Enjoy Open Water Swimming 

By Kathy Meany

“Open water swimming” means different things to those of us who live in Upstate New York. For many, open water swimming means jumping off a dock or the side of a boat into a quiet lake or river for a refreshing dip on a hot, summer day. For others, it’s those opportunities for steady, but leisurely recreational swims for exercise and to enjoy nature during time spent at a state park, a lakeside family camp, or while away on that coveted summer vacation. For the more fitness conscious, an open water swim might offer an occasional alternative in our weekly schedule of visits to the gym or pool. And finally, for athletes, open water swimming means regular trips to a lake for specific workouts while training for a triathlon or open water swim race.

Regardless of your purpose, this information will hopefully support and further your journey as an open water swimmer in a region replete with magnificent lakes, ponds, and rivers (well, the unpolluted ones, at least!). 

Let’s start with keeping ourselves SAFE while swimming in open water. The adage, “Never swim alone,” is especially true for open water swimming. When I’m heading to a lake to do a workout, I try to enlist one or more of my like-minded friends to join me, or I have my husband accompany me in his kayak. At a minimum, I make sure my family knows where I’m going and how long I plan to swim.

For short swims, many of the state park, town, and village beaches have roped in swimming areas with lifeguard supervision. In many of these public locations, you are allowed to swim outside of the designated swimming area but do so at your own risk. Check with the lifeguards. 

For those of us interested in lengthier swims, the best bet is to connect with one of the triathlon clubs in our area. Whether you’re training for a triathlon or an open water race, or you simply want to swim for fitness, at least three triathlon clubs in the Capital Region – Bethlehem Triathlon Club, Capital District Triathlon Club, and Saratoga Triathlon Club – offer weekly opportunities to swim at your own pace on a course marked with buoys with full lifeguard coverage for a reasonable fee.

State boat launches provide another great venue for swims of greater distances. Again, do so safely, especially in a setting where motorboats, pontoons, jet skis, and wave runners are allowed. Take a route that allows you to hug the shore. Wear a bright colored swim cap and invest in a fluorescent green, orange, or yellow open water swim buoy that makes you more visible to boaters. Swimming with a swim buoy provides the added advantages of using the inflated buoy as a float if you need to take a rest, having something to attach an emergency swim whistle to, and, with some models, providing a dry compartment where you can carry some essentials. A wetsuit provides extra buoyancy for ease of swimming and is essential for warmth and safety when water temperatures are on the cool side, along with a brightly colored neoprene cap and neoprene swim socks and gloves. Additionally, I always wear my Road ID with essential contact information on every open water swim.

How about for those who want to improve their skills and abilities as an open water swimmer? Like it or not, the best place to improve your stroke is in the pool while working with a certified swim instructor or an in-person or virtual coach. Unless you had the great fortune of high-quality swimming instruction throughout your childhood and adolescence, improving your swimming stroke as an adult typically involves undoing a lot of bad habits and relearning aspects of this highly technical physical activity. As Kevin Kearney, coach and proprietor of Excel Aquatics, has said, “Swimming is not a natural activity for humans. Human beings are a land, not a water, species.” As such, working with an instructor who understands swimming strokes and can provide feedback in-person or by video, is invaluable. For people who grew up with almost no swimming experience, learning to swim as an adult can be formidable. While it’s never too late to learn, the encouragement of an experienced swimming teacher can make all the difference.

Depending upon your goals in swimming, there is a subset of skills specific to open water, particularly for those interested in competing in any form at any level or entering any kind of large group swim event. Skills that need to be learned and practiced include sighting, so that you swim a straight line; turning around the buoys efficiently on a marked course; and breathing bilaterally for a better view of the buoys or the shore. Drafting another swimmer as a means of reducing your energy output on a swim and gaining comfort with swimming in a pack are also valuable. And of course, there’s practicing the start. Will the start of any given event be by running from the shore and diving into the water, treading in deep water until the air horn sounds, or jumping off a pier, dock, or boat? Given that there’s no wall to be swimming towards every 25 yards, what about pacing during an open water swim event, and practicing the important skill of rolling from freestyle to elementary backstroke to rest, control anxiety, and manage heartrate?

I think you really get hooked on the joy of open water training and competing when you have fun and put yourself to the test in an event during our precious summer months. If you’re a triathlete, event calendars are a great way to find races so see the Calendar in Adirondack Sports print or online: adksports.com. And visit USA Triathlon: usatriathlon.org. Not interested in biking or running? Plenty of cyclists and runners would love to have a competent swimmer to form a relay team. Popular triathlons in our region that welcome individuals and teams include Wilson Endurance Sports triathlons in Ticonderoga, Stissing, Litchfield Hills, Delta Lake, and CassadagaMan; Alpha Win’s triathlons in the Hudson Valley, Lake George, and Saugerties; Capital District Triathlon Club’s Crystal Lake Triathlon; Vermont Sun Triathlon Series, and the High Peaks Cyclery Mini-Tri Series.

Perhaps your greater interest is in open water swimming competitions? In our area, Greenleaf Racing offers the “Virtual 32-Mile Marathon Swim” for individuals and teams, and the Lake George 2.5K/5K/10K open water swim races in Hague in August. Greenleaf Racing also partners with Adirondack Masters Swimming (AD-LMSC) to offer the Betsy Owens/Terry Laughlin Memorial Swim Races in Mirror Lake every August, races sanctioned by United States Masters Swimming. 

The US Masters Swimming calendar of events is a great resource for finding sanctioned open water races across the entire country and for identifying open water swimming events for competition or for recreation where the purpose is raising funds for an important cause, such as the Against the Tide Swims sponsored by the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, and the Swim Across America–Rhode Island to Benefit the Women and Infants Hospital: usms.org.

Rays’s Notebook is another awesome resource for finding competitive open water swim races and open water swim events for recreation and to raise funds for important causes: raysnotebook.info/ows.

And for the heartiest among us, how about an open water swimming vacation that takes you to stunning places around the globe and makes all arrangements for travel and accommodations, with well-organized daily swimming opportunities? I have swimming friends who have traveled with Swim Trek and have raved about swimming in the Galapagos Islands, Nevis and St. Kitts, Croatia, Sardinia, the Bahamas, and Greece: swimtrek.com. Hey, why not??!!

Whatever level of swimmer you are, and whatever trajectory you may be on with your swimming, stay after it and keep at it! Swimming provides tremendous cardiovascular benefits, is a full body workout, is easier on the joints than some other forms of exercise and can provide improvements to mental and emotional health. As many will attest, “You’re only one swim away from a better mood!” These benefits are compounded when swimming outdoors in a clean, beautiful lake or river in magnificent Upstate New York!

Interested in learning, fine tuning, and practicing your skills? Join us for an Open Water Swimming Clinic on Sunday, June 30 from 2-3:30pm at the Glens Falls Family YMCA. Cosponsored by the Glens Falls Family YMCA and Adirondack Masters Swimming. Register in advance: glensfallsymca.org. 

Kathy Meany (kmeany2@verizon.net) is vice-president and sanctions chairperson of Adirondack Masters Swimming and a representative on the board of the Bethlehem Triathlon Club. She is a retired teacher, principal, and school district superintendent who is an avid swimmer, cyclist, triathlete, and pickleball and tennis player.