OWS stroke tecnique

I've done about 3 sessions in the last few weeks, but hoping to get in there at least twice a week for the next month or so.

I have got one half-IM under the belt, but I was lucky that on the day the water was mirror flat and I still only barely made it (in about 43min). What I forgot to mention in opening post was that if water is really flat things are ok (-ish), but if its even just a little choppy things get ugly and difficult.

It could be 2 things that I can think of.

The first is simply that you may not be relaxing like you do in the pool.  One possible reason is simply anxiety about the ocean.  The other is that sighting is introducing something you aren't yet fluid with so you struggle with tension and frantic kicking when you lift for a view.

The second thing I can think of is a problem that I've experienced with the wetsuit compressing my chest enough that it interfered with my breathing.  Even though I was getting air in my lungs, something about the compression messed with my oxygen uptake (or CO2 expiration).  The solution for me was a simple trick I was unaware of.  Once the wetsuit is on and I get in the water, I pull open my neck and duck down to let water run in around my chest.  Then I do the same at the cuffs of each arm.  This causes an immediate relaxing of the neoprene and suddenly the suit feels a full size larger.  No more compression or tightness.

Will try this next time, won't be suprised if this works. Like I mentioned before, I enjoy swimming in the pool so was thinking it might be a wetsuit issue.

Someone else also suggested I see how it feels to have a slightly shorter hand entry into water.

It could be what Jeffy said about the anxiety in the water. that's fairly debilitating and makes your breathing pattern tight.

based on what you said above also, when its flat its ok, but chop is not, people tend to fight the chop for one, and then you also try to maintain the same pace (not effort) and then by default the effort goes up by a function of the resistance of the chop. bring that back to the pool now, and give that equivalent effort in the pool, and although you are going faster because there is no chop, your effort is high and most likely unsustainable. (just a guess though)

stay relaxed on the effort, focus on even breaths and you should be fine.

Swimming OWS throws my pacing off. If I'm in a pool and I do a particular distance be it 50, 100, 200 or 400 just before hitting the wall I'll think to myself ok that was a 1:45 100. I'm within a second about 90% of the time and 2 seconds 99% of the time.

Open water I find I'm swimming much faster than I think I am at the time. So now when I first go out I'll think that's a hundred yards and I'll pause and check the watch and look back. This allows me to go vertical for a second and also check my heart rate which feels much different when you're horizontal and can be deceiving.

If I feel I'm good after that I'll just go with it and continue my swim. If I feel I was too fast I'll repeat as many times as needed to get my pacing right.