Swimming in open water can take a fair bit of getting used to if you’ve never ventured out of your local pool.

But if you’re serious about swimming there’s a good chance you’ll end up signing up for an open water event sooner or later. And yay to that!

Open water swimming is exciting and enriching. It’s like stepping off the treadmill and going for a run somewhere beautiful and challenging.

Having a good experience at an open water event will hinge on lots of things. As well as training properly it’s a good idea to develop the ability to breathe bilaterally if you haven’t already. This will mean if the water’s choppy you can breathe away from the waves rather than into them! It’s also vital to have decent outdoor kit and acclimatise for the conditions.

But all of the above is useless if you veer wildly off course (like I did the first time I did the Great North Swim!). Learning how to check where you’re going will stop that from happening.

Check out the vid below for some great tips on sighting in open water and good luck!

Photo credit: Richard Harris, used with thanks under Creative Commons license