FindinFreestyle wrote:
Your 12.79 / 25 yard sprint predicts a 2.4 mile swim split of mid 50:xx Call it a 50:30 (3% slower is roughly 52 flat. 3% faster is roughly 49 flat) As I said, the faster you go the more it tends to underestimate, so if we give you a 5% range, on the high end you're looking at a 53 flat. Are you saying you could not do that if you were well trained for it?
That pace is faster than my only recent 1650 pool race time, done on a consistent 10-13k yards/week training. Not necessarily long-distance specific training, but more of a multi-distance freestyle training for the gamut of 50-1650. I went 21:17. Same meet, I went :57.31 for 100 yards free.
My eg.swim Rating, which scores your time based on your delta from the age group USMS National Record (SCY) or FINA Masters World Record (SCM/LCM), for both swims were almost the same (77.3 & 79.0), suggesting I'm roughly equal in ability at sprint and distance. I'm pretty much high 70's/low80's across the entire distance/course spectrum for freestyle.
The one time I did a two mile open water race (USMS 2 Mile Cable Swim National), I went 53 flat. My execution wasn't good, but even had I executed perfectly, I maybe would have gone 51-mid. Your formula, even with the conservative factors, says I should have gone 44:low. That would have been ~ 1.5 minutes behind Kurt Dickson, who's won the age group, was second overall, and finished the year ranked #1 in my age group in the Nation in the 1650 with a time that was over 4 minutes faster than my 1650. In other words, your formula is predicting my unremarkable sprint speed (I finished the season ranked 129th in the 100 free) to be an indicator that I should be an elite-for-my-age group distance swimmer.
The difference between me and your other 1:30/100 yard long distance swimmers is that I can briefly spin up to 180% of my long distance stroke rate and only forfeit ~20% DPS. But I'm not remarkable in that regard, they just don't know how to sprint.
Could I go faster in 1-2.4 mile open water races if I trained more for them? Sure, but I could probably go faster in the sprints if I trained an equal amount more for them, too.
I think you'd find more meaningful correlations between 200y pace and 2.4 mile pace.
"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"