Open Water Swimming: The Lake Is Nothing Like the Lane

I trained for months in a 25-yard pool before my first triathlon open water swim. Felt great. Smooth stroke, solid endurance, right on pace. Then I waded into Lake Michigan on race morning, 63 degrees, no lane lines, murky green water, a hundred other people in neoprene, and my brain went somewhere else entirely.

The pool teaches you to swim. It does not teach you to swim in a lake. No black line. No wall every 25 yards. No temperature-controlled 79 degrees. You cannot see the bottom, you cannot see straight ahead, and the water is alive in ways a pool never is. If you're 50-plus and thinking about a triathlon or an open water race, the gap between pool fitness and open water readiness is the thing that will get you.

Cold water is a different animal

Your body's first reaction to cold water is involuntary. You gasp. Your breathing rate spikes. Your heart rate jumps. This is cold water shock, and it happens to everyone, strong swimmers included. At Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay (water temps around 55 degrees), even experienced racers report that first minute as genuinely disorienting.

You can train your body to handle it. Get in cold water before race day. Not once. Multiple times. If your race is in a Midwestern lake in June, find that lake in May when it's still in the low 60s and get your face wet. Ten minutes is enough. You're teaching your nervous system that this is survivable, not building swim fitness.

Past 50, your body loses heat faster than it did at 30. This is just physiology. A wetsuit is not a crutch. It's the smartest piece of equipment you'll buy.

Sighting will wreck your race if you ignore it

In the pool, navigation is free. Black line, wall, turn. In open water, you have to look up every six to eight strokes to figure out where you're going. And looking up while swimming is a skill you probably don't have yet.

Bad sighting means swimming crooked. On a 1,500-meter course, a swimmer who drifts even a little on each leg can add 200 to 400 meters. That's not a pacing problem. That's a geometry problem. I watched a guy at Ironman 70.3 Muncie swim so far off course he nearly reached the wrong turn buoy.

Start practicing in the pool. Lift your eyes just above the waterline (not your whole head), spot something on the far wall, then rotate to breathe. Once you're in open water, pick a fixed landmark on shore: a tall tree, a building, a church steeple. Buoys sit low in the water and disappear behind every wave.

Your wetsuit matters more than your stroke

A good wetsuit lifts your hips and legs, which is where most swimmers over 50 start to drag. That buoyancy saves real energy, and in a triathlon you need that energy for the bike and run. The swim is the appetizer.

Full suit or sleeveless? If your shoulders are healthy and mobile, full suit. More buoyancy, more warmth. But if you've got a cranky rotator cuff (and past 50, plenty of us do), sleeveless gives you the freedom to actually complete your stroke without fighting the neoprene.

Fit is everything. A wetsuit that's too tight across the chest will make you feel like you can't breathe. Too loose in the legs and it fills with water. Try it on, swim in it, and if it's wrong, return it. Do not race in a wetsuit you've never swum in.

Race morning: play it smart

Seed yourself at the back or the outside edge of the start. The front of a mass start is a washing machine of arms, legs, and panic. The people who fight for position at the front are the same people who blow up on the bike. Let them go. Five minutes of clear water is worth more than five minutes of combat.

In pure open water events (not triathlon), drafting is legal and it's enormous. Swimming behind someone's feet or on their hip cuts your effort significantly, same principle as sitting in a paceline on the bike. Find someone swimming your pace and tuck in.

And if you're doing a 70.3 or full Ironman: the swim is roughly 10 percent of your day. Nobody wins a triathlon in the water, but plenty of people lose one there. Exit the swim with something left in the tank. That's the whole strategy.