My open water season is truly underway, as Lake Minnewaska, my main swimming venue opened June 16, and the final Gunks Masters pool workout at SUNY New Paltz was June 19. From now until late September, I’ll be training almost exclusively in lakes – except for perhaps a dozen practices in the 50-meter Ulster County Pool, the first of which is June 25.

I've already been swimming in a local lake, Fourth Binnewater Lake in Rosendale NY, which is approximately a mile long and a quarter-mile wide, since the third week of May. There are only a few houses on its banks, otherwise lined by trees and rock formations. We swim here before and after the Minnewaska season because the water warms earlier and stays warm later. Last fall I swam there until the water dropped to 60 – mid-October. During the heat of summer, when Minnewaska remains in the low-to-mid 70s, Fourth Lake rises into the 80s so I didn’t swim there until late August last year. The special appeal about all the local lakes is their shores are virtually undeveloped and there are no power boats of any kind.

For most swimmers, the great challenge is to make open water practices “purposeful” in the way that pool training feels. Without a pace clock or measured distances to swim, how do you organize it? Here are examples of lake practices I’ve done this month.

June 3, 7:00 AM @ Fourth Lake
I swam solo on a Sunday morning, doing 10 point-to-point repeats of approximately 300 meters each – which I estimated from the 250 or so strokes it took me the first time. I worked on navigation and synchronizing my stroke to my Tempo Trainer.

The TT is a waterproof battery-powered “swimming metronome” which I tuck under my cap – or can clip to my goggle straps. It’s become my invaluable companion in open water training. I began using it late last summer and gained important insights into my stroke. I also use it to cure what I call a “Stroke Rate rut.” Most swimmers are comfortable within a rather narrow range of stroke rates, because they do most of their training in that range. When you get stuck within such a rut, your stroke feels ragged and exhausting as you increase rate to gain speed.

Last summer I synchronized my hand-spear with the beeps. This summer, since I’ve been trying to eradicate mistiming and misdirection in my 2-Beat Kick (2BK) I’m more often synchronizing my leg drive to the beep. This morning, I began at a rate of 1.19 (a beep every 1.19 seconds) and increased the rate by .01 on each repeat, swimming the final 300m at 1.10.

My primary focus was to regain the sense of being “leisurely and relaxed” each time I increased Stroke Rate. I’ve worked on this for several years – on descending sets in the pool, on repeats at increasing current speed in the Endless Pool, and on lake swims with the TT – and it comes quite naturally now. A more intriguing focus was to discover the extent to which a change in breathing side or frequency – or the occasional peek forward to check my course – affected my leg-drive rhythm.

I swam the first couple of repeats, breathing every three strokes and was able to keep my leg drive right on the beat. Then I began changing frequency. I would take the first eight breaths, every third stroke, then eight breathing on two consecutive right strokes followed by two consecutive left strokes. I followed that pattern up to five consecutive right and five consecutive left breaths.

I found that as I increased the number of breaths on one side, I had a harder time keep my leg drive consistent with the beat. Because I’ll need to breathe this way during higher intensity segments of OW races I’ll work in a concentrated way to keep my 2BK rhythm as good when breathing 5 right, 5 left, as when I breathe every three strokes.

However, I was very pleased to note that I never lost the rhythm when sighting forward between breaths.

June 6 6:30 am at Fourth Lake
I swam with Gunks Masters teammates Dave Barra, Willie Miller, and Kate Gulitti. Dave and Kate are TI-trained coaches. Dave is also the chairman of Adirondack Masters.

We started by swimming 1200 meters down the lake. On the
way out we swam four-abreast, staying as close together as possible; most of the time Dave was about 18 inches from my
right arm and Kate 24 inches
from my left. We all focused on synchronizing the rhythms of our strokes with that of our neighbor. I synchronized my right arm entries with Dave's left and my left arm with Kate's right. This makes an interesting exercise because if several swimmers can synchronize their stroke rates – and stay shoulder-to-shoulder – that means they’re also synchronizing their Stroke Length. So swimming alongside a more efficient swimmer, while matching both their pace and stroke rate, will force you to increase your stroke efficiency.

The pace was leisurely at the beginning but increased steadily. The last 300m was quite brisk. I've experienced a "psychological momentum" when swimming in close proximity with others. The effort seems much reduced and the distance flies by. When we finished our first 1200m, Willie asked "Was that about 500?" Pretty typical estimate.

While we were focused mainly on synchronizing rhythms, I also focused on Marionette Arms - keeping my recovery as relaxed as possible. Kate said she studied her catch as she swam, trying to keep her fingers tipped down and palm back. Dave said he focused on keeping his elbows as close as possible to the surface from entry to catch.

On the way back, we did a pace line swim. This form of training, drawn from cycling, is a good way to do speed play as well as practice drafting and passing. We swam in single file, the first three swimming at a relaxed pace, while the fourth swimmer swung out passed the rest of the line as briskly as possible, before moving to the head of line and relaxing his or her pace. The leader's job was to keep the line on course. The next two would practice drafting – allowing a bit of relaxation before the next bout of high intensity swimming.

We exchanged places three times so each bout of high speed swimming lasted about 100 meters. While leading I focused on "sneaky sighting" to keep us on course. While swimming 2nd or 3rd I focused on staying as close as possible to the toes of the swimmer ahead, never looking up, but relying on my underwater vision to stay on course and being very, very relaxed. To pass I drove my 2BK with as much power as possible, synchronized to my opposite-hand spear and stayed as close as possible to the pace line while avoiding hard contact. There was some gentle, incidental contact. It’s helpful to experience that and practice maintaining form, rhythm and concentration.

That 1200 passed even more quickly than the first. Even after years of experiencing it, I remain surprised at how quickly time and distance fly by in open water, compared to the pool.

June 10 4:00 pm in Mirror Lake, Lake Placid NY
I swam about 3km with the Tempo Trainer. The Lake Placid Ironman swim course, on which I swam runs about 1km from a dock to near the far shore, crosses about 30 meters to another cable and returns to the start. I love swimming along that cable, which is stainless steel and about one meter below the surface, so easily visible that it’s the closest thing to a lane line you’ll ever find in open water.

I swam a km with the TT set at 1.25, then returned at 1.20. I followed that with a series of 300m repeats @ 1.15, 1.10, 1.05 and 1.00, simply trying to stay relaxed, feel unhurried and make a firm catch as frequency increased.

While swimming I thought of a good way to build “tempo progression,” for which Mirror Lake is perfect because of surface buoys tethered at regular intervals along the cable. I'll progressively increase stroke frequency til I feel like I'm near my "max economical tempo" – stroke breakdown unlikely and fatigue not become a limiting factor. Then I'll progressively increase the distance I swim at that tempo.

E.G. assuming 1.00 as my “max economical tempo:”
Swim 200m @ 1.00
Return @ recovery pace
Swim 240m @ 1.00
Return @ recovery pace
Swim 280m @ 1.00
Return @ recovery pace
Etc.

June 15 6:00 AM at Fourth Lake
I had another hugely enjoyable swim with Dave, Kate and Willie. We started with a 1200m straightaway, four across in a fairly tight flank. I had Kate on my right and Dave on my left. We had our stroke rates exactly matched and the distance just flew by. This kind of practice is invaluable in learning to maintain a “cocoon of concentration” when swimming in a group, letting yourself draw energy from the group, but being able to maintain personal focal points at the same time.

Then we swam two longish swims – perhaps 600m each - to selected shore points, testing our ability to sight infrequently yet maintain an accurate course. I sighted only three times in each 600m. On the first, we swam the first 300m in a narrow finger of the lake, perhaps 100m across. I stayed on course by breathing to both sides, keeping the shores equidistant and never looked forward. Once we came out of the finger into open lake, the sun was blindingly low in the sky to my left, but once I had checked my bearings once, I kept its bright orb at the same place in my field of vision each time I breathed left. I only had to adjust my course slightly the next two times I peeked forward. On the second 600m, I made a mental calculation of how much the right shore would recede and the left shore would approach as we swam toward our landmark. Following that calculation, and again checking my bearings only three times I came up almost exactly on the point we were aiming for.

Then we raced 300m to a red canoe tethered to a dock. I finished slightly ahead of the others. It's noteworthy how different my pool speed is from my OW speed. I had done a 5000-yd pool set with Dave the night before - 5 rounds of 10 x 100 on 1:30. He averaged 1:08. I averaged about 1:18. I wasn't loafing, just tired from the combination of yoga, weight training and swimming I've been doing. But Dave is always considerably faster than me in the pool. In open water we're more evenly matched. Dave has better turns but that doesn't fully explain the difference, which I think is that pool swimming rewards youth and strength to a greater degree than open water. The fact that an “old guy” has a chance to swim on fairly even terms with younger swimmers – Dave, Kate and Willie are all between 40 and 42 – is what I find most encouraging about open water.

We finished with a 400m cooldown to our departure point, again trying to stay on course without sighting. I looked for the first time when I was within 25m (when I came into the shade of the trees on shore) and was only 20m off the line I had aimed for. Kate was close by. Dave and Willie were off by about 100m.

June 17, 5:30pm at Fourth Lake
I swam about 3km with TI Coach Lou Tharp. I used my Tempo Trainer again in this practice. Lou and I began with the usual 1200m swim, with which we begin most Fourth Lake sessions. I set it at 1.20 to start and easily kept my stroke matched to this tempo. I synchronized my leg drives with the beep, and focused on driving my left leg as I finished my left hand stroke and vice versa. It provided a nice sense of effortless but significant core-based power.

Next we did a series of three point-to-point swims, working on navigation skills. They ranged from 300 to 600m. On the first, a 600m swim, I set the TT to 1.15 sec and adjusted to the faster pace pretty easily. On the next, a 300m swim, I set it to 1.10 and felt a bit too rushed at that tempo. I didn’t lose efficiency but it pushed my heart rate higher than I felt it should be. So on the next swim – about 400m I raised the tempo to 1.15 again and it felt even better – almost leisurely – than the first swim at that tempo. We finished with a relaxed 300m cooldown.

This experience with the TT gave me an idea for how to use it the rest of my summer training, virtually all of which will be done without a pace clock. My highest-priority race this summer will be the USMS 2-Mile Cable Swim at Lake Placid on Aug 18, which gives me nine weeks of training. I’ll swim within a narrow tempo range during each week, but drop that range by small increments each week. This week I’m swimming in a range of 1.10 to 1.15. Next week I may lower that range to 1.08 to 1.13. My goal will be to train in a range of 1.00 to 1.05 in the final week before that race.

By increasing my stroke tempo by regular, but infinitesimal amounts each week (as little as one or two one-hundredths of a second), I believe I can maintain the same efficiency (i.e. Stroke Length) – and sense of “leisure and relaxation” – at a rate of 1.00 to 1.05 as I have currently at 1.15.

June 19 7:00 PM in the Hudson River
Dave, Willie and I, along with fellow Gunks Master Ed Stoner and about a dozen other local swimmers, acted as subjects in a photo shoot for a pictorial on river swimming to be published in the NY Times Magazine on July 8. We swam just before and after sunset in a semi-protected cove by the Saugerties Lighthouse. I’d never swum there before and it was such a beautiful spot and so perfectly suited for open water practice that I’ll definitely return.

Most of our swimming was in short bouts, in setups organized by the photographer, but Dave and I did a brief warmup prior to the shoot, going 10 minutes against a slight downstream current, then coming back – much faster. We virtually always try to synchronize our strokes when we swim together. I didn’t have the Tempo Trainer, but I noticed that Dave and I would synchronize our left arms for 20 strokes or so, until he’d take a sight forward after which his right and my left arm would be in synch for 20 strokes, but then he’d sight again, after which our left arms would once again be in synch. I let him know that each sighting breath was interrupting his rhythm, which gives him something to work on with his TT in weeks to come.