Sometimes, goals are important to prevent burnout and keep you focused for an unrelated purpose to swimming, like becoming an early riser, becoming more active, or cross-training for other goals or sports. Each time I start working with a new swim student, I ask them what their goals are so I can tailor my approach in swim lessons, and help break down those big ambitions into smaller stepping stone milestones. But, I've had folks who just want to "swim better" without having a plan for incorporating the technique they learn with me, which means they quickly lose the skills from their lessons from not continuing to work on their technique and training on their own.
Whether you've got a vision for swimming big hairy distances, or just want to get more comfortable with swimming, here are some ideas on how to set motivating goals and plans in motion for reaching them.
Distance Goals
Open water swimming is amazing flexible in offering solo and group swim events/charters that let you choose your own distance goal(s). (Check out our database of swim events in the USA to find something that piques your interest: https://www.swimwildwaters.com/ows-list)
Event can be used as milestones to reach a bigger goal, especially when you only have so many weekends for long swims. For instance, you might find some 5k events to help train for your 10k, and the following year, incorporate 10k and 15k events to train for a 25k.
Speed and Time Goals
Faster Times for Specific Distances: Whether it's a 1K, 5K, or 10K swim, you can set time-based goals, like "swim a mile in under 35 minutes."
Pacing Goals: Learning to pace yourself over long distances while maintaining a consistent speed. This one can be achieved by doing multiple similar-distance swims over a season and seeing endurance, fatigue, or pace improvements.
Environment-Specific Challenges
Swimming in Different Conditions: Set goals to swim in a variety of conditions—nighttime, choppy water, foggy weather, or during different tides.
Geographical challenges: Some swims are a part of a series, like various Triple Crowns across the world. You might also count the number of bridges you've swam under, bodies of waters you've peed in, or bags of trash collected while swimming.
Safety and Confidence Goals
Improving Comfort in Open Water: Many swimmers set the basic goal of becoming more comfortable in open water settings, especially if you're used to swimming in pools. Skills like getting into open water a certain number of times per week, or treading water for increasing durations, can build up skills without the pressure of an event or specific distance. One of the coolest swimmers I know has a continuous goal of swimming each day, even just for a few minutes, and she's been in the water every day since she started in 2020!
Developing Safety Skills: Lifesaving skills come in handy only if you've practiced them enough that they're almost second-nature in an emergency. Having goals of practicing treading water, using safety equipment, or towing another swimmer to shore are incredibly helpful in increasing safety in the open water swimming community as a whole.
Mental Stamina
Building Mental Toughness: Open water swimming can be grueling, with waves, cold temperatures, and isolation. Practicing perseverance in non-ideal environments or by doing "less fun" practices can help you tough it out when you're faced with a crappy situation during an event or race.
Temperature and Acclimatization Goals
Swimmers training for cold or ice swims should set goals related to adjusting to low temperatures and increasing their tolerance, especially toward autumn and falling water temperatures. If you don't have consistent access to cold open water, you might need to invest in a coal soak tub or plan some adventures to colder locations.
9. Cross-Training and Strength Goals
Building strength and conditioning through dryland exercises, strength training, or cross-training activities like running or cycling. Having weight lifting or flexibility goals will go a long way towards improving speed and preventing injuries in the pool.
10. Bucket-List Swims
Maybe you've got the itch to swim famous races, like 3RMS or Portland Bridge Swim. Or, maybe a solo channel crossing, like Catalina Channel. Or, maybe you want to swim in every single National Park. It may not be a "this season" goal, but creating a list of swims you want to achieve and planning your schedule to chip away at training and travel could be a great way to get the wanderlust out of your system between other projects (that's what I do!).
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