Growing up my parents had a hilarious book in the bathroom for your convenient reading titled "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook".  This book prepared you for things like: runaway trains, UFO abductions, and crossing piranha infested rivers.  Fortunately my situation was not quite extreme enough to warrant a chapter in this book, but I hope this blog post at least helps a few people out there.  

My pre-race plan was to push the swim hard and get out of sight and out of mind.  100m into the race I felt good and then all the sudden, BAM! I hit something and my goggles were split in two and broken.  Well, there goes my pre-race plan… After some array of feelings I recalibrated and carried on, goggle-less.

How do you swim without goggles?  Have you every tried?  The answer is simple, SWIM NORMAL! 

Here are 6 tips and how I used them in my race.

1.)  The absence of goggles should not effect your stroke technique.  After a brief moment of feeling disoriented from the collision I put my head down and swam normally.  I told myself things like “you can’t see anything underwater anyways so just close your eyes.”  It took concentration to keep my technique relaxed and normal.  The truth is, goggles have no physical effect on your technique.  However if you are mentally dependant on them, then your physical technique will suffer.  I should also say that this is something that I have experience in and have practiced in the past (see tip#6).

2.)  Increase frequency of your forward sights ONLY if you stray.  The tendency is to want to sight more often because you “cant see”.  But remember you can’t really “see” even with goggles on when your head is underwater, in open water races.  If I was on target during my forward sight (usually every 4-6 strokes), I would keep the pattern as normal.  Just because my eyes are closed underwater doesn’t mean that I am swimming crooked.  

3.)  Squint your eyes to see.   The tendency is to open your eyes wider so you can see better, in fact that lets more water in and makes it more difficult/painful to see.   You do not have to be able to read the sponsors name on the swim bouy, you just have to see the colorful, blurry outline of it, and swim towards it.

4.)  Blink rapidly when sighting.  I used this technique many times and I found it very useful for getting a clear “snapshot” of the buoy.

5.)  Slow down and find someone’s feet.  Thankfully I was able to calm down and realize that I was not going to set a swim PB today.  I was fortunate to find someone’s feet and follow him a good portion of the swim.  Innocent contact is part of the sport in triathlons.  I used this to my advantage allowing me to swim more consecutive strokes in-between forward sights.

6.) Practice makes perfect... or at least more competent.  Swimming without goggles is a skill and all skills need a certain amount of practice.  Do not assume you have the ability to swim goggle-less without practice.   I actually have quite a bit of experience swimming without goggles.  When I was younger (under 10 years old) I used to race without goggles.   In college I swam sprint distances and there is no time to fix your goggles.  My coach, the great Jon Leaderhouse, had us practice disaster drills to prepare us for all sorts of worst-case scenarios in our races, including goggles coming off.  

*Practice tip: Eyes closed swimming

In a non-crowded lane, try closing your eyes for 4-6 stroke cycles then only open them for a forward sight.  Each time take note of how your body strayed off line.  The first time you try this drill you may hit the lane rope.  You will quickly learn the “tendencies” in your stroke as well as any imbalances you might have.  This drill is not only good at preparing for worst-case scenario of swimming without goggles, but it also provides solid feedback on your stroke technique.