Yes that is one of them! Again I think he's one of the best examples of what you can do....but damn the work he did to put himself in that position was lots and lots of swims to catch up to the guys who can swim front pack wtih ease.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

And for every single on you mentioned, there are at least 100+ who failed at the exact same thing.

Even you must know that elite tri coaches specifically look for top swim talent first, because it's usually impossible to close the gap to the front.

I'm not saying at all AOS improvement to pro-elite tri is impossible. It absolutely is possible. But statistically it's going to be very unlikely, like not much better than the odds of a random athlete non-swimmer being able to achieve it with similar training. And if you've spent like 5+ years busting tail, with coaching, etc. and it's still not happening, odds are high that you are not one of the lucky ones.

I mentioned it earlier, but remember that in cycling, LS was good right from the get-go. No 10,000 hours or starting at age 5 required. (Again, there's a lot more overlap between bike-run, so that is a major factor, but doesn't itself explain why he'd go to nearly bike #1 as quickly as he did when he was on top. )

Brother man, I know you go on and on about how you need talent to swim well. But 10k/wk is barely enough to be swimming fit, much less get faster.

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Strava

Even you must know that elite tri coaches specifically look for top swim talent first, because it's usually impossible to close the gap to the front.

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Front Pack runner who has *some* swim background, that's the winning ticket in elite triathlon....obviously the better the swim ability is, but if you are talking what look for 1st- it's runners who have swim background.


Front pack swimmer allows you to be "in the game" more and likely improves motivation to train vs the 3rd chase pack athletes who is always playing catch up. That's a MAJOR factor in all of this. The motivation to show up every single day and just get 0.1% better through consistency. That's likely the biggest factor in all of this.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Its awesome - good for him and what an improvement. He trained a lot with Eric L who seems like he would be pretty nice about whipping your but every day in the pool. A lot of mental strength to get this improvement too.

Yes, why do we even bother with swimming. Lets just give away our swim stuff and take up knitting

I hear you vbut disagree as a triathlete. Still, I averaged 20k/wk while still bike-running a lot (not cutting back on it) most of last year and for large blocks before that. Still chump change compared to 'real' swimmers, but pretty good for an age-group triathlete.

Saddest part - I got faster, but only a small amount. Like 30sec in an Oly race, and about 2sec/100 for 400-1500. I also did my own regular underwater video to make sure I wasn't doing anything awful. Sure, there are errors, but they're hard to fix and challenging for everyone, not low-hanging fruit.

After seeing my results for the past 2 years, I decided that on my on-race season, I'll settle around 10-13k/wk of swimming, for about 14-16hrs/wk of total training time with bike-run. That's all I can handle with family and life contraints and my middling results - it's not like i'm racing for a championship of any sort!

But I'm also real here - after swimming 20k/wk, it became abundantly clear to me that I'd never catch the guys who are finishing 4+ minutes in front of me in the Oly swim. Never. Even if I swam 30-40k/wk like a pure swimmer. (To be fair, I'm pretty sure almost all those guys were ex-comp swimmers, some of the were D1 guys you could find on the internet.)

In contrast, I don't do any heroic training on the bike, and I've almost always had a top 5 overall bike split in local olys. If you have swim talent, 10k is more than enough to swim plenty fast for an amateur triathlete, and 20k is what most PROFESSIONAL long-course triathletes due while doing a balanced block. (Short course folks can swim a lot more than that though.)

I'm not the expert on whom elite tri coaches choose - I do think you're right, but at the same time, I suspect the catch in what you say is *some* swim background.

I'll bet that *some* swim background from these swim coaches means that they can see what you do on your lack of experience and serious swim training, but still see that you have a high ceiling - which likely means you're already really good compared to similarly inexperienced peers at swimming.

For sure, they're not looking for 15 5k runners who are swimming 2:00/100 after a few months of swimming, or even likely 1:40/100 which isn't too shabby for a near-non-swimmer.

Essentially the protocol that has been very successful for the US is to basically give collegiate runners 3 weeks to "train up" for a specific swim test (regardless of said athlete's swim background; obviously that runner who swam trained from age 8-13 is going to be in much better shape than the runner who's never swim trained but is so good at running, a federation wants you to give triathlon a chance). How they do on said swim test basically determines the level of interest they have in said athlete. ETA: The swim test is basically 3 sets of X x 100's where the send off drops 5s every round. IE 8 x 100 on 1:30 / 8 x 100 on 1:25 / 8 x 100 on 1:20 or 1:40 / 1:35 / 1:30....They can use that data to pretty much predict your ability and forecast the amount of "investment" you'll need to do.

Again I think the biggest point in many of these discussions- the motivation/ability to keep showing up every single day and "grind". That may be "wanting it more" it may be availability to train up (many developing pro's simply can't afford to keep living the pro lifestyle when there is zero money coming into the equation; and thus quit to go get a "real job"), whatever it is; it's a big factor imo.

Early in LS's career the swim demands on him were not as critical as they are now. So he never had to go "all in" on the swim like a guy like McElroy did even though LS clearly looked into improving it from early on in his career. But that "line in the sand" wasn't really ever there in his early part of his career imo; that it's becoming more critical now.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I know that triathletes avoid the pool, but you're not going to get them to come to the pool by berating them as a group. Again, at least Lionel shows up at swim meets. Very few triathletes do. So give him credit for doing that and exposing himself to the swim snobs.

So how do you expect triathletes to show up at the pool. I can't answer that for you. I am a triathlete, and I am closing in at 900km for the year in the pool. It's still barely 3000m per day (which is really not much), but even that is really hard, with limited pool times, commute times, work, family etc. It is a lot easier fitting in bike and run training. It can literally be done out the front door at any time (or hit the trainer). A lot of this time management related for most age groupers. If you're a pro, there is no excuse for not doing sufficient swim volume.

My gut feeling is that triathletes on the balance don't want to learn a skill. Biking and running you just do more and you get faster. Swimming is more like practicing golf, or tennis, or batting. It is not just brute force. So how do you appeal to the desire to grow a skill? The problem is you can't improve a skill off 2 x 1500m per week. It just does not sink in.

So how do you expect triathletes to show up at the pool. I can't answer that for you.

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I can, that's the easy part. Demands of competition. Isn't that the whole reason LS has had this swim re-discovoery?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Yeah the gains with swimming are so small and it's just not practical to swim 20km+ as a triathlete, you need to ride and run. I found last season when I was 100% swimming that my times started really improving when I was hitting 30km+ a week, biggest week was 40. Small gains under 25km and 10km would be just about maintaining current swim fitness.

I will say though that you read about people saying bike fitness helps run fitness and/or vice versa. I've never found that at all. I have found that swim fitness helps both bike and run. But I guess everyone is different. So I wouldn't necessarily have an issue with swimming lots and running lots, but not biking much which is what I've done in the last. In fact my best seasons have been self-coached with high s/r volume low bike volume. Subsequent coaches have looked at Training Peaks data in disbelief, shaking their heads lol but it worked. My worst seasons have been with very balanced programs.

Richard Varga was an international swimmer and the likes of Gomez and Brownlee kept up with him. And there's been a few Australian Olympic swimmers who have entered triathlons and not been the fastest out the water. So I don't there is much of a gap between elite swimmers and elite triathletes, especially when they are so adept at drafting.

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I have had this "discussion" many times over the decades arguing that swim fitness helps the overall far more than anything I have ever done. My overall triathlon times were at their best when I was putting in the swim work and most importantly my overall enthusiasm for training in general was very high. I have a saying over the years regarding my triathlon training and that is "If I am swimming I am training".

It obviously helps that I really enjoy swimming but for me,swim training sets the tone and the rest follows.

I do agree with you on the swim fitness = helping bike + run. In fact, in retrospect, even though I didn't make the breakthroughs I'd hoped for on my swim times, I amped up swimming enough that it certainly helped my bike-run in the process.

I had one race block where I suffered a pretty bad foot strain that completely took me out of running for 4 weeks, and I only had 3 measly comeback weeks before race day, so I knew it wasn't going to be a great run. So I swam as much as possible, hitting 20k/wk for nearly that entirely block, including OWS and plenty of hard interval swimming. Even though my run was subpar, my race result was nearly the same, swam a little better than prior years, biked a little faster, and ran surprisingly decently albeit not at my typical paces.

As I continue to age up, I'm planning on increasing my pool time even more to get that non-impact endurance and fitness load, when I have to start really cutting back on the run. As much as i've sucked at swimming, I'm really happy I took it as seriously as I have and improved as much as I have, because I anticipate it driving the other two as long as possible down the road.

Andy Potts swam at Michigan at Qualified for Olympic Trials. Ben Kanute was very fast in HS, sub 4:30 500 yd free I believe. I don't think he swam at AZ.....was focused on triathlon from a very young age.

barring no break down in body and if it didnt ruin the fun and make it a chore and you had time etc, it just makes me think how good swimming would feel if could regularly do like 60km a week

Ben Kanute was a 4:40 500yds free swimmer. His best ranked swim event was the 1500 meters at 16:29 and then his 1650 yds at 16:17. His swimming speed is plenty fast to see why he’s done so well in any Tri swim.

Anne Haug didn't learn to swim until she was 20. She made it both in ITU (11th in the Olympics and 2nd in the ITU World Championship, complete with a Grand Final win - all in 2012) and obviously in long course.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

To repeat what SnappingT has said, those times might seem fast. But that’s what it took to win my D3 conference champs meet in those events. IIRC, those times aren’t even A-cut for D3 Nationals.

Fast to us, not elite for swimmers.

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Strava

My first post here after a long time lurking with no account, so forgive any nonconformance with informal forum norms. Replying to several things in this thread, firstly, the notion that there are MOP teen and college swimmers. There are, because I was one. I swam competitive from age 10 through 21 through USS and D1 college programs. Grand scheme, I was not very good, but depending on the level of meet I was swimming at I could range from other kids parents asking me if I was going to the Olympics to finishing several lengths back from everyone in my heat. I stuck with it because I was competitive enough, but my college was D1 for our basketball program not our swim program, so I was a MOP swimmer in a MOP program. At best. It was what it was.

Turning to Lionel’s pool times, there is a huge difference between 1500m SCM pool swim and a 1900m OWS in a 70.3. 1500m in a pool is 60 lengths, 58 turns, one start and one finish. When I’m struggling in a workout in the pool I start to focus on my turns, and I can literally see in my Form Goggles that I’ll start clocking at least 1 second faster per length, even faster if I focus not just in the tumble but also streamline and explosiveness off the wall. Depending on Lionel’s form in these technical aspects, that have zero to do with swimming in a triathlon, he could be losing minutes off his time.

Apples to apples, Lionel beat me by 7 minutes in the swim in Kona 2022, which is a fairly good amount of time. However, I swim no more than 2x per week and average between 7-9k yards, usually far closer to the 7k. Lionel swims at least double maybe triple that amount, plus far more aerobic conditioning and frankly, a much more powerful aerobic engine than myself. Not a great ROI on time in the pool IMO. There has to be something in his form - catch, body position, breathing - that needs improvement. And for some people, biomechanically, they may just never get there. I’ll root for Lionel for the win each and every time he races, but he needs to make some serious changes to his form if he wants to be second pack, and it’s not more volume.

Nah, he'd have to start as a Cat 5 so he'd just TT off the front. Maybe they'd allow him to start in 1/2/3 races because of his background, but historically that hasn't worked well. Legs to keep you in the pack, skills to keep you on the ground.

I think it truly depends on each athlete’s circumstances as to what the ROI actually means. IE LS improvements aren’t this massive impossible gap to fix, yet that difference is hugely impactful and the requirements are likely huge on his time to get that improvement. So is it almost to the point that nothing else matters if this isn’t fixed? I would say in world championships level racing probably. He is still so strong that he can still show up at 90% of the other races and beast mode it to podiums. Which I’m guessing he realizes and is prob thankful and annoyed by that.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Something like this came up during one on LS's races this year. Do the front pack swimmers have any 'reserve capacity' in their swim, or their early bike for that matter?

Let's say there's an uber-biker in the race like Lionel, but it's known that Lionel got his 70.3 swim down by 60 seconds. All the front swimmers know this, and it may behoove them to spend a little bit more energy on the swim to maintain a semblance of a gap going into the bike. If Lionel is only 30 sec back out of T1 it's all but over for them.

Maybe they're already doing this and have no capacity left to dip into. But my intuition is that they're doing just enough to keep perceived threats behind them, and if those threats start catching up they'll probably start going a little bit faster in the swim to keep them behind. If Lionel gets 60 sec faster the front of the pack may get 30 seconds faster not out of increased fitness but out of reaction to the threat. Just my perception of what may be happening.