Feel.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

What he said. I'm definitely not a FOP swimmer, maybe comfortably middle, but my coach talked to me about pacing early last year and I told him I had two speeds...all out and drowning. He told me that if we swim enough I would be able to predict my times within a second or so, and as is usually the case, he was correct. I think it helps that we have calculated my STP (swim threshold pace) as most sets are called out as STP -4 seconds or something along those lines. It got me used to swimming at different paces, and like Jason said, that comes down to feel.

slow swimmer here. feel. as others have said. first year I've had a coach and even though swimming is not the primary focus for my training since bigger gains can be had more easily for me in bike and run, she has had me include some level of pacing work in a lot of workouts. I tend to start my workouts blowing up early and my feel for my pace has gotten better the more I've worked on it. I'm still slow, faster than I was, but still slow, but my pacing is better my race swims have become a more steady pace affair

Thank you all so much, lots of great advice and much appreciated

If it's a half or full ironman, practice doing the entire distance in practice on occasion. While doing so, notice when you start going so hard that you can barely catch your breath. And then notice if you back off just a tiny bit, you can breathe a whole lot easier and relax quite a bit more. That threshold is what you want to stay under. If you go hard enough where you're breathing really hard for air, you only have a few minutes of that effort before you will implode and actually be going slower than your pace if you only went fast enough to still breathe normally.

Practice that once a week or so and then you'll be able to go right up to that fine line in a race and not go over it because you are familiar with the signs (panting, form getting sloppy) .

In shorter races, throw the steering wheel out the window and ride that crazy horse right into shore. :)

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
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Invest in a Finis Tempo Trainer- practice your pace and set it for your race as conservative or aggressive as you want. I use it to keep me on pace for ironmans otherwise I go too hard if I judge it by feel alone.
Happy Training!

Thank you so much for the advice I will give this a try, really appreciate it

Feel, Finis Tempo Trainer PRO.

Take the clip off the tempo trainer. Set your pace per 25m, it goes under the cap. Hit the start button and it should beep at each turn. Keep the repeats 200m or less.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Wow thats brilliant never see that before thanks for the tips

I have a real issue with these! It's the total antithesis to "feel." 1. You aren't allowed to wear them racing! 2. If you are trying to swim by "feel" this is not something that you can just pick up, it takes time; but with practice you can learn to listen to your body (not a beeper!!) and know what pace you are swimming at. Without looking at a clock on the pool-deck I can pretty much swim my threshold pace and adjust +/- 5s if necessary. Having said that looking at the clock every 100/200m or so should keep you on track as well. Feel is you and your body, nothing else!

On a slightly related topic another issue got me scratching my head. I joined a new masters team recently and the coach handed one of these to the first person in each lane, telling us "I've set these to 1:30 pace" or 1:15 pace or whatever (depending on lane ability), and we would go off doing 200s, 400s, whatever, keeping to this "pace" with 30-60s "rest" after each. This is in total contrast to regular lane training where the coach gives a target time, which also includes a rest element, to the lane and people swim at their ability, re-ordering themselves in the lane to suit ability, faster swimmers at the front. Why try and force people into maintain a "pace" when everyone's threshold is different! It makes no sense

RealAB is describing how someone can use that device to develop feel for pace. I've thought about getting one, particularly for sets where we are supposed to negative-split the repeats. Hard to get an accurate split in mid-turn.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

We used to turn the pace clock off and guess our 50 and 100 times... usually with 0.2 on a 50 and 0.4 for 100s.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Its like racing the red line...

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Hi

I am totally fine in a pool with pacing but its in open water and in races, I just have no idea and my mind plays tricks if im going too fast or too slow

Paul

I use to pace myself by breathing. If I could swim while breathing every 3 strokes then I knew I was good but if I had to breath every stroke I was going to fast. Now I breath every stroke because air is good and I understand how I feel. You may want to try the every 3 stroke thing to stay solid.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com