GSL Clinic

Met Josh and Jim at GSL Marina for a Open Water clinic.  There were 4 people besides us who showed up.  We discussed:

• Goggles – It is important to have goggles that don't fog up, provide a good range of vision and are tinted to best suit the amount of sunlight available.
• Wetsuits – Provide warmth, and higher buoyancy in the water which helps swim faster. However for longer swims chaffing may occur. Practice in your wetsuit to find your problem areas and make sure they're lubed well for an event.
• Sighting – “Crocodile Eyes”: be sure to not breathe while sighting. It causes your head to lift too high out of the water and results in your feet sinking and losing your streamline. Sight using crocodile eyes ½ stroke before breathing and then breathe to the side. Take a mental picture and adjust.
• Bilateral breathing – one of the best practices you can do for going in a straight line, and for keeping an eye on those competitors. It may be awkward at first if you have a bad habit of only breathing on one side, but force yourself to do it and you'll be so glad you did.
  
  
  Then we got in and practiced sighting and just swimming in the GSL.  They had all never swam in GSL before and were surprised at how buoyant they were.  They were all wearing wetsuits on top of that as well.  We ended up swimming .28 mile is all.  Just out of the Marina for a bit and then back.  The water was 60, but it felt colder.  Probably because we weren't swimming the whole time, but discussing things for most of the time in the water.  
  
  
  They all seemed to enjoy the experience and didn't appear to be too put off by occasional clouds of brine shrimp eggs.