Just as a point of information, the world record for 45-49 men in the 800 scm is 8:24.75, so IMO 9:XX is pretty good for a guy in his late 40s. Not elite obv since the open WR is 7:23.42 by the legendary Grant Hackett back in 2008.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

This thread is just to much, I can't read through it all. Anyway, I'm glad to see Lionel's swim meet brought so much attention to people. Negative or not, he should read through all these comments and learn.

Well, this thread has veered off a lot from simply giving LS suggestions, to a more general debate on the role of talent vs hard work. I have enjoyed reading it a lot, but then I'm a swimmer. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I will say I have enjoyed the thread as well

And I’m not a swimmer. But I am determined to become one

Does anybody think that swimming with headphones/ listening to music may have an impact on the ability to focus on technique etc as required sometimes/often when swimming? I know that I struggle to focus on technique cues etc when I don't have music I imagine if I had music I'd be singing it in my head and not focusing on the goal of session.

Just saw Lala Gruden(Sam Long’s fiancé)’s post saying she’s doing relay with LS at Indian Wells. She will run. Possibly LS will swim? Which leg he does, dude knows how to enjoy race and help a fellow athlete so she can ease into the sport after having a baby.

While it would be ballsy to do the swim, he will bike it. I suspect he will experiment with things

Oh that's right!! He's been doing a lot of aero test on the bike so it's a good chance to test his latest setup.

I have a friend who used to be a pretty fast swimmer. For some reason, he just lost the desire to swim hard and now he swims with music at a fraction of his former speed. His backstroke in particular has gone way, way downhill but his freestyle is also a mere shadow of his former self.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Do you suggest "Shadow of his/her former self" could be a good name for a playlist intended for a swim training ?

No, I'm saying training with music is NOT a good idea. En Francais: Non, je veux dire que le natation avec la musicque est une tres mal idee'.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Thread summary: Swimming is a very hard sport and requires large amounts of hard work to become even semi-fast. Further, this work can not be done effectively if the athlete is too tired from other workouts (e.g., B and R). The swimmer needs to be somewhat fresh to swim hard enough to improve. Talent helps but only modest talent is needed for a big engine athlete to swim a 50 min IM swim, b/c 50 min is not all that fast as a top OW swimmer could do it in 40 min or perhaps even 39 on a flat water course. I think this does it and I'm sure if I've left something out, one or more STers will let me know. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

This thread definitely shows the PTO would be nuts not to offer Lionel a contract for next season.

I’m skeptical LS has the innate ability to swim a 50 flat. I think 50 is not a big deal in terms of talent for an itu guy but for anyone who was not identified in youth as a swim talent, it’s nearly impossible no matter what you do in training.

some data points to give some context to this.

he swam a 18:45 or something like that for a 1500m a few years ago. 1:15 - 1.16 pace per 100. he's done that. a 51 iron man swims is 1:20. 4-5 seconds slower is a lot.

LCB did a video not too long ago showing speed differences in a regular suit, a swim skin and a wetsuit over a 500 effort long course meters. regular suit was a 5:48 iirc, swim skin was 538 (so 2 s per 100 faster) and wetsuit was 522 (so 4.5 sec per 100 faster).

a 51 is well within reach as he needs to be able to do a 1:21-1.23 LCM in the pool over 3.5km. I assume we are talking Kona in a swim skin. plus that water is damn salty from what I hear.

with his 18:45 (not at his maximum potential in swimming) being what he has done in the past, I reckon he could get to a 51 for sure. needs to be fit enough it is not a huge effort to do that speed though. throw in some drafting which will help.

PTO hasn't delivered on its promise to even annpunce the races for next year. How can ANY athlete believe them enough at this point to go all in with a contract? Sanders would be nuts at this point to even consider accepting a contract with them.

While I do agree with the criticism of the PTO, I assume the athletes in question get way more info way earlier than we do.

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

i think the only thing you left out is that swimmers these days are all soft and back in our day we went really fast, even in rough water (since swims never got cancelled), which is really something considering that in the Golden Era all triathlon swims were uphill.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

How nice of you! Thank you!

Ya, not to derail the Sanders swim bash, but I'm just amazed at how often I hear these mythical PTO contracts come up. Maybe it will happen, but it sure seemed more likely to be believed back in August than now.

My point is simply that if they can't even put on an event on their own, let alone contract 6 or 8 events for someone else to put on, cant even announce their event, why should any athelte believe they can pull this off.

PTO is basically screwed. There shouldn't be a single event director who should run a race for them without making bank. PTO puts themselves in this situation. Think about it, big funding, lots of money, contracts with bonuses and appearance fees and massive prize payouts at events; all that hype. And then they ask a race director to put on a race for them because they lack the ability? What race director isn't going to rightly see a bunch of dollar signs and expect to be as well compensated after expenses as the first place finisher? PTO basically paints a "rich, desperate, and willing to pay" sign on their own forehead.

I'm guessing negotiations with RDs is a big part of the delay. That and they are presumably answering to the shareholders just why why need more money to make good on their promises.

I certainly wouldn't bet on any meaningful contracts.

I never said he should accept. All I was saying is they’d be foolish to not to do everything in their power to include the most talked about triathlete by a country mile.

Just wanted to see if I could stimulate some further discussion, which it did. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I will give Lionel credit however for swimming a 50:59 (vs Jan's 45:58) at their tribattle. Of course, that's with a sighting rope to help and ideal conditions, but it at least shows that he can get down to that speed if everything lines up right. Still, doing that it a scrum of folks who will not be courteously letting you swim by is a whole different story, and they're putting a 3-4 minute (if not more) gap on him right now, which is a pretty giant gap to overcome if you've been stagnating at what seems to be near your ceiling. Don't get me wrong - I think he's a GREAT swimmer for an AOS swimmer who really had true zero swimming background, but there's only so much you can do against people naturally born and built for it at that level - and whom are getting even faster nowadays.

I think the issue with LS and PTO is that he even with a better swim, LS is closer to 10th than podium, and if you start deep diving into the prize purses of PTO events, racing for $6k isn't really all that finanically viable. So then LS would need PTO to "overpay" him appreanace fees and I just don't think the PTO has that coin any longer. Covering travel expenses only go so far, which is why I think you'll get LS at the regional races that make sense and not a full time PTO athlete.

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

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I think that his days at the top of the sport are done but he will still crack a win at domestic races which will keep him in the spotlight for his fans and his target "clients" for his move to coaching.I still think he should have a crack at Ultraman as the average triathlon punter doesn't know much about the sport and Ultraman ,if marketed correctly, can add a lot of kudos to a race resume for potential clients outside the sport (just ask Rich Roll).