Not hard to pass mile swim. I side-stroked the entire thing and took only 71 minutes...
Pickle
Pickle
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Swimming at API
- Thread starter dan_matheny
- Start date
I switched back and forth between side and breast stroke. Took me about an hour. I'm not a strong swimmer above water. I'm much better under water with an oxygen tank on my back and fins on my feet.
But I guess that's kind of cheating.
I switched back and forth between side and breast stroke. Took me about an hour. I'm not a strong swimmer above water. I'm much better under water with an oxygen tank on my back and fins on my feet.
HABD dude..
Cheater
Quick reminder, what are the four strokes they're looking for? Side stroke, breast stroke...
...uhh, maybe freestyle and back stroke? Truth be told, I never got the impression they were judging my strokes (thank god). For us, it was all about completing their technical requirements (underwater swim, tread water with full gear, mile swim, etc). I am not a fish out of water, but I really enjoyed the water survival portion of API, yes even the dunkers. My favorite part was getting dropped off in the P-cola bay and having helo come pick us up.
Gotcha, thanks. I'm glad they're not as concerned about great form, because to be honest I'm not great with swimming. I mean, I'm comfortable in the water, but I never really learned any of the strokes, except the back stroke. I'll need to spend some time in the pool to learn how to do them passably, and then probably just back-stroke the whole mile swim.
From what I remember they are going to make sure you can do each stroke efficiently enough to survive...freestyle, sidestroke, breaststroke, backstroke. Each stroke has its purpose in a survival situation IRT energy conservation, distance to travel, speed you need to travel that distance, sea state, seeing where you're going, etc. You will learn all that there. The mile swim you can do whatever you want but will probably find that the back and side stroke work best unless you swim for your PT or are/were a swimmer...then freestyle it like a boss.
FWIW, I backstroked mine in 80ish minutes. I thought getting a tighter flight suit would limit the baggy/sea anchor effect but it ended up being tight in the arms/shoulders when I reached over my head. I couldn't do an effective side stroke or freestyle so I resorted to a hybrid alligator arm backstroke. It was quite the site. I was the last to finish by 10+ minutes and the butt of the jokes the next day. Great memory for me and I'm glad it happened that way....now.
Dang. So I guess I should learn the side stroke? It sounds like that's the next favorite in the energy-saving realm.
Ain't that a bitch! Even discussing swimming at API can make me feel old:/
I actually found the breaststroke was my most effective energy saving stroke because it is the easiest to get into a rhythm. Everyone was different in this, as I had a buddy who crawled practically the whole thing and hated the breaststroke because it was more tiring for him.
You will have plenty of time to learn all the strokes in the scheduled evolutions of swimming. They will build up your endurance with 15-30 minutes swims switching strokes along the way. Typical one of these swims would be starting off in breaststroke then 1 minute of crawl (freestyle) to get your heart rate up and then back to breaststroke or sidestroke. Rinse repeat until the time is up.
Going up one flight suit size is better or else you will might have some problems with a wee bit of chaffing down south.
