1. Mimic mass starts

Swimming with a triathlon or swimming club is not only a great way to improve your fitness and make new friends and training partners, but to train your open-water skills. Since most triathlons involve a mass start and competitive swimming in close quarters, being surrounded by peers in the pool is a great way to get that experience. Not only swimming with other swimmers in the same lane, but actually rehearsing a mass start and swimming side-by-side, even with as little as three of you, can be very effective. This can be a fun way to finish your daily set and it can be executed as a 4 x 25m mass start (or even 4 x 50m if you can tumble-turn underneath the swimmers behind you).

2. Drafting

One piece of good news about open-water swimming is that drafting – the act of using a person in front of you to clear a wake and pull you, while ideally not kicking you in the face – is legal. Make sure you find a good pair of legs to draft and you’ll save a lot of energy (just make sure they’re going in the right direction). If you’re in the pool with other people, you can train in these skills. When you’re swimming in a lane with 6/7 people it is hard not to draft — but you also can do drafting drills before or after any main set. By starting 2 at a time, a set of 4 x 50m focusing on drafting would definitely do the trick. And remember, you can benefit from drafting both by swimming at the hip-level of another person, and by staying behind him/her. The first option is preferred because if you lose that position you still have the second one. So train both ways.