to push off or not to push off

I push off. I also decided to teach myself flip turns - there are several threads on this board that point you to some ways to learn how.

You're right, there's no turns in open water, but the slight difference in your swim won't hurt your training.

The best thing to do is to do some open water swimming to approximately the right distance to get a feel for what that's like.

I push off slightly and try to get back into my stroke as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that these turn-arounds ever 25 yards detract from your time, so you'll be faster on a race course than in the pool.........so it's only 'fair' to push off a little to make up the lost second or two on each turnaround

It's a bit soon to do an open water swim here, there's still ice on the lakes. I think I will start pushing off a little. Did you crash while flip turning - I'm not the most graceful swimmer without trying to go upside down to turn around.

If you can do a somersault in the water, you can do a flip turn.

I always thought it was SOOO complicated and I was sure I would crash - despite the fact that I am dog slow... (100yd in 2:45 at best...)

Here's the website from the other threads.
http://www.goswim.tv/drilloftheweek_comments.php?id=979_0_20_0_C#
My browser wouldn't let me paste directly, but hopefully you can get there...

I never crashed, but I missed the wall a few times (flip turned too early)

I push off lightly, just to get a little bit of momentum (slightly less than or equal to the momentum I had coming INTO the wall). I figure that's only fair. But I swim in an 18 yard pool :-( so I have to be really careful about pushing off. If I did flip turns and really glided the way I did when I was on swim team in high school, I'd only be actually stroking half the length before it was time to turn again.

I really think that it comes down to personal preference. There's arguments to be made for both types of turns. When I was in high school on a swim team, it was flip turns. Now that I'm training for tri's, it's open turns, pushing off. I haven't noticed that it's affected me one way or the other once I'm in the open water.

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I taught myself to flip-turn during the several months that I've been training so far in a 25m pool. Recently I've gotten out a few times to the 50m pool where my next event's swim will be held. I found I was a bit slower in the 50m pool, probably because I was losing half of my pushoffs and I think I was also getting a tiny rest with each glide that I'm missing now. The difference is not that great but just realize that your times may vary in the different environments. I'm still going to flip-turn because I'll want to use that on race day too. I'll worry about open water when it warms up enough to swim in around here or I get a wetsuit.