I am using my imagination here to write this article. See, I live in Miami, Florida which if you got a C in geography you know is surrounded with open water. So, what does a guy who in ten minutes can jump into a warm ocean year around know about simulating open water swims in pools? Well, I’ve been fortunate to enough to design training programs for athletes who live in such places which do not have bodies of waters to train in. If you do live in such an area then I have two pieces of advice for you. One is to read and apply what is in this article and two is to move.

Open water swimming (OWS) is a key ingredient in your triathlon success but will not do much for you duathletes so if you are a duathlete please turn the page to the Duathlon section. Some key objectives for OWS training is:

• Consistent swimming without rest to build endurance
• Improving sighting
• Improving buoy turning
• Becoming comfortable swimming with other people close to you
• Surging onto competitors feet and drafting

But how is this done with only the local 25 yard pool available. It takes a little imagination and creative workout design. Let’s start with the basics. First, you can do your swim sets without touching the wall. Just simply turn around and don’t push off the wall. This is a good drill to do as it will also improve your ability to accelerate without a push off just like after a buoy turn in the race.

Another drill you can use is to do sets in which you will do a flip turn in the middle of every lap or every other lap. You will not have the wall to push off of and will need to accelerate back to speed just like in the open water. You can also vary the intensity of each lap or after each turn so that you work on accelerating after each turn. You might be fortunate enough to swim in a multiple lane 25 yard pool without lane lines in it. If this is the case then you can swim for time going around the outer edges of the pool. Once again you can alter your speed for time. As with any workout it is a good idea to warm up with some low intensity swimming before getting into the harder segments.

Now are you the type of athlete who gets nervous swimming with other people so close? The first thing you should do is remember the immortal words of race car driver Cole Trickle in the movie Days of Thunder, “Rubbing is racing.” The second thing you can do is find 6-8 local swimmers or people from your local tri club and all get in the same lane together. Then you can do various sets with all the swimmers staring at the same time. This will help you get used to racing in close proximity with others. This drill is done best when you have two lanes free.

Here is an Olympic Distance (OD) and an Ironman (IM) focused workout using the aforementioned drills:

OD: 6 x 100 (50 drill of choice, 50 kick with hands in front); 4 x 100 easy freestyle; rest one minute; 6 x 250 (each 250 you go harder and do these without touching the wall); 5 x 50 sprint (without touching the wall); 200 (50 drill, 50 free) Total: 2000

IM: 250 (50 drill, 50 free); 3 x 250 kick with board; 4 x 500 (alternating 100 build, 100 easy without touching wall); 6 x 100 (do these hard while flipping in the middle of each lap); 400 (50 drill, 50 easy free) Total: 4000