05 Oct 2018
Open Water vs Pool?
For me open water swimming was something that kept me interested in swimming for longer than I would have if I’d have never entered Dover Harbour on one cold Sunday Morning. I enjoyed the challenge and that encouraged me to continue training in the pool in order to maintain enough fitness to be able to swim up and down the harbour for hours at a time and eventually complete a Channel Relay swim. But can everyone make the transition? Is it possible to excel in both pool and open water swimming and should you give it a go?
Well in my opinion Open Water Swimming isn’t for everyone. You’ve got to have a little bit of craziness about you to willingly get into the 13-degree sea without a wetsuit when it’s windy and rainy. However, I do think it is something a lot of people can fall in love with. For me the feeling of having your breath taken away when the waves first hit your face was exhilarating and made a nice change to the monotony of swimming up and down a pool. There are such a range of ability and people from all walks of life who take part which makes it feel a very inclusive environment. When you are cold and tired you would be surprised with the amount of support fellow cold and tired people can give you. You might not even know their name, but you’ll happily share some hot chocolate with them. This also makes it more social then a pool swimming environment which was another positive for me.
However, if you are a competitive swimmer who spends hours perfecting their technique in the pool I feel it is a risk to give open water swimming a try. I personally found it very difficult to stop my stroke changing. Every Sunday I would get into the sea and have to change my stroke to allow me to breath in the choppy sea. I would then get in the pool on a Monday morning and struggle to go back to a more efficient and “tidy” stroke that was most effective in the pool. Obviously, this may not be the case for everyone, but I do feel that in general open water swimmer’s style is very different to pool swimmers which makes it difficult to excel in both. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a go because it could be that you are even better at open water swimming and fall in love with it. I just feel that the pros and cons need to be weighed up for a high-level competitive swimmer. You need to be aware of what you want to achieve from both disciplines and how realistic your expectations are. At the end of the day it is likely that one of the disciplines will need to take priority.
For me open water swimming kept me in the sport for much longer than pool swimming would have done and that is something which can only be seen as a good thing. I also think that after years out of swimming competitively there is more chance of me returning to open water than there is pool swimming and so hopefully the variety also helps more people swim for longer whether it’s for the social element, the fitness it provides or for personal goals. As long as you’re not worried about jellyfish stings or swimming through seaweed it could be the sport for you too.
