Swim Times - OW race v. pool R Rehearsal?
Keep thinking about my weekend race swim - not happy, perhaps I'm being unrealistic with only 6mths freestyle experience!
Whats frustrating is exiting the swim in 763rd place but then burning mental & physical matches negotiating slower bikers (I was 124th OA on the bike leg). Even though my bike wasn't executed that badly, the very fact that no one overtook me (or even held my wheel) and that I had no one to pace with (sure it helps, be it only mentally perhaps) may have been worth a good 5 mins. On a tight & twisty course, it would have helped to follow a few lines & gauge speed - spent most of the time trying to avoid some very ordinary & stupid riding by a large number of folks.
So, RR 1900m swim was 33mins (could have gone harder, pretty even paced - HIM swim in 41' (hated it, couldnt relax etc).
About right correlation between the times you think?
Feel free to be direct & correct my perspective! (I can take it! 
)
Thanks all!
Dave
Comments
Hi Nemo - below are my stats from UK70.3 and those of a buddy who I see at my local pool - he bagged a Clearwater slot in 3rd place - haven't seen him since pre-race to ask about his swim time of 37:13 and his slow T1 ! (in fairness, that time includes a 400m run uphill).
So, his exited in 473 O/A against my 763 - so, what's that 3:45' difference, not a big deal considering i had a bad swim & got kicked in the face.
However, it does represent approx (approx due to T1 times) 290 riders for me to negotiate AND riders that are BOP - from another perspective, I noticed a marked difference in rider speed & capability. I'm certain that the swim exit time - and who you exit with - has a major bearing on your bike time - especially on a technical course like this was.
Anyone say its not worth me focusing more time on my swim?
Steve did a cracking run however, 1:34 and 52nd OA was awesome on that terrain.
David Flint Male 183 M40-44 36 05:44:23 196 00:41:05 763 00:05:35 314 03:06:17 124 00:01:49 314 01:49:40 243
What would you swim without a pull buoy? For alot of people a PB corrects a lot of evil. A wetsuit is a help also but not the same. You can never really count on an exact distance with an open water swim. Also strange things tend to happen in a race, you go super hard for the first 100 yards and then die, you get behind slow people and do not realize it, there is wind, there is current, there is chop, you do not swim straight [a huge one], sighting is hard etc. Do you swim straight? Try closing your eyes and see how you do in the pool.
In sum, hard to say.
Ditch the pull buoy for any future RR's.
Sometimes having a lot of people to pass on the bike can be a really good thing. You can slingshot them all. Other times [when they are going really slow] it is just a pain.
As a side note ... I am always playing catch up on the bike and I actually feel this is an advantage more than a disavtange most of the time. At Kansas 70.3 I litterly passed over 1000 people because of my start in the second to last wave. At IMWI I passed over 700 becuase of my slow swim. In both cases I got a couple hundred legal drafts for a few seconds, not to mention you have a target to catch and pass, over and over again which is a huge mental advantage. As Chris said sometime it is a pain as well but I think the benefit out weighs that.
Ideally we would all have someone 10m in front of use going exactly the our goal speed to pace off of, but that just isn't going to happen (or at least I have yet to see it happen). My expericence riding up front a few times in the last two years has been that it is way tougher and can be slower. I say this is WAY easier to push yourself and ride fast with others around that you can frequently pass. However I will say it is easier to keep the VI low and stick to your watts out front.
All that said, I'm still working very hard to just swim faster :-)
I may be an anomaly, but for RR times in 25 yd/meter pool (I use both), with pull buoy and flip turns, my times/100 are 1:37/1:48. For HIM, I do about 34:00 (1:47.4), and for IM I'm doing 1:10 (1:50.4) these days (spread of 1:06-1:13) for wetsuit swim, 1:18 for non. But then, I'm notorious among my training partners for schooling them in races while they leave me panting in the rain during workouts.
David, race experience will make a big difference in swimming, knowing how to pace yourself, how to negotiate the turn buoy slugfest, how to swim straight, and especially how to draft. One thing you might also be doing different in the race, stroke wise, is losing focus on keeping your body linear with good longitudinal rotation (if that makes sense.)
This is something that I have thought about too . My RR swim I did in the pool with my wetsuit (flip turns about half the time) and It was 35 min. Then my last HIM was 38. I do know that includes the exit and for me I think I really loose form in the OW, b/c there are some many more variables, (people, waves, sun, no black line). I agree with what everybosy else said expecially the experience part. I can't say I think of it as "people to catch on the bike", for me it's just a time that affects my total. Negative I guess, but I'll still working on it. I've only been freestlying for 3 years.
Jessica
@Al - yep, makes sense regarding the swim form & knowing pace; I lost it completely and never got in the 'zone' at all - I red-lined in the first 300m or so, don't think it was so much from the pace but from the need to keep afloat and moving forwards in the 'fight' (I understand that turning buoy no. 1 was a a bad one due to the proximity of the buoy to the shore). Can't remember thinking about swim form at all, no 'meditative state' you can get in the pool. Thought I sighted quite well this time around but reality may have been different of course.Overall, was negative from the first 200m or so, didn't want to be there at that point - something to work on mentally.
@Chris - pulling in the pool has been a revelation to me - suffered with cramping all the time swimming on run/bike fatigued legs. Not using my legs in OW (probably did tho'!) is perhaps more down to being unable to concentrate on form/keep relaxed.
@Matt - catch up on the bike is fun but not so much on small country lanes/roads which are also badly surfaced - was also getting blocked a great deal too - folks seemed surprised that someone was overtaking at all. So, not only are you focusing on watts but also trying to anticipate what other folks are doing - so, even on steady sections of the course you'll still having to be pro-active. Certain that contributed to losing track of my 'feed times' which in turn led to some quad cramping later in the ride, was a hot day.
BIG difference in the riders I started to catch at mile 40 - more predictable!
@ David - we all hear a lot about how there is no need for kicking with a wetsuit hence no need to kick in the pool. Whenever I race it sure seems like everyone is kicking right in front of my face. If your legs are regularly cramping in the pool there is likely another issue going on, general fatigue, dehydration etc. The same issue will surface when you race, better to get it worked out in training.
It stinks when the road is narrow and people are in the way. Even brand new and very slow people need to understand the rules, especially blocking. While they may be out there just to finish and it is great that they are participating they need to realize that other folks may be in a bit of a rush and traveling 10-15 mph faster than they are making the riding side by side with a friend and swerving down right dangerous for themselves or others.
Maybe I am being harsh on myself & unrealistic!
Scrum = a Rugby term adapted to mean mass mayhem among a group of athletes struggling in close proximity
I guess while in a scrum you can feel like chum?
A few things to offer here, if I might:
-in the future, do a few open water sessions that feature a continuous sustained effort at your race distance before your race(s). Ditto open water RRs. These are sometimes challenging to arrange, but take so much surprise out of race day and do have a big bang for the buck for training time. As well, from a muscular endurance (and maintainance of swim form) standpoint, a 30 or 60 minute continuous swim is a very different monster from 25m, turn, 25m, turn etc.
-Best practice in a OWS rr is put your Garmin beneath your swim cap on the back of your skull, do your session, and check pace, course, etc afterwards. You'll definitely see if you're going out too fast, falling off pace in the second half, veering off course, etc.
-on the 'burning matches' passing people ... see "The Box." If this is gonna be a feature of your races in the forseeable future, work hard in your race plan to identify this, note some mental strategies to deal with it, and move on. Last year, for example, I knew i would be riding a 3-loop IM and anticipated I would be getting frustrated by the 2nd or 3rd loops as I was passing slower riders. So, in my mental race rehearsals (and some visualization of the execution of the race), I practiced how I would deal with this inevitability, and tried to coach a positive or neutral response ('smile and stay safe' or 'stay to the outside and yell 'left'") when i would face this on race day. Sometimes, 'the box' isn't completely natural, but there's a lot you can do to coax it beforehand.
-And dang ... a 4x' HIM swim on less than a year's training is legit!
I've referenced it before, but there was a great podcast by David Warden several years ago on his Tri Talk series, which referenced a duel he was having with another local triathlete. Every time they started in the first wave, he won. Every time they started in a late wave, the other guy won. He finally figured out that the other guy was legally drafting while passing a few hundred people, while he wasn't. Makes a big difference.
Mike