How and why should we (age groupers) compare paces with pro swimmers? It's about your personal hr and rpe, of course their paces sound ridiculous to us.
An example though is Bluumenfelt who's on Strava. Most of his runs are about 4:45min/km or up to 5:30/km when he feels fatigued. This guy is running a 1:06 hm in 70.3! The equivalent for an age grouper is way slower obviously, whatever feels REALLY easy, no ego, no cheating like "yeah, I swear this is easy" while running with 150 hr and breathing through the mouth like a horse.
Of course he's doing massive volume though.
What's most important though is finding out works for you personally. I think that pros have this key advantage over age groupers, they have figured out what works for them. For some, like Cameron Wurf, it seems to be lot of intensity. For Bluumenfelt it's rather polarized. For Weiss as well. Probably no silver bullet to be found apart from the fact that it is individual
An example though is Bluumenfelt who's on Strava. Most of his runs are about 4:45min/km or up to 5:30/km when he feels fatigued. This guy is running a 1:06 hm in 70.3! The equivalent for an age grouper is way slower obviously, whatever feels REALLY easy, no ego, no cheating like "yeah, I swear this is easy" while running with 150 hr and breathing through the mouth like a horse.
Of course he's doing massive volume though.
What's most important though is finding out works for you personally. I think that pros have this key advantage over age groupers, they have figured out what works for them. For some, like Cameron Wurf, it seems to be lot of intensity. For Bluumenfelt it's rather polarized. For Weiss as well. Probably no silver bullet to be found apart from the fact that it is individual