Gyro Swim Loop

Introduction

The swimming area at Gyro Beach in Kelowna has long been a favourite training site for open water swimmers, whether training for the Across The Lake Swim, or any of the many triathlons occurring in the Okanagan. The buoys that surround this area have always been big enough, secluded enough, and accessible enough to most Kelowna swimmers to train for events as short as a sprint triathlon, and as long as Penticton’s Ironman Canada race. Since most swimmers use this area in the morning, before the beach crowd arrives, parking is never a problem for swimming here.

One of the problems has always been the uncertainty of the distance of the loop, and how much that distance changes over even one summer, due to the buoys moving due to wind, waves, and the depth of the water, and how often boats illegally anchor to these buoys. And a safety concern on calm water mornings are the water ski boats occasionally cut too close to the swim loop, threatening the swimmers that are hard to see in the water.

And Now: The New and Improved Gyro Swim Loop!

The new Gyro Swim Loop is finished!

Over the winter of 2008-09, The Kelowna Masters Swim Club, with help and support of the City of Kelowna Parks Department, has developed a formal training swim loop that will offer some great new opportunities for open water swimmers. The course has been GPS’d to be exactly 800 m, with all the buoys around the semi circle part being exactly 50 m apart. We have asked the City to add a few barrier buoys outside of the Loop to keep the boats safely away from swimmers.

Coming soon will be weekly swim time trials for those who want to 800m race pace swimming in a competitive environment. We hope to be able to post time trial swim times on this site to allow swimmers to monitor their progress. By the end of the summer, we expect to have a 1500m out and back course from the Gyro Loop to a new marked buoy in front of Rotary Beach, south of Gyro, a great challenge for sighting skills.

Also coming soon will be open water swim workshops to improve your sighting abilities, to adapt your swimming to wavy and windy conditions, drafting techniques, swimming around buoys, swimming in a crowd, differences with wetsuit swimming, long distance swim techniques, and self-directed, downloadable workouts available on this website. Visit this website periodically for summer promotional events at the new Gyro Swim Loop.

Tips for Using the Gyro Swim Loop

First and foremost, heed the safety recommendations on the posted sign. They are:

1. Do not swim alone. There are no lifeguards on duty.
2. Wear a brightly colored swim cap, and keep an eye out for wayward watercraft.
3. Lock your valuables in your car. Consider carrying (just) your car key inside your wet suit.
4. Wetsuits strongly recommended most of the swimming season.
5. Swim in a clockwise direction.
6. Consider your conditioning and abilities when swimming this loop, as well as the weather conditions.

Matching the Loop to your Training

The Gyro Swim Loop has been measured to be exactly 800m, 50 m longer than a sprint distance triathlon. Two loops would be close to the distance of an Olympic distance triathlon, three loops would be 400 m longer than the half ironman distance or the Across The Lake Swim, 4 loops would be the equivalent of Peachland’s annual Rattlesnake Island Swim, and 5 loops would be 200 m longer than the Ironman swim distance. This Loop can accommodate whatever distance you are training for.

Sample Workouts

Download these workouts and put them in a Ziploc bag that you can bring with you.
These workouts are designed specifically for the Gyro Swim Loop and will help you get ready for the Across the Lake Swim, a triathlon or any open water swim race.

• Download Brent Hobb’s Open Water Swim Workouts
• Download Jonathan Smirl’s Open Water Swim Workouts
• Download Pascal Sutherland’s Open Water Swim Workouts

Many people do couplets in the form of a swim-bike or a swim run, bringing their bike and/or their running shoes with them to utilize after the swim. Lots of variations are possible.

How to avoid getting your car wet and sand all over the place.

Carry some water from the lake in your swim cap to pour on your feet once you get to your car. Put your wet and now clean feet onto your Crocs or Flip flops, and while sitting on the edge of your bumper, trunk or tailgate, remove your wetsuit and dry off with a towel. Get out of your bathing suit (discreetly!) or sit on a towel while you drive home. Driving home naked is always fun—no one really knows why you are smiling. Or just lie on a warm rock until you are dried off. Throw your wetsuit in a swim bag until you can hang it up at home. Or leave it to age and ripen between swims on the floor mats somewhere…

Suggestions Welcome

If you have any other good ideas to improve the use of the Gyro Swim Loop, we would welcome them, and maybe we would even credit you for them, unless they are really good, in which case, we’ll call them our ideas…