My open water swim partner

Last summer, almost every weekend, this was my training partner. These jellyfish were everywhere in the LI Sound and I swam with them, sting after sting, for up to an hour at a time. I'm sitting here wondering how the hell I got myself through that and whether or not I can do it again this year. Even with the wetsuit, I'd get stung across my wrists, ankles, feet, and, worse yet, neck and face.

Thing is, nothing can take the place of open water swim training. Case in point: this winter, I really focused on my swim, since that's definitely my limiter and it's the best thing to do when the weather's bad. I added an extra swim workout per week and also made sure I followed a well-structured plan. By Spring, I had improved my stroke, lengthened each stroke's distance, and taken over 5 seconds off my avg. 100 yd pace. Despite this, at my first tri in May -- and my first open water swim of the season -- my 100 yd pace was more than 15 seconds slower than in practice and identical to that of my first tri ever three years ago! Talk about disappointment.

I believe a number of things contributed to this. One, it was my first race as coach, with this being the first tri ever for many of my athletes. My focus, for once, was not completely on my own race. Two, as I mentioned, it was my first time in the open water, and in the wetsuit, since last October. All the pool sessions in the world will not prepare you for swimming in the open water, and in the wetsuit. Three, I sighted TOO MUCH! This takes a lot of energy and time. I tend to veer slightly right in my swim and I started obsessing over it right before the race began. I should have sighted about every 5 strokes, but instead I turned the 2nd half of the swim into sighting practice, looking up every 3!

But...I'm shaking off last month's swim and looking forward to the rest of the season. Rather than dwelling on what went wrong, I'm celebrating what went right. I felt good on the run. I controlled my pace very well (actually, could've gone a little harder) and had the second-fastest run time among women. Yay! Now, how to navigate the jellyfish...?