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The first thing you need to know about swimming with a large group of people in Open Water is that it is only peripherally related to the endless laps you swam in the pool in order to get ready for it.  That is, the mechanics of rolling, pulling, kicking, and breathing are more or less the same, but everything else is going to be quite a shock if you haven’t prepared yourself by practicing some open water-specific skills in the pool.  There are plenty of things to work on including sighting, Drafting and bilateral breathing (breathing on both sides) among many others, but the skill that may very well help you the most is being able to seed yourself correctly before the gun even goes off.   

Although there are a few variations, most triathlon open water swims are going to start in one of three ways 1) with the athletes on the shore requiring that they run into the water after the start 2) with the athletes in the water but standing on the bottom or 3) with the athletes in a deep section which requires them to tread water.  Although the three differ slightly, once the chaos of churning arms and legs begins, they all look the same.  Your goal should be to line yourself up in a position that allows you to avoid this chaos to the maximum extent possible while simultaneously capitalizing on your individual strengths.  How you do that is based largely upon your swimming skill, but maybe even more importantly, it’s based on your ability to tolerate physical contact in the water.   

If you’re a top-tier swimmer and you have no problems mixing it up with the other athletes, then by all means, start the race right up front and with the most direct path to the first buoy.  You should capitalize on your superior speed to break free of the pack early so that you have undisturbed water to swim in.  You may even consider starting out faster than your race pace for the first 50 or 100 meters and then backing off in order to break away and keep other athletes from swimming in your draft.  I wish I could be you.   

If you’re a strong swimmer, but you prefer to avoid the melee as much as possible, you should still start at the front of the pack, but near the edges instead of in the middle.  Starting here will allow you to isolate the pack to one side while still being in the front to take advantage of your speed.   

If your swim speed places you in the middle of the pack, but you don’t have any problem battling it out in the “washing machine,” you should seed yourself in the middle of the field.  Realistically assess your ability and shade your position accordingly.  That is, if you usually finish in the “upper middle” of the pack, then move forward a little.  Typically, it’s better to be swimming amid athletes who are a little faster than a little slower because you can draft someone who is faster which allows you to hold a pace that you wouldn’t be able to hold on your own.  On the other hand, if you seed yourself behind slower swimmers, you have to pick your way through the pack from behind.  In general, swimming up behind slower athletes is worse than being overtaken by faster ones because the first contact is when your face is approaching the other swimmer’s kicking feet.  In fact, if the visibility in the water is poor, your first indication that you’re even approaching another swimmer may be when you touch his feet.  Of course, having a fast swimmer overtake you from behind and then swimming over you is no picnic either, but I prefer that to a heel to the nose.   

If you’re a middle-of-the-pack swimmer, but thinking about touching other swimmers makes you break out in hives, you should definitely stay away from the middle (and practice mass starts with your training buddies in the pool!).  Depending on your aversion to physical contact, it may be better for your overall race time to sacrifice a few seconds to let the crowd get a few yards down track before you even start swimming.  I have a “friend” who wanted to capitalize on his rapidly improving swimming skill by starting in the middle of the field in a race that was held at an elevation of over 6000’.  The gun went off and my “friend” found himself flailing in the water in a panic because although his pool swimming ability was much improved, he was completely unprepared for swimming through a rugby scrum.  He expended an inordinate amount of energy swimming head-up in an attempt to avoid the athletes around him.  That, in addition to the high elevation of the lake left him in such an oxygen-deprived state that, about 200 yards into the race, in order to quell the panic, he had to flip onto his back and just float—three times.  Instead of burning 10 or 15 seconds waiting for the pack to get settled in front of him after the gun, he lost minutes perhaps and he had to fight back the panic which almost made him call it a day before the race had really even started.   

Starting at the far edge on the same side you breathe (i.e. if you breathe to the left, start the race on the left edge) might be a good idea for you as well.  As I mentioned before, you isolate the threat to one side by doing this, and if you breath away from the crowd, you’ll have less chance of taking an inadvertent drink.   

If you’re just starting out and you aren’t particularly confident in your swimming abilities, start in the back and let the crowd start moving before you join in.  If your first concern is simply to make it out of the water under your own Power, you certainly don’t want to complicate matters by figuring out how to avoid everyone else in the water.  Simply hang back, relax, and enjoy the day while everyone else dukes it out in front of you.   

Just remember that the first strategy decision you make occurs before you’ve burned your first calorie.  If you make a fundamental mistake in lining up for the swim start, you may very well pay for it for the rest of the day.  Take an unbiased look at your skill level and your ability to mix it up, then hop in line and make it happen!

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