Louisville Swim Current help?
i am looking at the results of the swim times at Louisville combined with my own limited experience and trying to figure out how much of a help the current is or isn't.
In my case i would have expected a 1:32-1:40 swim. This is based on my pool swim times in RR of 1:34-1:36. I additionally would have thought my swim would have been even slower based on my swimming out to the right of the course as i tend to do in open water swims. I know I swam extra distance. My swim came in at 1:26 on the clock.
Here is where i am miffed. Looking at the pro results, they do not seem faster. I chose to compare them to IMAZ 2010 which is a one loop swim. the top 5 male pros were in under 49 minutes and approaching 48 at Arizona. Yet at LV, the top male pro was at 51:47 with one AG athlete at 50:04 and the top woman pro at 50:14, the remainder of the top swimmers were in the 53/54 minute range.
i am assuming this is partially due to the water temperature in LV of 86 vs the 64 at AZ. And that AZ is a wetsuit swim vs the non wetsuit swim at LV. Yet, the current does not seem to have compensated
so, the question is this, how did i, as not a great swimmer, expecting to do a 1:30s, swimming extra distance, stopping to tread water for at least a total of 1-2 minutes along the way and feeling crappy during much of the last 2/3 of the swim, turn in a stronger swim time than expected vs what the pros did.
and for more information, i overswam the distance at IMAZ and came in at 1:36 there last November.
Comments
I have been wondering this too. My time was almost 4 minutes faster this year and in the pool I was about 1:00 faster for my race rehearsals. I didn't swim any harder and actually thought I was wandering a bit.