Workout Wednesday: Race Entries & Exits

Photo Credit: Helen Cogan Photography

Happy Workout Wednesday! I hope you are excited to work on your open water swimming entries and exits. This workout is all about getting your heart rate up and nailing your starts and exits. This is a great workout to do with friends to really simulate an open water race. The main focus on the entry is to run until you are about knee deep, then dive forward and start swimming. Never dive down as you can get very hurt. For the exits, it is important to focus on swimming until you are grabbing sand with every stroke for a few strokes. This will put you around knee to shin deep when you stand up. This makes running out of the water so much easier. Avoid standing once you see the bottom as this will put you in waist to chest deep water. This makes the run out of the water exhausting. Really work on not standing up until you are in knee deep water to make the sprint out effortless! I hope you enjoy this workout. As always please share with your friends and leave your thoughts in the comments! Don’t forget to have fun!

Warm Up

1 x 10 minutes of your race day warm up routine. Do whatever you plan to do on race day!

1x 15 minutes consisting of 10 minutes at goal race pace then 5 minutes fast. Swim toward shore and exit.

Main Set

6-10x: Entry & Exits @ 1:00 rest

  • Start out of the water or ankle deep water if it is safe to do so.

  • Run in as if it is a race and once you get to a little deeper than knee depth dive forward and start swimming.

  • Do 30-40 strokes hard out then turn right or left .

  • Do 120-150 strokes hard, then turn into shore.

  • Sprint to shore and run out of the water.

  • Repeat this in the opposite direction so you end where you started the first one.

Cool Down

5-10 minutes of easy swimming focusing on technique and feeling good.

Successful swims are built with Endurance!