Fran Crippen shares his secrets for sighting in open water. We agree with his point that it's good to practice this skill for a few minutes at every practice.
I don’t think there’s a clear-cut way... or 100% right way... to sight in open water. Here’s how I do it and it’s worked well for me. And I make a point to practice this on my own for a few minutes at every practice, usually during warmup or warmdown. I sight with my left hand extended forward. As my left hand enters the water, I lift just my eyes to get a sight. All I want to do is get my eyes up. A lot of swimmers want to have their whole face out of the water -- like this. This causes your legs to sink and can be a huge energy drain over the course of a race.
All you need to do is get your eyes out of the water. And you want to do this with as little head movement as possible. Notice that I keep my chin tucked and my neck pretty much straight, even as I sight. You can also see that I keep my lead hand up near the surface when I sight. Even when my eyes are above the waterline, my hand is still up there near the surface. This allows me to turn my head, catch a normal breath, and then start a normal pull -- just like in the pool. Here it is again. Left hand enters, extends, and stays near the surface as the eyes come up. I’m not breathing just yet. I turn my head and get my breath HERE...to the side... just like I would in the pool. Then I get my head back down as my lead hand starts to pull and my body starts to rotate. As much as possible, I want a sighting stroke to be the same as a normal stroke in the pool. I don’t want to change my head position or body position when I sight. When I come up to sight, I’m looking for the next turn buoy, to know that I’m in line and swimming straight. I don’t take a set number of strokes between sights. It all depends on the race and the conditions. In heavy chop I might sight every 3 to 5 strokes. If I’m drafting behind someone and I know they’re sighting, I might swim several hundred meters between sights. One way to test how straight you swim is to swim with your eyes closed. Just close your eyes and swim 50 strokes and see if you can swim straight. If you know that you always go a little to the right or left, you can factor that into your race-day sighting. You can also use landmarks to help you swim straight. On the day before a race or during warmup, I usually scope out a landmark or big building on shore, just in case the buoys aren’t big enough to see because of chop or waves. But generally when I sight, I’m looking for the next buoy and setting up my turn, which is the subject of the next chapter.
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