I have only been in the open water a few times, and unfortunately, where I'm at now has no good place to practice. After talking to a number of triathletes, the tri club, and the USAT coach in the area, there is only one place which is owned by a triathlete where the club meets once a month to practice in a quarry, so no current. Well, a month from now is the next tri I want to do which is only 10min from my house and it has an OWS at 1/2 mile in the Tenn. River, which has a fairly swift current.
I talked to the race director, who was at the workout I went to yesterday, and recommended swimming a way to swim it (a triangle shaped course without ever being with the current, it's always at an angle to the current). He said to go out perpendicular to the shore and the current should carry me down to the bouy, then swim back perpendicular to the shore again and I should end up at the exit, otherwise I might end up swimming upstream.
As far as practicing, I meet with a few friends to swim laps at the pool. We try to swim next to the wall which has a slight current to it and crowd each other on purpose. For example, today the pool was crowded so the two of us circle swam on one side of the black line, with another person on the other side. We ended up hitting each other a few times, and often swam where we were only a couple of inches apart and in each others wake (if you can call it that). We have also put three of us in the pool, one on each side of the line and one on the line and swam that way.
Do you gals have any other ideas on how to prepare for this swim even though I can't actually get in open water? Not being able to see doesn't bother me, but the current and navigation (or lack there of) does.
Thanks!! (and sorry this is so long, I can be long winded)
