Stop Swimming Like a Pool Swimmer (You’re Racing Open Water)
A lot of athletes spend all winter staring at the black line in the pool. The intervals look great. The send-offs are dialed. You feel strong.
Then race morning shows up.
The sun is in your eyes, the buoy suddenly looks a mile away, and within the first 200 meters, your heart rate is already through the roof. All that tidy pool fitness suddenly feels like it disappeared.
That disconnect happens because pool swimming and open-water swimming are not the same skill.
In the pool, you get a wall every 25 yards and a line to follow. In open water, you get chop, glare, and a few hundred people all trying to occupy the same piece of water.
If you want to exit the swim calm and controlled, rather than completely fried, your pool sessions need to prepare you for the race environment, not just the clock on the wall.
Here are three swim sets I like to use with athletes to bridge that gap.
1. Sighting Under Stress
The first few hundred meters of a race are messy. Your heart rate spikes, breathing gets rushed, and if you’re not sighting well you can easily add extra distance.
Set:
10 × 100 (15s rest)
Focus:
During the first 25 of every 100, sight every 4 strokes.
Why it matters:
Most athletes completely lose their body position when they sight. Hips drop, rhythm disappears, and suddenly the stroke falls apart. Practicing this while swimming hard teaches you to keep the stroke stable even when lifting your eyes.
The goal is for sighting to become automatic, not something that disrupts your stroke every time you do it.
2. Build the Diesel Engine
I see this a lot: athletes start the swim strong but fade badly in the final third. By the time they reach T1, they’re already depleted.
What we want instead is an engine that gets stronger as the swim goes on.
Set:
3 × 500 (30s rest)
Execution:
• #1 relaxed and smooth
• #2 steady effort
• #3 70.3 race effort
Why I like it:
This teaches you to build effort late, when fatigue starts creeping in. If you can find another gear 1,000+ meters into a swim, you’re far less likely to panic when the shore still feels far away.
3. Learn to Draft
Drafting in the swim is free speed. Sitting on someone’s feet can save a surprising amount of energy — energy you’ll want later on the bike and run.
Set:
6 × 200 with a partner
Execution:
Take turns leading and following. The follower stays close enough to feel the pull, but not so close they’re constantly tapping toes.
Why it matters:
Drafting is a skill. You have to get comfortable with turbulent water, bubbles in your face, and someone right in front of you. The pool is the perfect place to practice this without the chaos of race morning.
The Bottom Line
If all of your swim training happens staring at the black line, race day will always feel chaotic.
Drop one of these sets into your week and start practicing the skills that actually matter in open water: sighting, building effort, and swimming comfortably around other people.
The goal isn’t just swimming faster.
It’s showing up to T1 calm, controlled, and ready to race the rest of the day.