On Wednesday, July 28, the individual athletes will take on Event 1: a 1-mile swim followed by a 3-mile kayak paddle on the open water in Madison, Wisconsin. Dr. Richard Norris, a CrossFit Level 2 Trainer out of Claymore CrossFit in Scotland and UKCC Level 3 Coach, shares his thoughts on the swim portion of the event:
This event is not for the faint hearted — especially if swimming is a weakness.
The fact that this is a 1-mile swim makes this an endurance swim. The best in the world, swimming in a pool without fins, would do this in about 16 to 18 minutes. In open water, those numbers likely will be much higher. The addition of fins may help the athletes, but I would hedge the best will take 22+ minutes, with a possible range of 25-35 minutes. This event could be won on the swim portion, as such a difference will be hard to make up in the paddle.
The use of the fins may be a concession to speed up the event and give the weaker swimmers some reassurance. They will help the weaker swimmers, but they also will help the stronger swimmers be even stronger.
Fins aid flotation, and for muscular CrossFit athletes with low body fat, this will be extremely helpful as they fight to maintain a better body line (being more horizontal in the water and creating less drag resistance). As a result, the athletes will be able to reach greater speeds. Fins will also help prevent fatigue from setting in early. However, the fins may be a double-edged sword, as they will place greater demand on the hip flexors and extensors. I sense a cramp or two coming on and some necessary rolling for recovery.
Open water swimming will test each athlete's swimming efficiency and effectiveness. Depending on the swim course — be it a triangle, straight line, or a circle — open water swimming presents many challenges, foremost of which is swimming in the right direction in a straight line. Knowing and seeing where you are going at all times is of paramount importance, as there are generally no reference points other than a few buoys in the distance. It is easy to get off course in open water, particularly if the water is choppy, murky, or if a swimmer keeps their head down too long and is relying on others swimmers around them to also be swimming in the right direction. Swimmers will need to be adept at "sight breathing" (raising the head and looking forward to see where they are going while taking a breath) regularly to stay on track.
Apart from the challenge of maintaining direction, depending on weather and water conditions, breathing technique and rhythm need to be top considerations for the athletes. If there are waves, then it will be best for swimmers to breathe to the side, away from the waves. Otherwise, they will risk getting a mouthful of water and having to stop or slow down. If swimming into the waves, they will need to get better at timing their breathing also.
If there is any chop to the water, athletes will find it challenging to get into a rhythm with their stroke, and they may well need to adapt their stroke rate and length. In flat, calm water, you can maximize your stroke length and your speed; in choppy water, athletes will need to shorten their stroke or risk losing speed and increasing fatigue.
Since a mile swim is an aerobic endurance event, pacing is key. Athletes should aim to pace the event at their anaerobic threshold, that point where the body is managing lactate without too much buildup. Hopefully, the athletes have been working on their pacing in the pool and in open water.
Apart from the fins aiding speed and efficiency, another benefit of the event conditions is the opportunity to draft behind other swimmers. Drafting lets the swimmer in front do more work while lessening yours and allowing you to save energy. The best place to draft is right in the wake of the swimmer in front. However, benefits can also be gained from drafting if you swim/draft right alongside another swimmer with your head at the same level as the leading person's hip.
Energy-saving strategies like this are going to be helpful when athletes get to the paddle — another endurance effort — which, like swimming, predominantly relies on the upper body to generate propulsion.
What makes this event a great test is that, unlike most of the other events/movements in CrossFit, both swimming and paddling rely on rotation about the transverse axis. This is not something often programmed in many WODs and boxes, so it will be interesting to see what kind of impact it will have on the athletes during the event and afterward. Unless well trained, this rotational movement will fatigue the athletes perhaps earlier than expected and may impact recovery.
Because the event likely will be one to two hours long, nutrition and hydration strategies will need to be planned out in advance, certainly not in the moment.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, temperatures are expected to reach 33 degrees Celsius/91 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. That will compound the demands on the body.