What a crazy week of weather for swimming outside. I was fortunate enough to get in 5 days this week in Morse. The water temp varied from 61 degree to 70 degree. The reason for the variations was from the high winds that we had during the week and which brought up the colder water from the bottom of the lake
A couple of things I have been thinking of noting to anyone who reads this is about sighting and navigation. On Saturday AM I remembered how important it is to swim in a straight line without looking. The winds were howling down Morse at with gusts up to 30 mph which created a lot churn in the water which made it difficult to look up and see where in the heck I was going without getting a mouth full of lake water. Fortunately I have mastered the ability to swim in a straight line a long time ago and I can go along way in between looking up and sighting my course.
1. When swimming open water and you are solo with no one around you and with no escort you should be able to go at least 20 – 30 strokes before you look up chart and verify your course. Sight for a major landmark that is up above the horizon so you are not endlessly looking for it.
2. If you are in a race and there are no escorts. Draft is key so find someone who can break the water in front of you. However its more difficult to stay on someones toes and not look up at least every 10 strokes. Gator Eyes.
3. If you are in an open water race and you have an escort. Put your escort out in front of you slightly to the side. Rely on them to do your sighting. Dont let them sag behind you.
4. Get familiar with your surroundings. Swimming at Morse for me is like swimming in a pool. I know exactly where everything is and I can pretty much swim a few hundred yards before I look up and verify my position. I have all my destination points timed out so that I know I will be at the X buoy in 20 minutes and I will be at the Y buoy at 32 minutes and so on. With the 10k race at Morse this year we all have home court advantage in knowing the course.
