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The Bastion Swim: Conquering the swim
Open water swimming
The Bastion is held in July, giving you around 10 weeks of comfortable open water swimming in the UK. If you are new to open water swimming, be ready with your wetsuit as soon as the water is warm enough to stay in with a degree of comfort (don’t go in too soon!). Once the lakes are open ensure that one swim session a week is in open water.
The Bastion swim course is a technical two lap course, following a line of buoys up the lake and then into the river.
The key skills to practice in your open water sessions
- Sighting is the term used to describe the lifting of the eyes out of the water so that you look forward above the water and navigate a course. Efficient sighting will be important for a good swim time in the Bastion
- If you are a novice open water swimmer you need to get used to having other athletes swimming close to you
- Practice your mass starts. This is how you will start on race day and can be unsettling if you have not done an open water race for a while.
- There are a few places on the course where you will need to turn 90 degrees around a buoy. Swim buoys can often become bottlenecks. Novice triathletes should practice swimming wide around buoys maintaining momentum with a long stroke rather than getting caught up with other swimmers.
- Experienced athletes should use this time wisely continuing to practice sighting skills and most importantly their pacing!
Follow this link to read about the 5 mistakes you should avoid in your next open water triathlon.
