and there are only a couple dozen athletes in the entire triathlon universe who have enough swimming experience to swim hard and not blow the whole race. Swimmers such as Joanna Zeiger and Sheila Taormina had millions of yards — in training and racing — to learn to tolerate high heart rates and stroke rates without blowing up before they ever raced a triathlon. But every triathlete can learn, right now, how to use a wetsuit intelligently to gain control and save critical energy. Toward that end, here's how you can turn a wetsuit to your advantage.
• First, a wetsuit takes away the feeling that you have to keep your arms turning over just to keep from sinking. Take advantage of that by relaxing, and enjoy the wonderful and rare security of feeling completely supported by the water.
• Once you feel supported, it becomes much easier to use your arms to lengthen your bodyline. Glide your hand forward — almost as if stretching for something just out of reach — before anchoring your hand for the pull. This will keep your stroke tempo feeling almost leisurely.
• Particularly in the first 100 to 200 meters, stay well within yourself. Go even slower than you think necessary until nervousness dissipates and you feel calm and in control. Use that control to focus on one or two of your favorite SSPs.
• Once you "find your groove," don't be tempted to go faster if you think it feels too easy. Just float along behind someone moving at what feels like a pace you could sustain indefinitely. At the end of the day, you'll gain far more time if you just keep your heart rate down, than if you try to catch or stay with faster swimmers. I promise you'll find yourself passing dozens of competitors on the bike or run if you swim more economically than they do. In fact, you'll probably pass quite a few of them during the latter stages of the swim — without even trying — simply because as you just keep moving at your relaxed, steady pace, the hares will come back to you.
Focal Points for Wetsuit Wearers
1. Because balance will become a "no-brainer," you won't have to focus on swimming downhill. Your hips and legs should be light and riding high.
2. Even though you won't pay as heavy a penalty for it, you should still avoid a high head position. Your movements will be smoother and more fluent because your body likes head-spine alignment and is designed to work best that way. So keep looking down as you swim — except when getting your bearings.
3. Keep focused on lengthening your body with each stroke. Let the pull part of the stroke happen on its own, while you attentively slide each hand into the water and extend it, like putting your arm into a sleeve. Once your stroking hand passes your head, shift your attention to the one extending forward.
4. Set and change your stroke tempo in the core. Maintain a comfortable pace with a relaxed body-rolling tempo. If you want to go a little faster, do it by moving your belly-button faster, not your arms and legs.
5. Avoid over-swimming and loss of control by making sure you feel your hands are moving at the same speed as your body. Swim with your whole body as a unit, not with your arms and legs.
Chapter 21
Open-Water Practice
Each summer, I divide my swimming between an outdoor 50meter pool in New Paltz, and several lakes in the nearby Shawangunk Mountains. At the pool, I swim at slack times, with no lane lines so I sometimes have to weave through other bathers, providing "open-water practice" of a sort. I further simulate open-water in the pool by doing of the following:
Swimming "blind." Swimming 50-meters without lane lines tests how straight I swim when not following a line. As I take 30 to 40 strokes per length, I may swim 20-plus strokes with my eyes closed and see how far I've wandered from the line where I started. This will help me pick a frequency for sighting when I race.
Sighting. Once or twice each length, I can breathe and sight to the front, specifically practicing my ability to maintain balance and rhythm as I do. I can combine this with blind swimming — opening my eyes only when I lift my head — for an even more accurate simulation of the open water experience. (More guidance below.)
Drafting. I sometimes "draft" a few friends to swim with me and we practice close-order drafting, swimming in tight single file down the pool, with the leader dropping to the end at each wall. (More detail to follow.)
Porpoise. At the shallower end of the pool, I (or we) can begin the length with 3 or 4 porpoises before we begin stroking. We work on efficient, low-angle porpoising — channeling energy forward as we dive toward the bottom and back toward the surface, and on grabbing the bottom and pushing off quickly.
At one lake, I swim with a dozen or so triathletes (most wearing wetsuits), which offers the opportunity to rehearse situations I might encounter in a race. Each lake crossing is nearly 400 meters; we cross 6 to 8 times each session. I choose a specific focus for each crossing, which gives my lake practice far more value than if I just swam for time or distance. Here are the important ones:
Look This Way
Without a line to follow, any swimmer will eventually travel in a circle; the best swimmers in a 10-mile circle, others within the turning radius of a VW. In open water, you stay the course by occasionally sighting on landmarks, buoys, or swim caps. Practice can help you do that without losing your balance and flow. Here's what I practice:
Look less often. When your technique improves, you'll swim straighter. I often swim considerable distances without looking. It usually takes me about 320 strokes to cross the lake (yes, I count even there), so I'll often begin by taking 100 "blind" strokes (without checking my bearings) to see how straight I swim. If I've gone considerably off, I'll take fewer strokes before looking again. This gives me a sense of how often to sight in a race.
Sight smart. As we swim westward, our target is a dead tree angled into the water. Coming east, we swim toward a dock. Complicating the westward trip is sun glare that obscures the dead tree until we move into shadow, about 50 meters from the shore. How do I sight for the first 350 meters? On the bluff above the shore the treeline dips slightly just right of the spot we're aiming for. So I sight on the dip in the treeline until we reach the shadows. Heading east, the dock isn't clearly visible until the last 100 meters, so I use two buildings behind it, one a bit to its right and one to its left, to "triangulate." While warming up for a race, check for landmarks and other features that can help guide you when visibility is compromised.
Sight seamlessly. Sometimes the lake is almost as calm as pool water. When it is, I practice "surfing" my goggles barely over the surface, using my extending arm for support as I lift my head up and forward. Staying that low is far less tiring than holding my head aloft for several strokes in a row, but I may not get a completely clear picture. This sighting style is so easy to fit into my normal stroke rhythm that if I didn't get a complete picture, I assemble one by taking a series of "snapshots." And when windchop kicks up on the lake, I adjust by lifting just a bit higher or by taking more snapshots. These techniques help me maintain seamless balance and flow.
Breathe This Way
Breathing to both sides is a key skill for open water. Breathing to one side for 20 minutes or longer can leave neck and back muscles tense; breathing both ways keeps you looser. Second, you never know on which side your landmarks or buoys may be. And finally, waves, chop, or splashy swimmers on one side can be a problem unless you're comfortable breathing the other way. Fortunately, our TI Lessons should have helped you become comfortable with bilateral breathing. I do most of my swimming, in both pool and lake, breathing alternately. That could mean breathing every three strokes or every five if I'm going super slow (my effort level is low and so is my oxygen consumption). It could mean breathing on the right side while heading west and on the left going east. It could mean 10 breaths on my right, followed by 10 on my left. I practice all kinds of alternating patterns, so I can shift easily while racing.
Practice Free Rides
Swimming just behind someone else can be worth as much as 10 percent in energy savings. Just as helpful, you can let your draftees do the work of navigation while you simply follow in their wake — but do check their bearings from time to time. I practice drafting in the pool, as I said, and at the lake, where I sometimes start at the back of the pack to practice drafting. I'll do my no-look strokes, and practice following other swimmers without actually looking for them. I try to sense their proximity by feeling the bubbles from their kick. You can also catch a ride by swimming alongside another swimmer (or between two swimmers) but close enough to stay within their bow wave, by keeping your goggles somewhere between their knees and feet. When drafting that way you can keep your "rabbit" in view with normal side-breathing.
After swimming "blind" for 40 or more strokes, I'll sneak a quick peak at my draftee's cap or for the center of the cluster of caps. Another way to use the pack to stay on course is by swimming to one side. If you know, for instance, that you typically wander to the left while swimming, position yourself to the right of most of the pack. Everyone else will help keep you in line.
Practice with Purpose
In addition to the gear-changing and timed pool sets outlined in Chapters 15 and 16, in the lake I test and develop my ability to stay smooth at racing speeds with a variety of pacing games. I will generally swim in a range of three "gears." Silent is virtually effortless. Cruise is a bit faster with some feeling of pace. Brisk represents the effort and pace I'd usually feel in the course of a mile race — but my race is complete after I swim so this pace may be a bit faster than most triathletes would want to swim. Here's a sample "lake workout" to show the range of creativity that is possible. Each "set" represents one "lake lap" — just under 400 meters.
Swim Super Slow and Silent. I try for the lowest possible stroke count and try to cross with fewer than four "looks."
Speedplay. Alternate rounds of 40 strokes Silent with 20 strokes Cruise. Try to be just as quiet and splash-free as you accelerate to "cruise pace."
SSP. Alternate thinking about hiding your head and timing your switches, with purposeful exaggeration. Count strokes.
Speedplay. Alternate 50 Silent strokes —10 Cruise strokes, 40 Silent — 20 Cruise, 30 Silent — 30 Cruise, 20 Silent — 40 Cruise, 10 Silent — 50 Cruise. Be just as smooth for 50 strokes of Cruise as you are for 10.
Drafting practice. Start at the rear and practice "feeling wakes" and not looking very often. Also practice how to advance within the pack by leapfrogging from the "free ride" of one wake to the free ride of another wake further ahead in the pack, like a trout working upstream from rock to rock.
Speedplay. Alternate 20 strokes Silent — 20 strokes Cruise — 20 strokes Brisk. Try to stay just as smooth and fluent at Brisk as at Silent. You can also practice adjusting your tempo in the core, by keeping keep your arms connected to your faster-moving torso as you cycle through this repeatedly.
Pickups. Start at the rear of the pack, give the leaders a bit of a head start, then build your tempo and pace steadily across the lake, from Silent through Cruise, Brisk, and finally to full speed in the final 50 meters or so. This lap is a microcosm of a whole race, distilled to 400 meters.
Really Open Water
Ocean swimming is a whole different story. The best way to become comfortable and adept is to spend some time body surfing. It provides a perfect opportunity for mastering sea skills while having fun. Body surfing teaches you to be completely at ease in the ocean and particularly to understand waves. Swimming through breakers takes strength, wit, and timing. You can't just mash through them; they'll throw you back, gasping and muddled. Body surfing is ideal practice because after each ride in, you can't wait to catch another, so you learn to zip through the shore break quickly, with energy intact to grab your next ride.
Here's how to do it. Start in ankle-deep water and high-step through the shallows, leaping over low rollers. Ocean bottom is notoriously unpredictable (a hole here, a sand bar there), so watch your step. But you probably won't run far anyway, unless the tide is way out; it's easier to porpoise once the water covers your knees. Dive forward, grab the sand, and pull your feet under you. Plant your feet, then dive up and over to arc back toward the bottom again. Each time you pop up, immediately look for the next wave. When depth makes this awkward or laborious, start swimming. But you have to check the wave line every two or three strokes.
If you see a shoulder forming that looks as if it could break, you're probably over a sand bar. Try to get your feet down and prepare to dive under the wave. The ideal time, if you're fortunate enough, is to dive through the base of the wave just before it breaks. That will actually shoot you out the back with added momentum. If you can't manage that, just duck under before it reaches you.
Or, you may be facing 30 yards or more of rollers that broke farther out and are coming at you in lines, usually in water too deep to porpoise. Sometimes you may be able to take only a few strokes before another wave is on top of you, forcing you to dive again. Leave one arm in front as you breathe, swing the other arm over, and drive it in strongly as you pike under. Breaststroke once quickly and resurface, looking immediately for the next wave. Get in as many strokes as you can to power through the white water behind them, ready to dive under again. It can be difficult to get a rhythm going; you really need to be comfortable with being buffeted and thrown off your stride every few strokes, then resuming your rhythm quickly. As I said, there is absolutely no substitute for practicing this a lot.
Once you're past the breaker line, you'll be swimming in chop or swells of some height. Practice comes in handy here, too, because it helps you learn to sense when you're riding up on a crest or sinking in a trough. There's no point in sighting while in a trough. With experience, you learn to time your looks for when you feel yourself rising on a swell. In July of 2000,1 swam a mile race in storm surf where the swells ranged upward of five feet, which limited the size of the field and scattered it considerably. Most of the time I swam blindly in what I hoped was the right direction, pausing frequently to take two to four breast strokes, hoping to catch a glimpse of another swim cap. When I saw one, I'd swim that way, anxious for company out in the wet-and-wildness. In any sort of chop, which is common in the ocean, it helps enormously to have had considerable experience getting your bearings. You need to learn to time the waves, and to perhaps delay a breath (or breathe to the other side) because you can sense a wave about to slap you in the face. Another option worth practicing is to take a deep breath to your side, then look up and spot without swallowing water as a wave splashes over you.
I know it can sound scary but, in time, you essentially learn to roll with the punches, to trust your swimming ability and the safety measures of the race organizers and to relax and find a rhythm in harmony with the swells around you. Three adjustments can be particularly helpful in a choppy sea. First, swing your arms a bit higher on recovery. Second, roll farther to breathe — just as far as you need to find air. Finally, be intently focused on piercing the waves, rather than bullying your way through them.
At some point, you'll need to re
turn to shore. If there's a shore break of any size, it will definitely occur to you that you might get crushed by a wave sneaking up from behind. A swimmer who knows how to ride waves and how to "read" the ebb and flow of a breaker line can get to shore much faster and more smoothly. Once you've cleared the final buoy and are headed toward shore, don't worry too much about finishing your swim right in front of the finish line. Instead of angling toward the finish line while swimming, swim straight in and then run along the shore to the swim finish. You'll get there much faster by running than by swimming diagonally and you'll handle the shore break much better going straight in.
Once you are in the breaker zone again, you'll feel this: A swell will catch up with you and you'll feel your body accelerating. Swim faster, using the boost for as long as you can. Once the wave passes you, you'll feel yourself being pulled back in the ebb. Work hard enough to counter this, then resume your normal rhythm again. Finally, you'll be close enough to shore that you can sense waves beginning to break. Now is a good time to turn on your back for a few strokes to see if there's one you can catch. When you feel yourself being sucked into a breaking wave, rotate to face down and swim three to four strokes at top speed, then put one or both arms forward, put your head down, and lean on your chest as you keep kicking.
Triathlon swimming made easy Page 18