Relationship between t-pace and race pace?
In run and bike we get good guidance on race pacing based on our tested FTP and VDOT. Perhaps I've missed it, but what is the guidance for pacing the swim? I understand the "as fast as you can while still maintaining good form", but I'm interested to understand what kind of wetsuit and non-wetsuit splits might be expected based on a given t-pace.
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Matt - slightly different concept here. We are able to use the % of FTP and the run pace in real time while racing, but we do not check our speed (or HR) during the race while swimming, only after the fact. Using T-Pace to guide one *while* racing is not yet feasible.
Having said that, I've noticed, based on looking at EN spreadsheets after the race, that we are able to swim @ 90-100% of T-pace in an IM wetsuit swim. I myself generally go @ 92-93%. YMMV, literally.
When was up at LP for the rally, I did a 1.5 mile (according to garmin 910) at a pace of 1:40, in a wetsuit. It is hard to "fake" it for 1.5 miles, so now I am thinking the wetsuit helped. But, perhaps, not stopping at each wall, the wetsuit, etc, did help me with that time? Or perhaps I swam a shorter distance and the garmin got it wrong?
@ Scott-- it is somewhat artificial to swim in a pool unless you're lucky enough to have access to a 50 meter/yard one. Not only might you be hanging on the wall, but because there is a wall you also get the benefit of a push off, meaning 1-2 less strokes and increased momentum (depending on your push off). A wetsuit is definitely worth some time. If you look at Coach P last year at LP, he lost a good 7 minutes without the wetsuit. I would just keep working on your stroke and time. A good test will be in a few weeks when you're up in LP and the course is actually set up.
@Scott - wetsuit will speed you up, especially if it is cut well for your body and armless. No arms leads to better turn over IMHO. The magic about the suit is the floatation. It lifts your calves, thighs and hips. That makes you ride higher in the water and therefore more hydrodynamic, especially if you you are a weak kicker like me....
Cool Idea, but it makes me think of "The Office" when they followed the GPS directions and where watching the screen and drop straight into a lake. I could just see 3000 IM triathletes all swimming head first into a buoy or boat because they were looking down and never saw anything in front of them.
I'm pretty sure all the technology already exists so it is just a matter of packaging it together. It is probably a pretty small market that would buy it and there the companies with the means to make it probably arn't interested.
Wetsuit and easy to follow swim course of LP absolutely gave me an advantage. I was swimming Easy and breathing every 4 strokes...
Patrick - what you are saying is of course feasible, and you should just find a vulture capitalist to back you. You're aware of this attachment for sunglasses whichs show a continuous heads-up flashing dot for power, HR etc. All you need is someone to program a chip for the ANT+ signals from a Garmin 910? And of course pay royalties to 4iiii.
Then, the next problem would be to get the other 2699 swimmers around you to go in an equally straight line.
Specifically, in a no-wetsuit swim at 70.3 Kansas I had a split of just over 39 minutes, so just over 2:00/100m. My last 1000 yd TT (the week after the race) was 15:30 in a 25yd pool...call it 1:33/100yd...I don't have a calculator handy on this iPhone but let's call it just under 1:45/100m. So in the race I'm somewhere 12-15% slower than t-pace. Of course the distance is longer, so I should be slower...but how much slower?
I also come out of the water not at all tired...by design, since there's another 4 hours of the race to go at that point.
Should I be pushing harder??
I have an Olympic-distance race this weekend - it's a major "C" race and I'm using to experiment with a bunch of different things. One thing I'm going to do is push the swim harder than usual and see how it impacts the rest of my race.
Funny, i never saw this until now, this morning while swimming my T-pace test, i was thinking someone should invent a goggle with a tiny heads up display in front of you, of course while this was going on, i lost count of my laps and ended up doing a 1350 T-pace test!
@ Matt - 5-6 years ago, when I had a 1000 yd time of 15:30, I did a wetsuit HIM swim in 33, a wetsuit IM swim in 1:08, a non wetsuit IM swim in 1:18, a wetsuit Oly in 26:30, and a non wetsuit Olympic swim in 28:30. Just for reference as to what's possible. I feel I would push my swims as hard as possible back then.