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Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!!
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https://www.slowtwitch.com/...Sibbersen__7060.html

I was hoping since this guy was German, Herbert was on it, and here it is!! So he prepped for a couple years to break this record(wonder if he knew the course had been shortened and got motivated). At 43 he is still a dam good triathlete, 1;57 for an olympic in his AG has to be pretty good still. But to have that kind of focus and determination, not really knowing if the day is going to even present itself in a manner where your goal is even possible, that is a tough guy.

And for those of you that understand, 10x400(LCM I presume) and coming in under 4;40 or so, that is a set that most ITU swimming studs would be hard pressed on. I wonder if he shaved down for this too, of course Herbert not being a swimmer, he would not have known to ask that. Maybe he can have a look over here and answer some more questions, that would be fun for the fishes...

And I had no idea he was Patrick's manager, so a lot of records went down to that duo, this year and the past few. That might be a whole different interview, some inside workings on what Patrick's contracts and outside business life is?
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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10 x 400's on 5:40 holding 4:40s... yeah that is pretty fast.

The picture of him with his arms raised... that is a huge lung chamber.

For someone keenly aware of the accumulation of heat and how it would impact his swim, he sure was lucky his cap fell off...
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
10 x 400's on 5:40 holding 4:40s... yeah that is pretty fast.

The picture of him with his arms raised... that is a huge lung chamber.

For someone keenly aware of the accumulation of heat and how it would impact his swim, he sure was lucky his cap fell off...

Amazing, isnā€™t it??

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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For someone keenly aware of the accumulation of heat and how it would impact his swim, he sure was lucky his cap fell off...
I had that same luck every one of my 15 swims there!!! Just have to remember, goggles on the inside...
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?

Thereā€™s plenty of value in recording performance. The trick is making it accurate and that the performance is relevant. Watch is also distracting for many of us who grew up in a swim environment (and we take a certain pride in being able to read a wall clock to manage out splits)

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?

My guess would be because it's not how swimming has traditionally been coached. Lanes are split by ability and time cutoffs are appropriately assigned. Also from my experience using a watch in indoor pools can be error-prone and limited in application for tracking full workouts accurately (free vs. pull vs. kick vs. fly, etc. etc.) though I admittedly haven't spent that much time trying to tinker.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


They do use a clock. There's one big one that everyone can see. Why is that better?

1.) Easy to see clock on wall versus watch on hand -- especially if the goggles get a bit fogged, and especially when the intervals get more challenging.
2.) Everyone in the workout is syncronized to the exact time.
3.) Watches slow you down.

Edit: I'm also sure that guy remembers all his times for those 400's should he want to inform his coach (if his coach didn't already witness the set).
Last edited by: SH: Oct 23, 18 13:06
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool?
---

Real swimmers are trained from an early stage the the deck clock is more important than the coach. They are also trained to pay attention to, well, everything. Everything includes the minutia of your stroke, kick, head position, flip turn technique... the list goes on. Also on the list is paying attention to your sendoff and arrival times. On that 10x400 set, I'd bet you money that Sibberson could tell you exactly what time he went for each one, assuming you asked him near the time he did the swim (hell, he might still be able to tell you now). Swimmers log that info into a mental database and use it as fuel for their next swims, especially the next time you do the same set. Once you add the watch, you take away the mental game of swimming. You'd think that this would give the swimmer more CPU processing to focus on the other stuff. But, in a sport where the clock is the boss, you'd be wrong.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?

Because that's what the wall clock is for. In a swim team environment, you will also have a coach on deck yelling out splits during the main set based off the wall clock or his own stopwatch.

Using a watch on your wrist(specifically starting and stopping each interval) leads to inaccuracies in split times and is very difficult to manage when you are doing intervals with 5 seconds or less rest (eg: 100's on 1:05 coming in at 1:00-1:02). With intervals like this, the watch becomes a distraction/hindrance during very hard sets.

blog
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [SH] [ In reply to ]
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SH wrote:
Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


They do use a clock. There's one big one that everyone can see. Why is that better?

1.) Easy to see clock on wall versus watch on hand -- especially if the goggles get a bit fogged, and especially when the intervals get more challenging.
2.) Everyone in the workout is syncronized to the exact time.
3.) Watches slow you down.

Edit: I'm also sure that guy remembers all his times for those 400's should he want to inform his coach (if his coach didn't already witness the set).

4) you can only access the buttons on the watch to the detriment of your streamline and finish.

And he might even know most of his 100 splits!
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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And he might even know most of his 100 splits!



Hell, I wasn't even there and I know his 100 splits,1;10 +/- 1.5 seconds

Perhaps Mike is not from a swim background(almost certainly to even ask this question) but he is like me now, in that I do most all of my swimming in a pool without a pace clock, thus I use a watch. I have a special one with a big face on it, and I have gotten very good at taking a quick look after a flip turn, about a 1 second delay. If I do a 1000, I will check every 200 or so, saves me from missing on my lap counting. Just knowing when I started is all I need, can look at any point and quickly figure out which lap or 100 I'm on. I think perhaps a lot of people are in the same boat, only if they didnt used to swim, they dont realize how important that pace clock is to us.

And Jan not using it in the race makes sense, he might have gotten overconfident at that last turn bouy when he saw a 21 and thought no problem!! But of course he already knew the deception of having a head/tail current, and took full advantage of just pacing according to PE.

I saw a guy in the beginning of the race, maybe 200/300 in, trying to stay on his feet. That's the guy I want to hear from, has to be a great swimmer who was thinking WTF!! He must have thought he was having a horrible day, not knowing he was on the feet of a 46 guy going for the record. I doubt Jan made an announcement at the start line, just blasted off at about 1;06 pace with that tail current and was off to the races!!
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


Thereā€™s plenty of value in recording performance. The trick is making it accurate and that the performance is relevant. Watch is also distracting for many of us who grew up in a swim environment (and we take a certain pride in being able to read a wall clock to manage out splits)


Other than times, there's nothing of value a "swim watch" can give me (with current tech, anyway). And I haven't seen one that can record pool swims accurately enough to bother wearing.

I have a $25 finger stopwatch that I use to get my times on race pace repeats. For longer swims, I use the clock to count laps, so I'm acutely aware of my intermediate splits/pacing. The only data I'm generally interested in recording is total yardage, and, for the main set(s),
  1. what was the rep distance & interval
  2. what was the race pace target time (and correlating race)
  3. how many reps did I successfully complete at race pace before failing the 1st time, 2nd time, and 3rd time


"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Oct 23, 18 21:57
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?

After a couple of decades of swimming, and many millions of yards, most "real swimmers" could tell you the time they did for every single interval in a workout when they got home. Probably some splits in there, too.

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"
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Post deleted by windschatten [ In reply to ]
Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [windschatten] [ In reply to ]
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And donā€™t miss your send off because youā€™re futzing around with buttons. Red top means red top, not the one or the three.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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All of those reasons make sense, I just like to have data in TP. fwiw when i do swim masters, I wear it but don't use it for send off times, i use the big clock and just let my watch record/document the workout.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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It's funny my athletes will all wear garmins to even sessions i'll coach on the deck. I'll know their splits, and when I check TP to "compare" what garmin had, it's never the same. Also about 1/2s off etc. To the point that I also add in the splits they swam off the pace clock/my clock in the comments section. With having to streamline in, grab the watch, hit the button, etc it just takes time out of hte split. So I guess in that light they are "faster" than the garmin says.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Curious, whatā€™s the benefit of having full workouts in TP? Iā€™ve never done it, but then I tend not to look back. I mostly know where Iā€™m at now and have a pretty good idea of what it takes to progress. at the sane time I donā€™t come anywhere close to maximizing my training, too many things on the go, so itā€™s really just a matter of fitting in what I can, when I can, and if Iā€™m lacking energy or motivation then Iā€™m going too much. But life stress is the biggest limiter for me, which TP canā€™t really capture.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I'm really happy for Jan that he broke the record met him 2002 after St Croix 70.3.

This is a question for him (Jan) in hoping he reads this thread.

How would his traning swim times compared this year to early 2000's when he came in 46:50? Was he swimming 4:40's for his 400's? Or a lot faster? 4:30's...
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [MTL] [ In reply to ]
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For all the swimmers chiming in, I agree with pretty much everything.
Growing up in as an ocean swim er NorCal, my first Hawaiin race was like being in an oven. 76-78 was Soo hot compared to 53-65.
Would never do that with a cap again. Mine might accidentally rip or something.
As for clocks, they must be analog. Screw that digital crap. Big sweep hands on a 24" face, screw those pidfly 16" ones.
And preferably 6 of them around the pool, all synced to less than a tenth of a second. If a coach doesn't spend 10-15 minutes every day doing that, he's not doing his job.
And, every day I knew every repeat and splits every 100 if not every 50.
My high school coach would make us repeat sets if we didn't know. AND HE KNEW FIR ALL OF US.

I have recently started to wear a watch ( yes, the horror) because with a wrist HRM I can get HR data while swimming; something I have not had in 45+ years of swimming.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Rumpled] [ In reply to ]
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I like to consider myself a real swimmer, no watch, can remember all my splits etc. Only thing I don't get is the analog vs digital clock thing. My pool has both but I'll take the big digital one on the wall any day. It's up high and I can see it from anywhere in the pool so no issues around all clocks being in sync. Since I am near sighted I can be more precise with my split times since I can see big digital numbers but it's hard for me to see which second exactly the pace clock hand is on.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not a Fish, but chime in because of the cap problem.
I also tend to loose the cap, so I have the goggles indeed under my cap lately. Although it seems that goggles hold the cap when you have them over the cap, you're in deep shit when everything comes off.

In a wetsuit race I tend to wear a neoprene cap under my racecap (as I wrote I'm not a Fish so do not perceive any overheating problems, on the contrary).
Goggles in between. Of course I loose the racecap sometimes.

The Big Problem:
One should or must wear the racecap, altough I never heard someone being disqualified after loosing it. So it bothers me when it starts lifting off, and I do not want to be bothered by something like that in a race.

So for my next race in Lanzarote (where the water typically has 17Ā° C) I plan to staple or sew the racecap to an old neoprene cap which I did not throw away yet (neoprene caps have chin straps)

A chin strap would also be an improvement for normal swim caps. In warmer water races I plan to sew a rubber band to the swim cap, as a chin strap.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


Same. In all but the minority of explanations given here (like extremely short rest intervals), none of these are logical reasons to not monitor and collect your swim performance with a watch. And they reek of "I just don't really know how to use one or what the benefit would be". I think I'll continue to be a fake swimmer and use my watch.

Edit: My apologies for the "reek of" part of that. It was inflammatory and unnecessary.

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Last edited by: domingjm: Oct 24, 18 7:30
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


Same. In all but the minority of explanations given here (like extremely short rest intervals), none of these are logical reasons to not monitor and collect your swim performance with a watch. And they reek of "I just don't really know how to use one or what the benefit would be". I think I'll continue to be a fake swimmer and use my watch.

So enlighten us, what benefit do they provide?
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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No one is prying your watch out of your cold dead hands. Weā€™re simply laying out the reasons that ā€œreal swimmersā€(tm) donā€™t /wonā€™t use one. Itā€™s ingrained in a lot of us from youth swimming, coaches didnā€™t want a pool full of kids all fiddling with watches when they were supposed to be paying attention to the instructions for the next set.

I donā€™t find post workout data to be particularly useful. To me, Itā€™s irrelevant after that workout is done. And it doesnā€™t capture anything that I really need to capture. If a watch were capable of accurately measuring power and drag numbers, that would be useful data. Until then, it seems like data collection for the sake of it. The computer between my ears works better than any current swim computer that fits on my wrist.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


Same. In all but the minority of explanations given here (like extremely short rest intervals), none of these are logical reasons to not monitor and collect your swim performance with a watch. And they reek of "I just don't really know how to use one or what the benefit would be". I think I'll continue to be a fake swimmer and use my watch.


If a watch could collect accurate data, I'd be interested. From what I've seen, swim watches can't even consistently get the basics, time and distance, right. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've seen a friend post a swim workout on Strava with something in the comments mentioning that the actual distance was different, usually starting with the phrase "F'ing Garmin....."


Rumpled mentioned he has a watch that tracks HR in the water. I could see some value in that. There are some sprint sets where I'd scrap a send-off interval and just go on the next repeat when a targeted recovery HR was reached.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Oct 24, 18 5:44
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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You've gotten enough answers, but I'm going to echo everything.

Distracting, plus you won't wear one in a race. When I coached masters, I had a "no button" rule. You were welcome to wear your garmin, but you couldn't touch it in workouts. That starts you down a path of being obsessed with "average pace" when downloaded into training peaks.Let me tell you, you might be able to do 42x100m on 1:30 holding 1:10, but how will that translate to an OWS with no breaks? That's why we do test (failure) sets. Also, from a very young age, we learn to use the clock (kids now don't always understand "top" and "bottom" with the advent of digital clocks) and remember our splits. With a properly placed pace clock, I can swim a 1650y/1500m and remember nearly all of my 100 splits, and most of my 50 splits. It's just something "we do."

Each sport has its own quirks, right? In cycling, they are oddly attached to their appearance. In swimming, we don't much embrace technology (maybe the guys at the super pointy/professional end) and do the same workouts that we did in the 80's. We keep it simple...work on technique, throw yardage at it to build fitness, swim often.

Edit: Many of us still wear "swedes" with no padding or anything, and I've been wearing the same pair since high school...a cool $3.75 (plus a few strap replacements) has gotten me through 12 years of swimming, including championship meets.

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5
Last edited by: boobooaboo: Oct 24, 18 6:01
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [longtrousers] [ In reply to ]
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longtrousers wrote:
...In warmer water races I plan to sew a rubber band to the swim cap, as a chin strap.
I don't think sewing is ideal with those materials. I think most race caps are silicone in which case silicone adhesive might work to attach a strap. I'd try making the strap from a strip off another cap or a piece of neoprene which may be more comfortable.
If it's a latex cap, you could use puncture repair adhesive to glue on a strap. You could use part of another cap as in the case of silicone, or you could use a piece of old latex inner tube.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?

Ok, I'll play against the grain. Yes, Real swimmers (tm) do not wear watches, but we are not real swimmers and as such do not train like "real" swimmers. We often train alone, without coaches on deck, and without fellow swimmers in our lane pushing us and helping us know how the day is going. We also seldom do the same sets that they do, as we are usually geared to a far longer swim. We bring in "toys" that most teams would be horrified at.....snorkels, bands, different pull buoys and 3 different paddle choices, and yes, a watch. I grew up swimming and swam though college, but my watch is now with me, even thought I know how and do use the pace clock (analog, for SURE!). My times are recorded, perhaps with a slight time lag and it wrecks my drive to the wall, but I am consistent in that and then have a record. I calculate my 100 and 400 times to see progress in test sets and then can see which part of my game needs work....speed, or endurance? I can visually see how things are progressing or regressing by a simple view of my account online when my mind is able to see the accumulated stress of 3 sports on the same page.
So yes, for many of us there is a huge value in wearing a watch, and very few of us will be now mistaken for "real swimmers". That's ok, because we can do much more after the swim portion than most of them. How many of train like real cyclists or real runners? Peter Reid tried that and was out of the sport with fatigue for a couple of years. We train like triathletes and along with other "old school" swim myths as hypoxic and underwater swims, bilateral breathing and a few other disproven techniques the no watch idea is in the same category. Don't be a swim "poser", be a triathlete.....it's ok.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
No one is prying your watch out of your cold dead hands. Weā€™re simply laying out the reasons that ā€œreal swimmersā€(tm) donā€™t /wonā€™t use one. Itā€™s ingrained in a lot of us from youth swimming, coaches didnā€™t want a pool full of kids all fiddling with watches when they were supposed to be paying attention to the instructions for the next set.

I donā€™t find post workout data to be particularly useful. To me, Itā€™s irrelevant after that workout is done. And it doesnā€™t capture anything that I really need to capture. If a watch were capable of accurately measuring power and drag numbers, that would be useful data. Until then, it seems like data collection for the sake of it. The computer between my ears works better than any current swim computer that fits on my wrist.

I totally understand why some people would choose to not use one; I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

There have been several major revelations that analyzing my post-exercise data, including swim data, has provided, and it's been fundamental in guiding my approach to structuring my own workouts.

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly. Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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I think the thing people are missing about watches is that messing with the watch is directly hindering your technique.
Good swimming programs are almost *all* interval-based and the reason for that is that anyone reading this can constantly improve their technique. You can get dozens of opportunities to check whatā€™s the fastest, technique a or b, each practice, if you constantly experiment and check your splits. This gets both harder and more useful as your brain fogs deep into a set, but also thatā€™s when you have the opportunity to find new things that actually make swimming the pace easier. Thatā€™s how you get fast.
Iā€™ve been on full-time swimming for five years, Iā€™m still improving, and itā€™s because of this a-b method of comparison.
To make that work, you need to finish well as have a global and local memory of times.
Coasting into the wall, doing some weird movement to stop your watch, and outsourcing your memory of splits directly inhibits improvement. You gotta be constantly paying attention and learning about technique in a time-based way, not just an RPE way.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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I started swimming competitively at age 8, I can assure you I don't need a watch in the pool. In fact, I'll bet I could recite the splits I dropped during a set after the set was completed. Going a step further, when I was racing I could probably tell you the 50/100 splits after a race based on feel and get within a couple of tenths. I'm not claiming to be a "better" or "more serious" swimmer than anyone else, it's just that these skills are hammered into you if you do a lot of swimming. The clock is God when you're a competitive swimmer, you develop a sixth sense for it.

Also, a watch would drive me absolutely nuts in the water. I can't stand any extraneous gear in the pool.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [gary p] [ In reply to ]
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gary p wrote:
domingjm wrote:
Mike Alexander wrote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


Same. In all but the minority of explanations given here (like extremely short rest intervals), none of these are logical reasons to not monitor and collect your swim performance with a watch. And they reek of "I just don't really know how to use one or what the benefit would be". I think I'll continue to be a fake swimmer and use my watch.


If a watch could collect accurate data, I'd be interested. From what I've seen, swim watches can't even consistently get the basics, time and distance, right. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've seen a friend post a swim workout on Strava with something in the comments mentioning that the actual distance was different, usually starting with the phrase "F'ing Garmin....."


Rumpled mentioned he has a watch that tracks HR in the water. I could see some value in that. There are some sprint sets where I'd scrap a send-off interval and just go on the next repeat when a targeted recovery HR was reached.

Of course I can't speak for all swimming watches, but I really can't even imagine what data your watch is calculating inaccurately. If mine couldn't distinguish the number of laps I completed, the time it took and the rest interval, I'd toss it in the trash too and look for a different model. But at the current moment, my watch wouldn't contribute any nickles to you.

The heart rate data has been particularly informative, although the chest strap is a bit cumbersome and has a tendency to drift downward during longer sets.

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
No one is prying your watch out of your cold dead hands. Weā€™re simply laying out the reasons that ā€œreal swimmersā€(tm) donā€™t /wonā€™t use one. Itā€™s ingrained in a lot of us from youth swimming, coaches didnā€™t want a pool full of kids all fiddling with watches when they were supposed to be paying attention to the instructions for the next set.

I donā€™t find post workout data to be particularly useful. To me, Itā€™s irrelevant after that workout is done. And it doesnā€™t capture anything that I really need to capture. If a watch were capable of accurately measuring power and drag numbers, that would be useful data. Until then, it seems like data collection for the sake of it. The computer between my ears works better than any current swim computer that fits on my wrist.


I totally understand why some people would choose to not use one; I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

There have been several major revelations that analyzing my post-exercise data, including swim data, has provided, and it's been fundamental in guiding my approach to structuring my own workouts.

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly. Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?

it isn't, but it also changes how I push off the wall and how I touch the wall. I do compete in masters swimming competitions, so it's important to me to practice good habits on the pushoffs and the finishes.

out of curiosity, what revelations?

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [hiro11] [ In reply to ]
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hiro11 wrote:
I started swimming competitively at age 8, I can assure you I don't need a watch in the pool. In fact, I'll bet I could recite the splits I dropped during a set after the set was completed. Going a step further, when I was racing I could probably tell you the 50/100 splits after a race based on feel and get within a couple of tenths. I'm not claiming to be a "better" or "more serious" swimmer than anyone else, it's just that these skills are hammered into you if you do a lot of swimming. The clock is God when you're a competitive swimmer, you develop a sixth sense for it.

Also, a watch would drive me absolutely nuts in the water. I can't stand any extraneous gear in the pool.


Again, I'm not insisting that everyone needs a swimming watch. My gripe is with the statement "if you XX then you're not a real XX". A secondary gripe is with the reasons listed above for not using a swimming watch during practice: poor accuracy, cumbersome buttons, not being able to see the numbers, hydrodynamics, etc.

As an aside, it's interesting that Jan is highly complementary of Lucy, while at the same time telling her indirectly that she's not a real swimmer. In what capacity she relies on her swim watch data, I don't know, but she's often seen swimming with one. I'd like to take the opportunity to suggest that Lucy is, in fact, a real swimmer in spite of swimming with a swimming watch.

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Last edited by: domingjm: Oct 24, 18 8:13
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?


Not, it's not hard, but what's the value of the time data if you push the button some indeterminate amount of time before you actually start, and some indeterminate amount of time after you stop? You can do just as well, if not better, just using the pace clock. At least with the pace clock you can sync your start somewhat accurately. Even the swim watches that supposedly detect starts and stops leave a lot to be desired when it comes to accuracy. If you don't finish the rep by touching the wall with the watch hand before the other hand, the time data is garbage. Even if you do touch with the watch hand, it's suspect because the start detection logic is far from perfect.

That's why I use a finger stopwatch when I actually want accurate rep times. I can easily sync the start with my push-off, and the stop with my touching of the wall with either hand without altering my technique.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Oct 24, 18 8:25
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly.

What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?

blog
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [stevej] [ In reply to ]
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stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly.


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?

Stroke count, pace per length, splits for EVERY length so one can see pacing....all pretty valuable, especially if one swims alone.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
domingjm wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
No one is prying your watch out of your cold dead hands. Weā€™re simply laying out the reasons that ā€œreal swimmersā€(tm) donā€™t /wonā€™t use one. Itā€™s ingrained in a lot of us from youth swimming, coaches didnā€™t want a pool full of kids all fiddling with watches when they were supposed to be paying attention to the instructions for the next set.


I donā€™t find post workout data to be particularly useful. To me, Itā€™s irrelevant after that workout is done. And it doesnā€™t capture anything that I really need to capture. If a watch were capable of accurately measuring power and drag numbers, that would be useful data. Until then, it seems like data collection for the sake of it. The computer between my ears works better than any current swim computer that fits on my wrist.


I totally understand why some people would choose to not use one; I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

There have been several major revelations that analyzing my post-exercise data, including swim data, has provided, and it's been fundamental in guiding my approach to structuring my own workouts.

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly. Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?


it isn't, but it also changes how I push off the wall and how I touch the wall. I do compete in masters swimming competitions, so it's important to me to practice good habits on the pushoffs and the finishes.

out of curiosity, what revelations?


I can understand that.

There were two pretty important observations I made, that I wouldn't have caught without a detailed record of my data. First, my swim performance (and thus perceived exertion at a given pace) are substantially improved if they occur between about 4 and 8 hours of a long bike or run. I can't explain why, but it's a robust trend. So that's when I swim. Second, during sets of 400 and 500yd, I noticed that my efficiency (say what you will about the usefulness of SWOLF, but it was helpful for me here) declined pretty dramatically at about 200yd. I decreased those set lengths to ~300yd in order to focus on form, and then slowly increased the set lengths accordingly.

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [stevej] [ In reply to ]
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stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly.


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?

In addition to my previous responses, a pace clock can't ā€‹provide a detailed historical record of training and performance (including rest and speed), record your heart rate or provide lap alerts.

What can a pace clock do that a swim watch can't?

And when you travel, what happens when your pool doesn't have a pace clock?

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly.


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?

In addition to my previous responses, a pace clock can't ā€‹provide a detailed historical record of training and performance (including rest and speed), record your heart rate or provide lap alerts.

What can a pace clock do that a swim watch can't?

And when you travel, what happens when your pool doesn't have a pace clock?

The original question was....

Quote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?

And my answer is that a pace clock is all one really needs. There is zero value to swimmers in all the other metrics a watch provides because they have an extremely high understanding/feeling/awareness of themselves in the water and are able to tell those other metrics on their own without a device. Swimmers can tell when a 50 yard or 100 yard split is 0.5 sec slower or faster than the previous one during 500 yard repeats without anyone or any device telling them. That's how much awareness swimmers have in the water. I haven't swam competitively since I graduated college 10 years ago and I can still tell anyone the splits I've held in training from 10-20 years ago. There's also the fact that a watch is extremely inaccurate at recording those metrics.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't wear a watch. I'm just answering the question on why swimmers don't wear one which boils down to just "they don't need it".

If a pool doesn't have a pace clock, absolutely wear a watch or put a watch right next to your lane. I swim in a pool that doesn't have a pace clock so I'm forced to wear a watch. But I never look at any of the data.

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Last edited by: stevej: Oct 24, 18 9:18
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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ggeiger wrote:
stevej wrote:


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?


Stroke count, pace per length, splits for EVERY length so one can see pacing....all pretty valuable, especially if one swims alone.


Can your watch pick up stroke count data from the other hand? If not, that stroke count value would be of minimal value.

I count strokes in my head every length as I go, anyway. Much more valuable for me to know the stroke count mid-rep at the turn as I'm swimming than to see it on a screen hours later.

As for the splits and pacing, I have my doubts about the accuracy, but I'm certainly open to having my mind changed. Have you ever done a swim with someone recording splits on a stopwatch and compared them to the data on your watch?

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Oct 24, 18 9:48
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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ggeiger wrote:
stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly.


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?


Stroke count, pace per length, splits for EVERY length so one can see pacing....all pretty valuable, especially if one swims alone.

agree to disagree. I don't really care about stoke count (when I bother to count I'm typically about 14-16 strokes per length, a little less if I try and stretch it out or extend the underwaters). I know if my pace is falling off or picking up to a finer degree than a watch can tell me, and more importantly why its falling off / picking up. By the time you get around to looking at the data post workout, it's too late, becasue you won't remember what that felt like, and to me, linking the pace with what the pace feels like is critical to swim performance. That's stuff you need to know NOW, IMO. If you were able to link that data in RT to a display on deck, that might be useful to me. but until we get there, I don't see a heck of a lot of value.

The one area that I think a watch could be useful, maybe, is for a triathlete trying to manage overall training stress, but even then, if you are doing somewhat consistent workouts, it may not give you that much more than just plugging a TSS number into TP based on how long the practice was and the subjective intensity of the day.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [gary p] [ In reply to ]
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gary p wrote:
ggeiger wrote:
stevej wrote:


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?


Stroke count, pace per length, splits for EVERY length so one can see pacing....all pretty valuable, especially if one swims alone.


Can your watch pick up stroke count data from the other hand? If not, that stroke count value would be of minimal value.

I count strokes in my head every length as I go, anyway. Much more valuable for me to know the stroke count mid-rep at the turn as I'm swimming than to see it on a screen hours later.

As for the splits and pacing, I have my doubts about the accuracy, but I'm certainly open to having my mind changed. Have you ever done a swim with someone recording splits on a stopwatch and compared them to the data on your watch?

I think youā€™re being a bit silly. If you seriously believe you can remember better than a mechanical device all those metrics you are quite impressive. The watch will be accurate enough, and since I am very consistent in how I operate it, it will be repeatable enough. Far better than my memory. Most people canā€™t even remember their workout as they march in with the sheet of paper in front of them.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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I guess another thing is that I don't really want to know or care about every split in the workout. I find I'm using the pace clock less and less, and going more on feel than ever before. The nature of a lot of my swims (and I haven' been in much for the last couple of months, taking a little break til the holidays for mental sanity) is that I do a lot of builds and sets where the pace changes mid-length (eg sprinters game). Stroke count per length, pace per length, or any other metrics that a watch could capture wouldn't tell me anything about how well I executed the objectives of that set. And because of these types of sets, the watch could indicate that you are improving when in fact you are regressing, or vice versa.

If that motivates you, great. I've thought about getting a watch many times, and it always comes back to "what will I do differently if I had this data?" My answer has always been "nothing". So I have yet to adopt.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [gary p] [ In reply to ]
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gary p wrote:
domingjm wrote:
Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?


Not, it's not hard, but what's the value of the time data if you push the button some indeterminate amount of time before you actually start, and some indeterminate amount of time after you stop? You can do just as well, if not better, just using the pace clock. At least with the pace clock you can sync your start somewhat accurately. Even the swim watches that supposedly detect starts and stops leave a lot to be desired when it comes to accuracy. If you don't finish the rep by touching the wall with the watch hand before the other hand, the time data is garbage. Even if you do touch with the watch hand, it's suspect because the start detection logic is far from perfect.

That's why I use a finger stopwatch when I actually want accurate rep times. I can easily sync the start with my push-off, and the stop with my touching of the wall with either hand without altering my technique.

I don't have any experience with the start/stop detection algorithms. But pressing a button takes a fraction of a second before and after. We're talking less than 1% error on a typical set of 100s. Is that really not accurate enough for you?

I do agree though that there's something to be argued for start and finish technique if you're overly focused on the watch though, so there's that.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [windschatten] [ In reply to ]
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windschatten wrote:
Pace clock is just so much more convenient. No watch to squint at for send-offs and you can get your time the moment you touch, so you always know if you are on target pace without fussing around with buttons.
Also, in a crowded lane, a watch can definitely be an injury risk.

I really donā€™t mind people wearing a watch at practice, but for Christssake turn off that shrill push-off chirp on your watches in a Masters workout. Super annoying to other people swimming a different pace. Thank You.
.



I always find this kind of response funny. Do you think I have to break out a keyboard and send commands to my Fenix 5 to stop/start the lap, etc?


It's literally 1 button you have to press to stop a lap, and then the same button again to start the lap.


I am not a "real swimmer", but I make use of both, the clock on the wall helps me figure out in what rep I'm at, especially when I'm doing 10x, or 20x, and I use the watch to record my workout.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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ggeiger wrote:
gary p wrote:
ggeiger wrote:
stevej wrote:


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?


Stroke count, pace per length, splits for EVERY length so one can see pacing....all pretty valuable, especially if one swims alone.


Can your watch pick up stroke count data from the other hand? If not, that stroke count value would be of minimal value.

I count strokes in my head every length as I go, anyway. Much more valuable for me to know the stroke count mid-rep at the turn as I'm swimming than to see it on a screen hours later.

As for the splits and pacing, I have my doubts about the accuracy, but I'm certainly open to having my mind changed. Have you ever done a swim with someone recording splits on a stopwatch and compared them to the data on your watch?


I think youā€™re being a bit silly. If you seriously believe you can remember better than a mechanical device all those metrics you are quite impressive. The watch will be accurate enough, and since I am very consistent in how I operate it, it will be repeatable enough. Far better than my memory. Most people canā€™t even remember their workout as they march in with the sheet of paper in front of them.


I think what people are saying is that the watch is moving your mind to focus on things that don't matter, and probably doing it at the expense of things that do matter. You think stroke count FOR EVERY LENGTH is important, but it's not. You think your pace BY EVERY SINGLE LENGTH is important, but it's not. All swimmers can maintain very accurate track of where these metrics are relative to status quo with a simple pace clock anyway. Keeping exact track of every little detail in some database is not seeing the forest through the trees.

For example... Nobody is going to have some Eureka! moment by discovering an anomaly 50m split after the workout as they examine their extensively accurate and detailed split data. It's just not going to happen. You might have a chance of a Eureka! moment if you are looking at your splits real time (might), and can correlate whatever stroke adjustment you might have just tried. After a workout are you going to remember any stroke differential on a per split level? Most likely not.

I think we've got to give experienced swimmers the benefit of the doubt about knowing the best way to approach their sport -- especially when they've seen and experimented with the newfound tech and found it lacking.

Edit: That being said, if I found myself at a pool or out in open water without a pace clock, I might well use a watch. It's just that the watch is getting put away when a better tool is available.
Last edited by: SH: Oct 24, 18 10:23
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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ggeiger wrote:
I think youā€™re being a bit silly. If you seriously believe you can remember better than a mechanical device all those metrics you are quite impressive. The watch will be accurate enough, and since I am very consistent in how I operate it, it will be repeatable enough. Far better than my memory. Most people canā€™t even remember their workout as they march in with the sheet of paper in front of them.

Who said anything about remembering all those metrics? I said stroke count post-facto wasn't nearly as valuable as knowing it live-time. And if you think a stroke count of "15" that really could be 15, 16, or 17 is "accurate enough," that's fine, but the difference between those three numbers is pretty significant to me. Same with rep times. There are sets where I'm chasing incremental gains as small as 0.10 second per 25. An inertia sensor on one wrist isn't going to give me that kind of accuracy, let alone a watch where I have to push a button on my wrist to start and stop.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [stevej] [ In reply to ]
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stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:
stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:

So again, I completely understand if you're not interested in the data that a swim watch provides, but many of the reasons listed above for not using one are a little silly.


What useful data does a swim watch provide that a pace clock doesn't?


In addition to my previous responses, a pace clock can't ā€‹provide a detailed historical record of training and performance (including rest and speed), record your heart rate or provide lap alerts.

What can a pace clock do that a swim watch can't?

And when you travel, what happens when your pool doesn't have a pace clock?


The original question was....

Quote:
I have heard this before. Why do "real swimmers" not use a watch in the pool? Do they not find value in recording performance or sharing that data with a coach?


And my answer is that a pace clock is all one really needs. There is zero value to swimmers in all the other metrics a watch provides because they have an extremely high understanding/feeling/awareness of themselves in the water and are able to tell those other metrics on their own without a device. Swimmers can tell when a 50 yard or 100 yard split is 0.5 sec slower or faster than the previous one during 500 yard repeats without anyone or any device telling them. That's how much awareness swimmers have in the water. I haven't swam competitively since I graduated college 10 years ago and I can still tell anyone the splits I've held in training from 10-20 years ago. There's also the fact that a watch is extremely inaccurate at recording those metrics.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't wear a watch. I'm just answering the question on why swimmers don't wear one which boils down to just "they don't need it".

If a pool doesn't have a pace clock, absolutely wear a watch or put a watch right next to your lane. I swim in a pool that doesn't have a pace clock so I'm forced to wear a watch. But I never look at any of the data.

I don't think you appreciate how many swimmers you're calling "not real swimmers". My apologies for nitpicking, but the definition of a swimmer is eluding me. While your Mensa-level recollection of your gradeschool splits are impressive, is that really a criterion for a real swimmer? Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?

-------

Usually 1/2s difference. Maybe your good at it and maybe your not. Like I said, I dont care if my athletes wear watches on not. When I'm on deck, I always note my own splits that I get from them, not their garmin, as it's always slower. I've never had a swimmer swim a same or faster split when using a garmin that a wall/stop watch on deck gets.

ETA: I do want accuracy. I hate when I know the what the split was and the garmin shows something like 0.42s or 0.63s difference, when I have the split on my coaching stop watch. I also think it's not built for accuracy. You cant stop and start in good position and get an accurate split.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
Last edited by: B_Doughtie: Oct 24, 18 10:41
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:


I don't have any experience with the start/stop detection algorithms. But pressing a button takes a fraction of a second before and after. We're talking less than 1% error on a typical set of 100s. Is that really not accurate enough for you?

I do agree though that there's something to be argued for start and finish technique if you're overly focused on the watch though, so there's that.


I think the time it takes to stop a wrist watch after a proper finish takes the better part of a second, if not more. Furthermore, the variability is probably pretty substantial. Surely there's a big difference in how quickly you can get it stopped when you touch with one hand vs. the other. Add in the delay from start button push to actual start (which is probably more consistent, but is still introducing further inaccuracy), and your getting data that's not very clean.

On a set of 300's, that margin of error probably isn't that critical. On 100's, it is, never mind 75's, 50's, and 25's.

If you get something useful out of a swim watch, with or without automatic stop-start detection, great for you. I wouldn't tell you not to use it. Just know that the data isn't very granular. And because it's not very granular, it's not valuable to a high-level swimmer.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Oct 24, 18 10:49
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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B_Doughtie wrote:
Like, really, how difficult is it to press a button when you start and press the same button again when you stop?

-------

Usually 1/2s difference. Maybe your good at it and maybe your not. Like I said, I dont care if my athletes wear watches on not. When I'm on deck, I always note my own splits that I get from them, not their garmin, as it's always slower. I've never had a swimmer swim a same or faster split when using a garmin that a wall/stop watch on deck gets.
.

And having swam through college on scholarship and done many years of masters teams afterwards, how many times do ā€œreal swimmersā€ leave ON THE TOP? My experience has been every single time they leave early( 1-2 seconds), so those clock times are less accurate than a watch. The real world of swimmers is not what many think, especially in a group.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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The master's group I coach twice a week is roughly 16-17 people in 4 lanes. I have 2 "real swimmers", sometimes 3, but everyone else is a triathlete/adult onset swimmer. I actually don't care when they leave, as I note when they leave. So if they leave early and come back in on the 9, that's not 59, that's a 60 split....if they want to claim it as 59, I cant stop them, I'll call them on it and mark it as a 60. Within that group, I personally coach 9 so, everyone there is "honest". But again, my masters is very freestyle/triathlon focused sets. We aren't doing IM much, we aren't doing breaststroke etc etc.

So if they leave early, which none of my do, I simply would call their BS time out. Most dive under/bend to push off when the clock hits the 9 and pushes off on the top.

ETA: I do laugh when my athletes look down on their watches when they are going on an interval, when the big ass pace clock is 10 yards away easily seen. That drives me nuts when they do that....about once every 3 months they'll get wrath from me "stop looking at your damn watches and go off the pace clock when on an interval".

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
Last edited by: B_Doughtie: Oct 24, 18 10:55
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:

I don't think you appreciate how many swimmers you're calling "not real swimmers". My apologies for nitpicking, but the definition of a swimmer is eluding me. While your Mensa-level recollection of your gradeschool splits are impressive, is that really a criterion for a real swimmer? Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?

Show me where I called anyone not a real swimmer, especially Lucy?

Someone asked why "real swimmers" (deem that whatever you will) don't wear watches. I provided an answer. I'm not sure what else you want.

I wear a watch on all my swims like I said before. Does that make me a not a real swimmer? I don't think so....

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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Man, this thread sure took a turn in a direction I never thought it would. And it took me about 2/3 of it to figure out that you all were not talking about my timex ironman watch. I figured that Jan was talking about time only, like I was thinking, but you all are talking about gps tracking, lap counting, and timing!! Way over my head..

I think having time and distance is great, but only in "real" time. Dont really see much benefit at all to have these metrics hours later in a data base, especially when you can't really trust them with todays technology. But even if you could, what the hell are you thinking about during your swims while some computer is watching and recording your every move? For me it is meditative to count my strokes, and virtually every lap I flip on the same exact spot, could do it blindfolded even. And I think about my pull, kick timing, and a few other things that slip away if you dont pay attention. I can't imagine thinking about anything else outside of what I'm doing at that moment, do you all with gadgets daydream out there..

Anyway good stuff, how about that set of 10x400's he did?? (-;
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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i think its a fantastic achievement by jan, given that he is not a full time athlete .
at the same time its a triathlon and he did not train for a triathlon ( but i guess non of the guys in the fastest top 10 swim splits have come close to top 10 overall .... )


besides iam very surprised that you dont cry foul given its a shorter swim now given that you were so outspoken about it the previous years lol

so i see it a bit from both sides amazing as very very few atletes that qualifiy for kona could do that even if they just focused on swimming , but also if i want to swim fast why not do a swim meet as his bike was MOP and run BOP times .
of course i see the marketing potential for his company etc so i totally get it. at the same time when you not focus on the overall time its not triathlon. i

so maybe we should have a best triathletes record ( you have to be top 10 overall or in age group to count) I guess diettrich would still be fastest (?) and a swim record for people that are fast for the swim prime but not neccesarily for overall placing.

I would be actually quite interested who has the 10 fastest swim times while finishing in the top 10 i assume besides diettrich farris and potts would be in there ?

and i guess in the female race in 8 years time it could well be lucy holding all top 10 positions ... and maybe wendy ingraham one or two ?

for the rest of the thread which makes me smile ..
i dont care about pace clock or watch but what i do care about is when people flaffing around with their watch when they should be focusing on their stroke and what they could do better , and on the task on hand .
and as a wise man once said if you cant rember your swim set your set is to complicated ....
and quite frankly its pathetic if people think you need a sport watch to see that your stroke falls apart after 200m ... i feel that excatly without a watch if i have a normal push off the wall but dont hit the wall as i would expect to so as long as i have the flags in the pool i know whats going on. and if i dont have them i dont care either. and the only argument for a watch i can see is his point he uses a gps watch to see how straight he goes. at the same time its hard for a swimmer like him to go of course as there is usally loads of buoys in races but for leser swimmer i see this as a good argument to imporove swiming straight , a it never fails to amze me how many people get lost in races in the swim .

often i wonder if people that dont have the co ordiantion to tumble turn get lost more often in the water ?
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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Anyway good stuff, how about that set of 10x400's he did?? (-;

--------------

What I took more from any of that is how dialed in with specific set to get him most dialed in. I could see the 400 being a really good value because you can swim "hard" but still long enough that it translates well into open water and good for long swims.

2nd thing I took away- Just how close his ows splits (was it 1:12/100 or atleast he mentioned it in the story that's what the split came to) was to his swim splits in the pool he wanted to do. I find that fascinating as hell, that's mozart level of "perfection" imo.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.
Well, except it's not elitist in this case because real swimmers don't wear a watch to track their swim workouts. They just don't. It's as close to a fact as an opinion can get.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:

There were two pretty important observations I made, that I wouldn't have caught without a detailed record of my data. First, my swim performance (and thus perceived exertion at a given pace) are substantially improved if they occur between about 4 and 8 hours of a long bike or run. I can't explain why, but it's a robust trend. So that's when I swim.
Second, during sets of 400 and 500yd, I noticed that my efficiency (say what you will about the usefulness of SWOLF, but it was helpful for me here) declined pretty dramatically at about 200yd.


The first of these could have been found with a paper training log, never mind anything digital.
The second is something a swimmer would have noticed without a watch, and probably not have paid much attention to. SWOLF is an artificial metric, times and split times are much more interesting.

As monty says though, we're not even talking about watches here, but the newfangled time-wasters, GPS etc.
The pool distances are predetermined and exact, swimmers can remember interval and split times well enough to log them afterwards. GPS etc doesn't buy us anything.

I used to wear a watch swimming alone, since my eyes are too bad to see the pace clock. It's not helpful for timing intervals but it let me leave on the right time. I didn't wear it in masters' swim since the watch can catch on the lane lines and sometimes on other swimmers. Once prescription goggles became available cheaply I didn't use the watch at all.

Most interesting to me in the Sibbersen interview is his analysis of conditions - basically perfect, may be many years before this alignment of the stars occurs again.
Last edited by: doug in co: Oct 24, 18 11:34
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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how many times do ā€œreal swimmersā€ leave ON THE TOP?
---

IME- pretty much always. We were taught to drop under on the 58-59, pause, and push off on the 60. Dropping under on the 60 means that you don't push off until the 01. There's a difference between planting your feet and actually leaving.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Swimmers are conditioned to check the clock on the deck.

Triathletes are conditioned that a session only counts when it is on strava and that you only get the adaption when Training Peaks measured your TSS.

10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
I guess another thing is that I don't really want to know or care about every split in the workout. I find I'm using the pace clock less and less, and going more on feel than ever before. The nature of a lot of my swims (and I haven' been in much for the last couple of months, taking a little break til the holidays for mental sanity) is that I do a lot of builds and sets where the pace changes mid-length (eg sprinters game). Stroke count per length, pace per length, or any other metrics that a watch could capture wouldn't tell me anything about how well I executed the objectives of that set. And because of these types of sets, the watch could indicate that you are improving when in fact you are regressing, or vice versa.

If that motivates you, great. I've thought about getting a watch many times, and it always comes back to "what will I do differently if I had this data?" My answer has always been "nothing". So I have yet to adopt.

Funny how this same logic would never be accepted by the masses here if it were to be applied to the other sports we do. We bitch and moan how accurate our different power meters are and how closely the different ones are, what our CDA is and the rolling resistance of our tires, how fast that last set of 400 meter repeats on the track were, and yet we throw away that argument in the pool. Comical. Wouldn't you like to know what your splits were for a set of 200's with varying 50's hard (example, 1st 50 then 2nd, and on...) descending? Perceived effort does not tell the story as you become fatigued. You cannot see fading while you are in the middle of an interval. Yes, you are one of the few examples, but most cannot.

I would venture to guess that we have a VERY small number of "real swimmers" here on this forum, and with good reason.....we are triathletes. We don't run and train like runners, we don't train like cyclists and we are not swimmers. Technology has changed that immensely. Real swimmers would never wear jammers to train (only speedos and drag suits) either, but that is not our world.

Now, back to Monty's actual amazement of the work set.......
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [gary p] [ In reply to ]
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gary p wrote:
domingjm wrote:


I don't have any experience with the start/stop detection algorithms. But pressing a button takes a fraction of a second before and after. We're talking less than 1% error on a typical set of 100s. Is that really not accurate enough for you?

I do agree though that there's something to be argued for start and finish technique if you're overly focused on the watch though, so there's that.


I think the time it takes to stop a wrist watch after a proper finish takes the better part of a second, if not more. Furthermore, the variability is probably pretty substantial. Surely there's a big difference in how quickly you can get it stopped when you touch with one hand vs. the other. Add in the delay from start button push to actual start (which is probably more consistent, but is still introducing further inaccuracy), and your getting data that's not very clean.

On a set of 300's, that margin of error probably isn't that critical. On 100's, it is, never mind 75's, 50's, and 25's.

If you get something useful out of a swim watch, with or without automatic stop-start detection, great for you. I wouldn't tell you not to use it. Just know that the data isn't very granular. And because it's not very granular, it's not valuable to a high-level swimmer.

Holy crap Gary. No, if you possess any dexterity at all, it takes a small fraction of a second to start and stop your watch. Less than 1% error on 100s. Come on.

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Tri-Banter] [ In reply to ]
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Tri-Banter wrote:
how many times do ā€œreal swimmersā€ leave ON THE TOP?
---

IME- pretty much always. We were taught to drop under on the 58-59, pause, and push off on the 60. Dropping under on the 60 means that you don't push off until the 01. There's a difference between planting your feet and actually leaving.

Then you're the minority based on my 60+ years of observation. Little matter anyway, we're not swimmers.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]
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lol.

Chiming in here. I swim 4x a week with a masters group. I'm the only dufus using my watch while everyone else uses the pace clock. I wear it because if I can measure it, I'll do it. It's a crazy tick I know. The one benefit I will say is the SWOLF score. Whether it's a good measurement or not, sometimes I'll check it to see if my over # was up or down from my historical average.

I will also say it's nice sometimes to say, "nope. we got 1 more set. Unless we just 8x50 at some ridiculous time."

With that said, my daughter has been swimming on a team since she was 6. I refuse to let her wear a "watch" in the pool or anything on her arms for that matter.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [stevej] [ In reply to ]
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stevej wrote:
domingjm wrote:


I don't think you appreciate how many swimmers you're calling "not real swimmers". My apologies for nitpicking, but the definition of a swimmer is eluding me. While your Mensa-level recollection of your gradeschool splits are impressive, is that really a criterion for a real swimmer? Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?


Show me where I called anyone not a real swimmer, especially Lucy?

Someone asked why "real swimmers" (deem that whatever you will) don't wear watches. I provided an answer. I'm not sure what else you want.

I wear a watch on all my swims like I said before. Does that make me a not a real swimmer? I don't think so....

By your own admission, you answered the original question in the context of defining the uselessness of a swimming watch to "real swimmers". You explained why real swimmers like you don't need a swimming watch. It seems to me that if a person does need to use a swimming watch, you're implying that they're not a "real swimmer". If that's not the case, I'm happy to hear it.

In all seriousness though, can we talk about how impressive it is that you remember splits from 20 years ago? I'm impressed as shit. I can't even remember a fraction of the girls names I hooked up with in undergrad, let alone a notebook of splits. Flawless victory.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ripple] [ In reply to ]
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ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

Well, except it's not elitist in this case because real swimmers don't wear a watch to track their swim workouts. They just don't. It's as close to a fact as an opinion can get.

Let's talk about this Rip. I'm pretty sure your loose definition of a real swimmer revolves around their thoughts on swimming watches. No?

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [doug in co] [ In reply to ]
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doug in co wrote:
domingjm wrote:

There were two pretty important observations I made, that I wouldn't have caught without a detailed record of my data. First, my swim performance (and thus perceived exertion at a given pace) are substantially improved if they occur between about 4 and 8 hours of a long bike or run. I can't explain why, but it's a robust trend. So that's when I swim.
Second, during sets of 400 and 500yd, I noticed that my efficiency (say what you will about the usefulness of SWOLF, but it was helpful for me here) declined pretty dramatically at about 200yd.


The first of these could have been found with a paper training log, never mind anything digital.
The second is something a swimmer would have noticed without a watch, and probably not have paid much attention to. SWOLF is an artificial metric, times and split times are much more interesting.

As monty says though, we're not even talking about watches here, but the newfangled time-wasters, GPS etc.
The pool distances are predetermined and exact, swimmers can remember interval and split times well enough to log them afterwards. GPS etc doesn't buy us anything.

I used to wear a watch swimming alone, since my eyes are too bad to see the pace clock. It's not helpful for timing intervals but it let me leave on the right time. I didn't wear it in masters' swim since the watch can catch on the lane lines and sometimes on other swimmers. Once prescription goggles became available cheaply I didn't use the watch at all.

Most interesting to me in the Sibbersen interview is his analysis of conditions - basically perfect, may be many years before this alignment of the stars occurs again.

A paper training log? I take all of my post-exercise notes on my stone tablet written in charcoal. It seems more and more evident that a defining characteristic of a "real swimmer" is being inherently archaic.

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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ggeiger wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
I guess another thing is that I don't really want to know or care about every split in the workout. I find I'm using the pace clock less and less, and going more on feel than ever before. The nature of a lot of my swims (and I haven' been in much for the last couple of months, taking a little break til the holidays for mental sanity) is that I do a lot of builds and sets where the pace changes mid-length (eg sprinters game). Stroke count per length, pace per length, or any other metrics that a watch could capture wouldn't tell me anything about how well I executed the objectives of that set. And because of these types of sets, the watch could indicate that you are improving when in fact you are regressing, or vice versa.

If that motivates you, great. I've thought about getting a watch many times, and it always comes back to "what will I do differently if I had this data?" My answer has always been "nothing". So I have yet to adopt.


Funny how this same logic would never be accepted by the masses here if it were to be applied to the other sports we do. We bitch and moan how accurate our different power meters are and how closely the different ones are, what our CDA is and the rolling resistance of our tires, how fast that last set of 400 meter repeats on the track were, and yet we throw away that argument in the pool. Comical. Wouldn't you like to know what your splits were for a set of 200's with varying 50's hard (example, 1st 50 then 2nd, and on...) descending? Perceived effort does not tell the story as you become fatigued. You cannot see fading while you are in the middle of an interval. Yes, you are one of the few examples, but most cannot.

I would venture to guess that we have a VERY small number of "real swimmers" here on this forum, and with good reason.....we are triathletes. We don't run and train like runners, we don't train like cyclists and we are not swimmers. Technology has changed that immensely. Real swimmers would never wear jammers to train (only speedos and drag suits) either, but that is not our world.

Now, back to Monty's actual amazement of the work set.......

Real cyclists would never use a power meter.

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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Well...I am sorry I asked the question now! Some of these posts are hysterical. Ironically the one I can relate the most to was posted in pink "doesn't count if its not recorded and in TP and Strava".
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

Well, except it's not elitist in this case because real swimmers don't wear a watch to track their swim workouts. They just don't. It's as close to a fact as an opinion can get.


Let's talk about this Rip. I'm pretty sure your loose definition of a real swimmer revolves around their thoughts on swimming watches. No?
And your ability to rip off a 400 IM :)
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ripple] [ In reply to ]
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ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

Well, except it's not elitist in this case because real swimmers don't wear a watch to track their swim workouts. They just don't. It's as close to a fact as an opinion can get.


Let's talk about this Rip. I'm pretty sure your loose definition of a real swimmer revolves around their thoughts on swimming watches. No?

And your ability to rip off a 400 IM :)

Two strikes against me.

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?


Most of the photos and video I see of Lucy Charles has her swimming without a watch - there's maybe two photos total on her instagram/website where she's wearing one for a swim.

In addition to that - virtually no competitive swimmer (training for and competing in primarily swimming) would wear a watch in practice or competition - if a watch offered any benefit to them, don't you think they'd make use of it?

The lack of watch use boils down to three points for me as to why "real" swimmers don't wear a watch when doing lap swimming (open water is another story)
  • Lack of useful metrics/superiority vs. pace clock and memory - this has been touched on by a bunch of people in this thread, but there's both a lack of reliability in the current technology, as well as an inferiority to the simple technique of looking at the pace clock. In general, there are going to be one or two main sets where swimmers care about having their pace - Sibbersen's 10x400m for instance, and using the wall clock, combined with having a good feel for the swim, gives more useful metrics than analysing the watch data a few hours later (e.g. - my third and fourth 400s were slower because I sandbagged the middle 200m to try and save some juice for the last 100m, I can correct this for my 5th and 6th 400s and I'll remember this the next time I do the set. Looking at the splits hours later I would have no idea why those were slower, because I never made the connection at the time). I also don't care about my pace time for warmup, warmdown, and technical work, I don't need metrics for 20-80% of my practice depending on what's up for the day.
  • Annoyance - this is probably personal preference, but starting and stopping the watch on every interval is a bit tedious. This is especially true if you're doing 20x100 and barely coming in with 5s to breathe, collect yourself and go, takes away from resting and collecting yourself for the next rep.
  • Interference with stroke - part of this could be coupled with annoyance, and smacking the lane line or other swimmers sucks if that happens to you, but I'd argue foremost that the watch can introduce an imbalance in your stroke as you compensate for having an extra weight and geometry on one arm and not the other. I know watches are light, but if you're taking 1000s of strokes a week, for weeks on end, there's going to be an effect.
Even if the stroke interference is minor, coupled with the annoyance and lack of demonstrated superiority vs. a pace clock and memory, why would I add the inconvenience?
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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A couple important things you left out in regards to the watch. You are letting the watch do the mental work(keeping track of laps, pace, etc) that you should be training your brain to do. Second, itā€™s the practicing of focus in the workout that goes along with using a pace clock instead of a watch and being able to manage the above plus holding technique together while pushing the pace.

If you want to get the most out of your workouts and see bigger gains at the end of the season, leave the watch at home and use the pace clock.

Hope this helps.

Tim

http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

Well, except it's not elitist in this case because real swimmers don't wear a watch to track their swim workouts. They just don't. It's as close to a fact as an opinion can get.


Let's talk about this Rip. I'm pretty sure your loose definition of a real swimmer revolves around their thoughts on swimming watches. No?

And your ability to rip off a 400 IM :)


Two strikes against me.
It's all in fun. I think a lot of us morphed into triathlon from another sport, and so we can get protective of our sport.

For the life of me, I don't understand the Garmin in the pool and probably never will. I also don't understand going to the pool, and swimming 4200y straight, except for hitting the lap button on said Garmin, which I see a lot of triathletes do. I'd be ready to shoot myself if the workout wasn't structured.. and all freestyle (gag).
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:
Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?


Most of the photos and video I see of Lucy Charles has her swimming without a watch - there's maybe two photos total on her instagram/website where she's wearing one for a swim.

In addition to that - virtually no competitive swimmer (training for and competing in primarily swimming) would wear a watch in practice or competition - if a watch offered any benefit to them, don't you think they'd make use of it?

The lack of watch use boils down to three points for me as to why "real" swimmers don't wear a watch when doing lap swimming (open water is another story)
  • Lack of useful metrics/superiority vs. pace clock and memory - this has been touched on by a bunch of people in this thread, but there's both a lack of reliability in the current technology, as well as an inferiority to the simple technique of looking at the pace clock. In general, there are going to be one or two main sets where swimmers care about having their pace - Sibbersen's 10x400m for instance, and using the wall clock, combined with having a good feel for the swim, gives more useful metrics than analysing the watch data a few hours later (e.g. - my third and fourth 400s were slower because I sandbagged the middle 200m to try and save some juice for the last 100m, I can correct this for my 5th and 6th 400s and I'll remember this the next time I do the set. Looking at the splits hours later I would have no idea why those were slower, because I never made the connection at the time). I also don't care about my pace time for warmup, warmdown, and technical work, I don't need metrics for 20-80% of my practice depending on what's up for the day.
  • Annoyance - this is probably personal preference, but starting and stopping the watch on every interval is a bit tedious. This is especially true if you're doing 20x100 and barely coming in with 5s to breathe, collect yourself and go, takes away from resting and collecting yourself for the next rep.
  • Interference with stroke - part of this could be coupled with annoyance, and smacking the lane line or other swimmers sucks if that happens to you, but I'd argue foremost that the watch can introduce an imbalance in your stroke as you compensate for having an extra weight and geometry on one arm and not the other. I know watches are light, but if you're taking 1000s of strokes a week, for weeks on end, there's going to be an effect.
Even if the stroke interference is minor, coupled with the annoyance and lack of demonstrated superiority vs. a pace clock and memory, why would I add the inconvenience?

I predict that you won't be able to demonstrate that's anything but your convincingly-worded opinion. Everyone's opinion counts here though.

As for your three definitional relations between real swimmers and watches, I'm clearly not a real swimmer (but we already knew that) because the only minutia in all those words that is logical to me is regarding the sets with really minimal rest. I honestly think you're just making the rest up. I mean, lack of reliability? Dude, it's a watch and it keeps an electronic record. Smacking the lane line and interfering with your stroke? If you can run while wearing shoes, I think you can probably swim while wearing a watch. Maybe you should give it another shot.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [SnappingT] [ In reply to ]
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SnappingT wrote:
A couple important things you left out in regards to the watch. You are letting the watch do the mental work(keeping track of laps, pace, etc) that you should be training your brain to do. Second, itā€™s the practicing of focus in the workout that goes along with using a pace clock instead of a watch and being able to manage the above plus holding technique together while pushing the pace.

If you want to get the most out of your workouts and see bigger gains at the end of the season, leave the watch at home and use the pace clock.

Hope this helps.

Tim

Thanks for the reply Tim. That said, I did not ever suggest not using the pace clock, as I have been trained in that from the 1960's, so have a great feel and many years of experience on that. That was never a suggestion from me.

That said, most of us are triathletes, and do not and frankly should not train like most swimmers except for certain times of the year where masters programs are helping us build pure speed. We do not have a lane full of other swimmers of similar caliber helping us along to consistency and not fading. As stated in many of the posts, often times the perception and pace are not in alignment in those that swim as infrequently as "real" swimmers so the watch is a true help. I can do test sets and see if my pace held so I can see if speed or endurance is my concern. I can see if my perceived change in pace is actual in taking a look later, and by how much. I do a lot of descending pace work and while perception gets confused with fatigue, the numbers tell the story so I can see that I was either tired, going out too fast, overtrained or a variety of other factors and make adjustments later in the week. Oddly, the same people who slam watch use while swimming would be abhorred if the power meter they used went out, or the watch to time intervals at the track died. Just like Heart rate monitors, watches, GPS, and power meters, all told can have a place. If we're called out a s being not "real" swimmers, then I'm fine with that. Been there; done that and moved on.....

Gary Geiger
http://www.geigerphoto.com Professional photographer

TEAM KiWAMi NORTH AMERICA http://www.kiwamitri.com, Rudy Project http://www.rudyprojectusa.com, GU https://guenergy.com/shop/ ; Salming World Ambassador; https://www.shopsalming.com
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ripple] [ In reply to ]
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ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
ripple wrote:
domingjm wrote:
I just take issue with the general assertion, in any context, that "real XX don't XX". It's elitist and frankly unimaginative.

Well, except it's not elitist in this case because real swimmers don't wear a watch to track their swim workouts. They just don't. It's as close to a fact as an opinion can get.


Let's talk about this Rip. I'm pretty sure your loose definition of a real swimmer revolves around their thoughts on swimming watches. No?

And your ability to rip off a 400 IM :)


Two strikes against me.

It's all in fun. I think a lot of us morphed into triathlon from another sport, and so we can get protective of our sport.

For the life of me, I don't understand the Garmin in the pool and probably never will. I also don't understand going to the pool, and swimming 4200y straight, except for hitting the lap button on said Garmin, which I see a lot of triathletes do. I'd be ready to shoot myself if the workout wasn't structured.. and all freestyle (gag).

I totally understand that. It just hurts my feelings because I want to come up to the real swimmers treehouse sometimes too.

I'm kidding. I don't. I hate swimming even more than my miserable life ;-)

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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ggeiger wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
I guess another thing is that I don't really want to know or care about every split in the workout. I find I'm using the pace clock less and less, and going more on feel than ever before. The nature of a lot of my swims (and I haven' been in much for the last couple of months, taking a little break til the holidays for mental sanity) is that I do a lot of builds and sets where the pace changes mid-length (eg sprinters game). Stroke count per length, pace per length, or any other metrics that a watch could capture wouldn't tell me anything about how well I executed the objectives of that set. And because of these types of sets, the watch could indicate that you are improving when in fact you are regressing, or vice versa.

If that motivates you, great. I've thought about getting a watch many times, and it always comes back to "what will I do differently if I had this data?" My answer has always been "nothing". So I have yet to adopt.

Funny how this same logic would never be accepted by the masses here if it were to be applied to the other sports we do. We bitch and moan how accurate our different power meters are and how closely the different ones are, what our CDA is and the rolling resistance of our tires, how fast that last set of 400 meter repeats on the track were, and yet we throw away that argument in the pool. Comical. Wouldn't you like to know what your splits were for a set of 200's with varying 50's hard (example, 1st 50 then 2nd, and on...) descending? Perceived effort does not tell the story as you become fatigued. You cannot see fading while you are in the middle of an interval. Yes, you are one of the few examples, but most cannot.

I would venture to guess that we have a VERY small number of "real swimmers" here on this forum, and with good reason.....we are triathletes. We don't run and train like runners, we don't train like cyclists and we are not swimmers. Technology has changed that immensely. Real swimmers would never wear jammers to train (only speedos and drag suits) either, but that is not our world.

Now, back to Monty's actual amazement of the work set.......

Iā€™d love to know those splits, in real time. An hour later, I donā€™t care anymore.

And 10x4 holding 4:40 is pretty studly. Especially for a dinosaur like him.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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No worries. I'm not calling out anyone for anything. I'm just sharing my point of view and experience. And what I've seen is that triathletes who rely on a watch in workouts don't progress as quickly as those who just use the pace clock.

And from a coaching perspective, triathletes rely on equipment for feedback too often when they should be developing that skill without the equipment.

Tim

http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:
Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?


Most of the photos and video I see of Lucy Charles has her swimming without a watch - there's maybe two photos total on her instagram/website where she's wearing one for a swim.

In addition to that - virtually no competitive swimmer (training for and competing in primarily swimming) would wear a watch in practice or competition - if a watch offered any benefit to them, don't you think they'd make use of it?


I predict that you won't be able to demonstrate that's anything but your convincingly-worded opinion. Everyone's opinion counts here though.

As for your three definitional relations between real swimmers and watches, I'm clearly not a real swimmer (but we already knew that) because the only minutia in all those words that is logical to me is regarding the sets with really minimal rest. I honestly think you're just making the rest up. I mean, lack of reliability? Dude, it's a watch and it keeps an electronic record. Smacking the lane line and interfering with your stroke? If you can run while wearing shoes, I think you can probably swim while wearing a watch. Maybe you should give it another shot.

For the first point, I worded it a bit poorly, but my point is that if you went and took a sampling of all of the different levels of practice, from kids first getting into it, to club swimming, to highly competitive D1 swimmer, to Olympians, to Master's swimmers, you'd find maybe one thousandth of a percentage of swimmers wearing a watch, and almost certainly none of them would be at the pointy end of the spear. Again, my opinion and maybe hard to verify, but I'd say it's almost certainly true.

For the reliability - my watch (forerunner 735xt) claims to automatically count my laps/distance - it has never once been right and is often hilariously wrong. Having an accurate match of distance to pace is pretty important for reliable metrics, no? For telling time, you're right, it's a watch, it does a great job.

For the smacking the lane line - just compiling some of the complaints that other people have made. That said, plenty of people have smacked me by accident during swim (damn backstrokers) - I'd be even less happy if they were wearing a watch when they did so haha.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [SnappingT] [ In reply to ]
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SnappingT wrote:
No worries. I'm not calling out anyone for anything. I'm just sharing my point of view and experience. And what I've seen is that triathletes who rely on a watch in workouts don't progress as quickly as those who just use the pace clock.

And from a coaching perspective, triathletes rely on equipment for feedback too often when they should be developing that skill without the equipment.

Tim

As a life long competitive swimmer, I'll agree that for actual swim meet performance and for pure speed in events far shorter than we usually race, I will agree that group training and pace clocks trump. Always use a pace clock, but as little as we swim in comparison, I doubt most have that feel for pace that swimmers do. I've had intervals that feel fast yet aren't and often vice versa. Our feedback and experience is not keen enough for that when swimming solo. Hell, even lanes make a difference, as swimming on the wall versus middle pool and empty or full are huge differences. There will be fluctuations. The great thing about my watch is that when I swim solo, I can concentrate on what I need to, use the pace clock for send off/recovery and later see how my actual stats reflected perception. I'm not advocating using the watch while swimming, but only to see how different paces, efforts and even turnovers affect true speed. I can view stroke count and see how it is reflected in my actual speed and determine what kind of turnover I should gravitate towards. Just as in cycling, I often change cadence to see true results in speed, heart rate and perception.

I guess we'll agree to disagree, but as a former swimmer competitively through college, then a coach, and a triathlete of 35+ years I like to think that I have learned a lot and still will. Pace clocks are a given, but actual results are what matters in our events and the watch truly helps every bit as much as my Powertap.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:
Finally, as I responded above, I don't know in what capacity Lucy Charles relies on her watch, but she's often pictured swimming with it. Are you really prepared to tell her she's not a real swimmer?


Most of the photos and video I see of Lucy Charles has her swimming without a watch - there's maybe two photos total on her instagram/website where she's wearing one for a swim.

In addition to that - virtually no competitive swimmer (training for and competing in primarily swimming) would wear a watch in practice or competition - if a watch offered any benefit to them, don't you think they'd make use of it?


I predict that you won't be able to demonstrate that's anything but your convincingly-worded opinion. Everyone's opinion counts here though.

As for your three definitional relations between real swimmers and watches, I'm clearly not a real swimmer (but we already knew that) because the only minutia in all those words that is logical to me is regarding the sets with really minimal rest. I honestly think you're just making the rest up. I mean, lack of reliability? Dude, it's a watch and it keeps an electronic record. Smacking the lane line and interfering with your stroke? If you can run while wearing shoes, I think you can probably swim while wearing a watch. Maybe you should give it another shot.


For the first point, I worded it a bit poorly, but my point is that if you went and took a sampling of all of the different levels of practice, from kids first getting into it, to club swimming, to highly competitive D1 swimmer, to Olympians, to Master's swimmers, you'd find maybe one thousandth of a percentage of swimmers wearing a watch, and almost certainly none of them would be at the pointy end of the spear. Again, my opinion and maybe hard to verify, but I'd say it's almost certainly true.

For the reliability - my watch (forerunner 735xt) claims to automatically count my laps/distance - it has never once been right and is often hilariously wrong. Having an accurate match of distance to pace is pretty important for reliable metrics, no? For telling time, you're right, it's a watch, it does a great job.

For the smacking the lane line - just compiling some of the complaints that other people have made. That said, plenty of people have smacked me by accident during swim (damn backstrokers) - I'd be even less happy if they were wearing a watch when they did so haha.

Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.

And if your watch is really as bad as you say it is, I would immediately contact Garmin, because that performance is entirely unacceptable. I've been using a 920xt for about 18mos and I can recall only a single instance where it was incorrect in any measure, and that was failing to recognize a flip turn.

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:

Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.

I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.
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Last edited by: windschatten: Oct 24, 18 16:01
Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
A paper training log? I take all of my post-exercise notes on my stone tablet written in charcoal. It seems more and more evident that a defining characteristic of a "real swimmer" is being inherently archaic.

point being the watch/garmin/device really wasn't necessary for either of those. Paper or Strava, either works.

For me it's more about efficiency - more kinds of electronics to sync and update and refresh, versus brain 1.0
Brain 1.0 works better for me.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [doug in co] [ In reply to ]
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Yesterday at the end of workout swimmer beside me with garmin on asked me how far we had swam. That cracks me up every time.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [windschatten] [ In reply to ]
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windschatten wrote:
ajthomas wrote:
10 x 400's on 5:40 holding 4:40s... yeah that is pretty fast.

The picture of him with his arms raised... that is a huge lung chamber.

For someone keenly aware of the accumulation of heat and how it would impact his swim, he sure was lucky his cap fell off...


Isnā€™t that littering?
You definitely notice when the cap comes off.
Not that difficult to at least stuff it into your suit.
Yeah, those horrible plastic patches in the ocean.....just unavoidable.

Edit:
Wonder how many watches dot the ocean floor for the first couple hundred meters there.

Whatever, wear your chunky $1K watch, just donā€™t slice someone with it in a pool that has a policy for watches/jewelry, because that can get costly.

I've been sliced far more often by paddles than watches in all my years (and the ever present non trimmed toenails from the breaststroker). If one gets "whacked" by a watch (or paddle), one of you has a recovery issue on your stroke.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [boobooaboo] [ In reply to ]
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boobooaboo wrote:
You've gotten enough answers, but I'm going to echo everything.

Distracting, plus you won't wear one in a race. When I coached masters, I had a "no button" rule. You were welcome to wear your garmin, but you couldn't touch it in workouts. That starts you down a path of being obsessed with "average pace" when downloaded into training peaks.Let me tell you, you might be able to do 42x100m on 1:30 holding 1:10, but how will that translate to an OWS with no breaks? That's why we do test (failure) sets. Also, from a very young age, we learn to use the clock (kids now don't always understand "top" and "bottom" with the advent of digital clocks) and remember our splits. With a properly placed pace clock, I can swim a 1650y/1500m and remember nearly all of my 100 splits, and most of my 50 splits. It's just something "we do."

Each sport has its own quirks, right? In cycling, they are oddly attached to their appearance. In swimming, we don't much embrace technology (maybe the guys at the super pointy/professional end) and do the same workouts that we did in the 80's. We keep it simple...work on technique, throw yardage at it to build fitness, swim often.

Edit: Many of us still wear "swedes" with no padding or anything, and I've been wearing the same pair since high school...a cool $3.75 (plus a few strap replacements) has gotten me through 12 years of swimming, including championship meets.

+1000, the Swedish goggle is the king of goggles!!! Long live the workouts of the 80s!!!


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]
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Thatā€™s me. I donā€™t have the shoulder mobility anymore to have that nice pretty high elbow recovery. Itā€™s nearly as wide as my fly recovery. One of the girls who sometimes shares a lane has a similar wide recovery, we usually bang wrists at least once or twice during a practice.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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I'm sorry Jason as much as I know you are a swim stud and add good content here, your logic of "we were taught that way as kids.....".

Really? Same logic would totally defy how training for just about any other sport has evolved after youth. Whether people do or do not use a watch seems more a matter of the accepted code vs what is logical or useful. You don't train professional adults the same way you first taught kids. And lets face it most of you swim studs and students were trained from birth and don't know any different (or better....perhaps). Why not use the mythical clock and put a garmin on your writs for tracking.

The logic of every great swimmer who had done x miles knows his splits and times is quite out there. Have you ever done a workout that felt easy and you went fast and one that felt hard and you went slow? Or is swimming different than every other endurance sport?

Sorry - this just feels like some old school swim snobbery. I'm sure I'm pushing water uphill on this.....no pun intended.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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I'm curious what everyone's technique is when it comes to pressing the button at the wall. When swimming freestyle, you should touch the wall with one arm completely outstretched, with your other arm in the complete opposite position, and your body should be on it's side. When trying to hit the stop button on a watch, both arms are outstretched and your body will be flat in the water.

Triathletes will say "I don't care, all my races are open water."

Only on slowtwitch can we all argue about watches and buttons for 4 pages.

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Canuck1] [ In reply to ]
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Canuck1 wrote:
I'm sorry Jason as much as I know you are a swim stud and add good content here, your logic of "we were taught that way as kids.....".

Really? Same logic would totally defy how training for just about any other sport has evolved after youth. Whether people do or do not use a watch seems more a matter of the accepted code vs what is logical or useful. You don't train professional adults the same way you first taught kids. And lets face it most of you swim studs and students were trained from birth and don't know any different (or better....perhaps). Why not use the mythical clock and put a garmin on your writs for tracking.

The logic of every great swimmer who had done x miles knows his splits and times is quite out there. Have you ever done a workout that felt easy and you went fast and one that felt hard and you went slow? Or is swimming different than every other endurance sport?

Sorry - this just feels like some old school swim snobbery. I'm sure I'm pushing water uphill on this.....no pun intended.


Have you ever done a workout that felt easy and you went fast and one that felt hard and you went slow?


Sure, plenty of times. My internal clock is generally re-calibrated on the first repeat. That's another thing (now that I think of it) that I don't think a swim watch can tell you, was that an easy 1:09 that I just did or was it a hard struggle to a 1:09? If you are waiting until after the workout to look at data, I'm not sure you would remember those details. Processing the data in real time gives you that feedback, immediately.

logic of "we were taught that way as kids.....".

Really? Same logic would totally defy how training for just about any other sport has evolved after youth.



When I'm saying that we were taught that way as kids, I'm saying that we've developed that ability to read a clock as second nature. It's not really saying that its superior just because we were taught that way, but that it is just the most convenient method for most of us to track times during practice. It's just a habit now. I'm sure there are plenty of habits that you've retained since you were a kid, some good, some bad, some inconsequential. For example, when I get dressed in the morning I put my socks on before my pants, Does it matter? no, but that's what I usually do. However, when I get dressed in the locker room after swimming I put my pants on before my socks. That one does matter, so I don't get my socks wet from the floor.

It's not really swim snobbery (at least not from me). Personally, I don't care what you wear in the pool, as long as it doesn't mess up the flow of the lane.

But enough on this, it seems like some on here are getting way too bent out of shape because someone said that real swimmers don't wear watches. So effin what? Real Triathletes (tm) aren't real swimmers, or real cyclists, or real runners. They are real triathletes, balancing three different disciplines, which is impressive in and of itself. Why not be happy with that, rather than trying to prove that you're somehow as good as or know better than the single sport athletes. I'm not a real triathlete, at all, terrible runner here relative to my swim and bike It would be nice if I were better at it, but unfortunately, I don't think it is meant to be. I'll keep trying though. /endrant

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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In fact, here she is race morning, sans watch.

Here's my workout from this morning. It was written on a paper and stuck to a kickboard, ye olde fashioned way. It's not online or anything. I remember it, and my splits on the important bits. Here's hoping it doesn't give away my identity.

Long warm up, followed by focused sprint set with active recovery

2x200 @ 3:15, swim
2x150 @ 3:00, kick
2x150 @ 2:20, swim
2x100 @ 2:10, kick
2x100 @ 1:35, swim
2x50 @ 1:00, kick
2x50 @ :50, swim

4x sprint set, all swim
2x50 @ :50
2x50 @ :45
2x25 @ :30, build
2x50 @ :40
4x25 @ :25, build

20s rest

3x50 @ 2:15, sprint
R 1-2 from a push
R 3-4 from blocks
Splits
R1 - :28 low, :27 high, :28 low
R2 - :29 high, :27 low, :28 low
R3 - :27 low, :26 mid, :26 mid
R4 - :26 mid, :25 high, :26 mid

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:

Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous.


I mostly agree with this. But I also think you should recognize that there is a consensus among experts here. Take that for what it is worth.

But in your call for hard data, here you go. A month ago I swam with a watch. I wear a watch occasionally. On longer sets I can live with the imprecision. And as much as we joke the reason I am most likely to wear it is for Strava.

The data can be found below. The pool was SCM, not LCM. Here is the list of problems: THe

1) I did 2 600s warm up. Each 600 was 100 freestyle / 25 kick / 25 back x 4. The first 600 the data capture was good. The second 600 the data missed 50M. I get the watch misses kicking. I wish it was consistent. Miss all of it or none of it.

Next I did 8 x 100's on 1:26 (dont ask) with a goal to hold 1:14 on all of them. It went really well. So well that with 2 left I decided to add a 100 and drop down to 1:13. My times - without question - were 1:14 on the first 6, 1:13 on the last 3.

Yet my watch shows me says I went a 1:15 on two of them (I didn't) and has me at 1:14.9 on # 8 which was most certainly a 1:13

Because the watch records 25M splits, I can look a little deeper. Let's compare two of the 100's:

Number 6 / Number 7
19.9 / 19.2
18.6 / 18.8
19.1 / 18.4
17.9 / 17.3
1:15.4 / 1:13.6

According to the watch I was faster on the 2nd 25 on the slower one. That is wrong. In fact I went back and that is the fastest 2nd 25 for all the repeats. So not only is the data wrong, it isn't even user error (which is what I would have assumed). Another thing that is wrong is the first 25 split. This isn't a surprise because of the a fore mentioned problems of coordinating the start with a streamline. ALl the first 25 splits are wrong. I think that 19.9 was wrong by a lot. I doubt I did a single lead off 25 slower than 19.0. There is not consistency in the errors so the data is just...useless.

Now I think you want to make the argument that the data is good enough. A few 1-2% errors here or there don't mean that much. I coached for one season collegiality. I have swam competitively for the last 36 years. The difference between what I actually did and what the watch recorded is the difference between knowing the previous 6 week swim build had been effective vs ineffective (For those who remember, or care: I committed to doing a lot more race pace efforts about two months ago).

This discussion started because the guy who broke the KONA record by .35 seconds per 100M thinks these slight inaccuracies matter. So perhaps we can frame this discussion like this: A real swimmer doesn't rely on a watch because a real swimmer thinks .35 seconds per 100M matters.



laps Distance Time Best Pace 24 600 08:09.6 08:09.6 -- 0 0 00:30.8 22 550 08:22.9 17:03 -- 0 0 00:37.6 4 100 01:14.4 18:55 -- 0 0 00:11.6 4 100 01:14.5 20:21 -- 0 0 00:11.4 4 100 01:14.8 21:47 -- 0 0 00:11.3 4 100 01:14.4 23:13 -- 0 0 00:11.1 4 100 01:15.0 24:39:00 -- 0 0 00:11.4 4 100 01:15.4 26:06:00 -- 0 0 00:10.3 4 100 01:13.6 27:30:00 -- 0 0 00:12.6 4 100 01:14.9 28:58:00 -- 0 0 00:11.2 4 100 01:14.1 30:23:00 -- 0 0 00:20.1 12 300 04:12.1 34:55:00
Last edited by: ajthomas: Oct 25, 18 8:12
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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Your data is what I've seen all the time from my athletes. It's funny, they are so tied to their watch. We'll do an 100 best and I'll have it on my stop watch or the pace clock and call it out when they come in. My personal athletes will come back and look at the garmin to tell me the split. I always get a laugh from that, and then it's slower. Like I said, I dont really look at any of there data when they swim with me. I'll love over splits from athletes who aren't swimming with me, but I dont look at any metrics....I will look at the metric if I'm trying to determine an issue, but I dont ever look at SWOLF or stroke rate etc. I look specificially at the splits they swim for the set I give them.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:


Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.


I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.


Are you really okay, in any context, stating something as fact, when you actually have no evidence to suggest that you're correct? You're telling people things that they may believe and that will influence their decisions. That's not okay in any medium. If I could make any wish come true (outside of winning the lottery), it would be for people to appreciate that concept.

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

Edit: And for what it's worth, I'm sure you're right that many proficient swimmers don't use, and see no value in, a swim tracker.
Last edited by: domingjm: Oct 25, 18 9:36
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [boobooaboo] [ In reply to ]
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boobooaboo wrote:
I'm curious what everyone's technique is when it comes to pressing the button at the wall. When swimming freestyle, you should touch the wall with one arm completely outstretched, with your other arm in the complete opposite position, and your body should be on it's side. When trying to hit the stop button on a watch, both arms are outstretched and your body will be flat in the water.

Triathletes will say "I don't care, all my races are open water."


Yeah, if you finish a rep like the photo below, and the watch is on your left hand, how quickly and consistently are you going to get it stopped? Add that delay to the delay from the start button push to the drop-and-push for a proper sendoff streamline, and you have a fairly significant error. Add in variability between finishing on your left or right, and in the deep end or the shallow end, and that makes the data pretty corse.

Some folks here are saying +/- a fraction of a second doesn't matter. Sometimes, that's true. But when that's true, the pace clock will suffice. When you get out towards the pointy end of your personal performance potential curve, fractions of a second can start to mean a lot. When I'm doing 25's at 100 race pace, 0.20s the difference between it being a worthwhile effort or not. So i leapfrogged the wristwatch/swim-watch for something more repeatable and accurate.





"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
Last edited by: gary p: Oct 25, 18 16:39
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
domingjm wrote:

Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous.


I mostly agree with this. But I also think you should recognize that there is a consensus among experts here. Take that for what it is worth.

But in your call for hard data, here you go. A month ago I swam with a watch. I wear a watch occasionally. On longer sets I can live with the imprecision. And as much as we joke the reason I am most likely to wear it is for Strava.

The data can be found below. The pool was SCM, not LCM. Here is the list of problems: THe

1) I did 2 600s warm up. Each 600 was 100 freestyle / 25 kick / 25 back x 4. The first 600 the data capture was good. The second 600 the data missed 50M. I get the watch misses kicking. I wish it was consistent. Miss all of it or none of it.

Next I did 8 x 100's on 1:26 (dont ask) with a goal to hold 1:14 on all of them. It went really well. So well that with 2 left I decided to add a 100 and drop down to 1:13. My times - without question - were 1:14 on the first 6, 1:13 on the last 3.

Yet my watch shows me says I went a 1:15 on two of them (I didn't) and has me at 1:14.9 on # 8 which was most certainly a 1:13

Because the watch records 25M splits, I can look a little deeper. Let's compare two of the 100's:

Number 6 / Number 7
19.9 / 19.2
18.6 / 18.8
19.1 / 18.4
17.9 / 17.3
1:15.4 / 1:13.6

According to the watch I was faster on the 2nd 25 on the slower one. That is wrong. In fact I went back and that is the fastest 2nd 25 for all the repeats. So not only is the data wrong, it isn't even user error (which is what I would have assumed). Another thing that is wrong is the first 25 split. This isn't a surprise because of the a fore mentioned problems of coordinating the start with a streamline. ALl the first 25 splits are wrong. I think that 19.9 was wrong by a lot. I doubt I did a single lead off 25 slower than 19.0. There is not consistency in the errors so the data is just...useless.

Now I think you want to make the argument that the data is good enough. A few 1-2% errors here or there don't mean that much. I coached for one season collegiality. I have swam competitively for the last 36 years. The difference between what I actually did and what the watch recorded is the difference between knowing the previous 6 week swim build had been effective vs ineffective (For those who remember, or care: I committed to doing a lot more race pace efforts about two months ago).

This discussion started because the guy who broke the KONA record by .35 seconds per 100M thinks these slight inaccuracies matter. So perhaps we can frame this discussion like this: A real swimmer doesn't rely on a watch because a real swimmer thinks .35 seconds per 100M matters.



laps Distance Time Best Pace 24 600 08:09.6 08:09.6 -- 0 0 00:30.8 22 550 08:22.9 17:03 -- 0 0 00:37.6 4 100 01:14.4 18:55 -- 0 0 00:11.6 4 100 01:14.5 20:21 -- 0 0 00:11.4 4 100 01:14.8 21:47 -- 0 0 00:11.3 4 100 01:14.4 23:13 -- 0 0 00:11.1 4 100 01:15.0 24:39:00 -- 0 0 00:11.4 4 100 01:15.4 26:06:00 -- 0 0 00:10.3 4 100 01:13.6 27:30:00 -- 0 0 00:12.6 4 100 01:14.9 28:58:00 -- 0 0 00:11.2 4 100 01:14.1 30:23:00 -- 0 0 00:20.1 12 300 04:12.1 34:55:00

Oh totally. I would absolutely no faith in swim tracker data for individual laps of a given set. There's going to be an obvious problem in determining when that lap ends and the next begins. So yeah, I'll definitely concede with your argument there. But if your watch is missing lap intervals (aside from sets where your arms aren't moving, obviously), I'd definitely be contacting the manufacturer.

And I'll also concede that I have little confidence in my ability to manipulate my watch in order to detect an improvement of .35s per 100m. But I'd never suggest replacing a timing mat with a swimming watch. Now are you really going to tell me you can get 0.35 from a wall clock? Because it's been stated prolifically here that a wall clock can do everything that a swim tracker can do, and it simply isn't true.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:


Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.


I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.


Are you really okay, in any context, stating something as fact, when you actually have no evidence to suggest that you're correct? You're telling people things that they may believe and that will influence their decisions. That's not okay in any medium. If I could make any wish come true (outside of winning the lottery), it would be for people to appreciate that concept.

Edit: And for what it's worth, I'm sure you're right that many proficient swimmers don't use, and see no value in, a swim tracker.

Most of us can recognize hyperbole and donā€™t take it as literally true.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [boobooaboo] [ In reply to ]
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boobooaboo wrote:
I'm curious what everyone's technique is when it comes to pressing the button at the wall. When swimming freestyle, you should touch the wall with one arm completely outstretched, with your other arm in the complete opposite position, and your body should be on it's side. When trying to hit the stop button on a watch, both arms are outstretched and your body will be flat in the water.

Triathletes will say "I don't care, all my races are open water."

Only on slowtwitch can we all argue about watches and buttons for 4 pages.

I'll hit the wall and roll to the opposite side, bringing my hands together. I'll be honest, I can't confidently say how long this takes once the "timing mat" has been touched, but it's well under 0.5sec. But I also have incredible manual dexterity. That's the only thing my girlfriend likes about me.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
JasoninHalifax wrote:
domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:


Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.


I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.


Are you really okay, in any context, stating something as fact, when you actually have no evidence to suggest that you're correct? You're telling people things that they may believe and that will influence their decisions. That's not okay in any medium. If I could make any wish come true (outside of winning the lottery), it would be for people to appreciate that concept.

Edit: And for what it's worth, I'm sure you're right that many proficient swimmers don't use, and see no value in, a swim tracker.


Most of us can recognize hyperbole and donā€™t take it as literally true.

You may have missed that, but he wasn't being hyperbolic with his approximation. Furthermore, based upon the current political disaster in the US, it seems pretty clear that close to 50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. Granted, that will depend upon the influence of the individual that's making the statement.

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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You got data to support that?

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
domingjm wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:


Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.


I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.


Are you really okay, in any context, stating something as fact, when you actually have no evidence to suggest that you're correct? You're telling people things that they may believe and that will influence their decisions. That's not okay in any medium. If I could make any wish come true (outside of winning the lottery), it would be for people to appreciate that concept.

Edit: And for what it's worth, I'm sure you're right that many proficient swimmers don't use, and see no value in, a swim tracker.


Most of us can recognize hyperbole and donā€™t take it as literally true.


You may have missed that, but he wasn't being hyperbolic with his approximation. Furthermore, based upon the current political disaster in the US, it seems pretty clear that close to 50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. Granted, that will depend upon the influence of the individual that's making the statement.


Are you blind to the irony of your own cognitive dissonance here? Where is the scientific study for your ridiculous "50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood" claim?
Last edited by: SH: Oct 25, 18 10:33
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
domingjm wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:


Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.


I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.


Are you really okay, in any context, stating something as fact, when you actually have no evidence to suggest that you're correct? You're telling people things that they may believe and that will influence their decisions. That's not okay in any medium. If I could make any wish come true (outside of winning the lottery), it would be for people to appreciate that concept.

Edit: And for what it's worth, I'm sure you're right that many proficient swimmers don't use, and see no value in, a swim tracker.


Most of us can recognize hyperbole and donā€™t take it as literally true.


You may have missed that, but he wasn't being hyperbolic with his approximation. Furthermore, based upon the current political disaster in the US, it seems pretty clear that close to 50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. Granted, that will depend upon the influence of the individual that's making the statement.


Getting super off-topic here, but I mean, you're right, I wasn't being hyperbolic, if anything I was probably overestimating the number who do wear watches. You also hit the nail on the head with "approximation" - it was a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the number, not a published figure. Nowhere did I ever represent that number as a rock-hard fact, it was just a random, arbitrary number higher than zero. The whole thing is analogous to stating that virtually no runners train in basketball shoes. Do I really have to go out to a statistically significant number of runners and survey them or collect observational data to say that they don't do their workouts in basketball shoes? It just seems like a bit of a derailment of the point, which is that the virtually no top-level swimmers wear watches during their pool practices.

And just to back that up, here's a training video of the Louisville swim team (a sample population), count the watches...
https://www.floswimming.com/...isville#.WT9CCoWVnYU


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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Canuck1] [ In reply to ]
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Quote:
Sorry - this just feels like some old school swim snobbery.

You think you see snobbery.
We know we see ignorance.

See the difference there?

Honestly, we're just trying to help. That's what you should see and feel -- us helping. Snobbery involves one party having something that the other party does not have -- like status or money -- and acting superior because of it. There are no barriers to entry for not messing with a garmin during swim practice.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [SH] [ In reply to ]
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SH wrote:
Are you blind to the irony of your own cognitive dissonance here? Where is the scientific study for your ridiculous "50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood" claim?

Scott: if you think about it, don't we agree the number is 50%? People just disagree who comprises that 50%!
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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What I don't get is how you can be that inconsistent in hitting your lap button. I agree that the intermediate splits are worthless -- but my interval times where I hit my lap button to start and stop are spot on for the time between when I hit the button the first time and when I hit it the next time. Maybe its some kind of user error.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:
ajthomas wrote:
I did 8 x 100's on 1:26 (dont ask) with a goal to hold 1:14 on all of them....

The difference between what I actually did and what the watch recorded is the difference between knowing the previous 6 week swim build had been effective vs ineffective


Now are you really going to tell me you can get 0.35 from a wall clock? Because it's been stated prolifically here that a wall clock can do everything that a swim tracker can do, and it simply isn't true.

1) I didn't claim I could perceive 0.35 from a wall clock**. I said the difference between the clock and the watch - or put another way the inaccuracy of the watch - is the difference between knowing the previous 6 week swim build was effective vs ineffective.

2) It has been stated prolifically here that a wall clock and an properly engaged brain processing data real time is BETTER that that a swim tracker with variable accuracy. You don't get to frame the arguments being made to fit your false narrative.

3) 0.35sec /100M is the difference between SUCCESS and FAILURE. The inaccuracy of the watch is greater than that SUCCESS/FAILURE parameter. This is fundamental. The devices percision tollerance is greater than the needed precision.

4) The watch had 2 x 1:15s that were 1:14s (off by 1 second) and 2 1:14s that were 1:13s. So it was off by 4 seconds in an 900M / 11 minutes set. That is 0.6%. YES: I am saying that is meaningful data to someone who actually cares about 13 seconds over 3800M. Feel free to think it doesn't matter. And chalk up the large performance gap between people who think it does not matter to whatever explanation you would like.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:

agree to disagree. I don't really care about stoke count (when I bother to count I'm typically about 14-16 strokes per length, a little less if I try and stretch it out or extend the underwaters). I know if my pace is falling off or picking up to a finer degree than a watch can tell me, and more importantly why its falling off / picking up. By the time you get around to looking at the data post workout, it's too late, becasue you won't remember what that felt like, and to me, linking the pace with what the pace feels like is critical to swim performance. That's stuff you need to know NOW, IMO. If you were able to link that data in RT to a display on deck, that might be useful to me. but until we get there, I don't see a heck of a lot of value.

The one area that I think a watch could be useful, maybe, is for a triathlete trying to manage overall training stress, but even then, if you are doing somewhat consistent workouts, it may not give you that much more than just plugging a TSS number into TP based on how long the practice was and the subjective intensity of the day.


I wear a Garmin Vivoactive. Like most swim watches it does not get kicking lengths, so it is usually off a bit since I will kick at least 100, usually more like 500 over the course of my 2x3,000 yard weekly swims. It does not particularly like the short axis (fly/breast) strokes either. It also seems that my 'swolf' score is off. And, it seems as if my paces are off also. I guess if you tracked the data and scores enough to know what to ignore then it would be somewhat useful for improvement metrics. I have it for 'exercise' time. I didn't really ever swim with a watch when training/racing seriously. Now, it's for shits and grins. I start it when I jump in, and I stop it when I get out and don't check it in between. If/when I wore a watch in serious swim training/racing it was for the same thing.

Re. TSS. I don't think that they are accurate enough, unless you can get a truly accurate heart rate. I tend to assign a TSS per 1,000 based on a swimmer's ability and/or how difficult the workout should be.

Really though, I am more in the camp that a watch is there to be used essentially as a pace clock, not as a hit the button at the end and beginning of every lap. Tim Floyd and I don't always agree, but he posted something on this or the other thread about paying attention to what you are doing...counting lengths/laps, stroke count, etc. I agree with this. #GrumpyMarsh thinks that athletes are relying too much on their digital toys and less on their brain. I guess what I'm saying is I agree with a lot of what you've said.

Real men don't eat quiche either...is there proof of that anywhere? It's a generalization, and one that you will find is 'generally' true on most swim teams and for most competitive swimmers. They aren't real swimmers because they wear or don't wear a watch...it's because they're freakin fast. I'd hazard a guess that most of the AGers worry more about their swim watch, power meter, run metrics, and they do about paying attention to what they're actually doing. #GrumpyMarsh out.

Edit. Went to check...no watch in the swim...




Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |
Last edited by: -JBMarshTX: Oct 25, 18 12:22
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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The59Swim wrote:
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.

So are you saying that virtually all elite/olympian swimmers use a watch and by implication that the only real swimmers are the virtually none of the elite/olympian swimmers who don't use a watch????

BTW -- I am a never-was'er swimmer (made it to the state meet as a senior in HS, but that was in breast stroke (not really swimming), but couldn't break 1:00 in free) and I proudly wear my Garmin in training. I do use the pace clock for my send-offs and can get a sense of my pace when I can spot the pace clock while swimming (my vision sucks), but I am glad I have my watch for the times when I've not been able to see the clock for several laps and I have lost track of how far I've gone in the interval (yeah, I have to break streamline to get my watch in front of my face, but it lets me do the workout as designed). In the pool, I like being able to see my heart rate between intervals (I just have to get my Garmin and HR module out of the water). I have not yet done a set with send-offs based on HR rather than time, but it is on my list to try. I like looking at similar workouts I have done weeks/months/years apart to gauge my progress (or not) by comparing pace, HR, etc.

And I get that real swimmers want to make the finish of each interval to be in perfect form because they want that muscle memory for races in the pool. But I don't get that for good swimmers who no longer do pool swimming races. I don't criticize a swammer for finishing intervals that way (their welcome to the style points), but I do criticize those who criticize us watch wearing triathletes for giving up perfect finishes in order to get better split data.

* * * *

Anyway, Jan Sibbersen had a great swim (esp. for a middle aged guy). I am OK with having a different category of fast swim (e.g., fastest swim by a top 10 finisher), but Jan does and should have the record for best swim split (which wouldn't have counted had he not legally finished the race).
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [hugoagogo] [ In reply to ]
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To me, the easiest way to answer this question is by asking who wears watches when swimming: swimmers or triathletes? I'd wager that the majority of the time, the answer is going to be triathletes. Not swimmers, triathletes!


Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [hugoagogo] [ In reply to ]
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hugoagogo wrote:
The59Swim wrote:

I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


So are you saying that virtually all elite/olympian swimmers use a watch and by implication that the only real swimmers are the virtually none of the elite/olympian swimmers who don't use a watch????

Bit of a typo there, I'll start looking for a new copy editor.


****

I'm still in awe of Jan's ability to hold that 1:12 consistently and I'll definitely be trying his 10x400 as a test set.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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JasoninHalifax wrote:
You got data to support that?

Are you being hyperbolic? I don't care, this is a fun one! Okay, in two parts.

1. donald trump lies. A lot. And it's annotated for you here:
http://projects.thestar.com/...ld-trump-fact-check/

2. People believe his lies:
http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/...hodology5.2.2018.pdf
Summary: Of the conservative survey respondents, 76% believe he tells the truth either all or most of the time; 22% believe that he tells the truth only some of the time or less. Very disappointing and a good reason to hold people accountable for the things they say.
You can read commentary of the survey here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/...-approve-him-n870521

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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And just to back that up, here's a training video of the Louisville swim team (a sample population), count the watches...
https://www.floswimming.com/...isville#.WT9CCoWVnYU



"Round 3- Naked"
---

Lies!!






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [SH] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
SH wrote:
domingjm wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:
domingjm wrote:
The59Swim wrote:
domingjm wrote:


Okay. For perspective, I'm a scientist by profession, and we just don't say things that we can't immediately demonstrate with measurable and repeatable data. We all have opinions, but masquerading them as fact is a habit that everyone should recognize as dangerous. Your 1/1,000% is flagrantly lacking any rigid support whatsoever. With the current US political administration, I'm getting really sensitive about people making shit up because it's their "feeling". So I apologize for beating a dead horse here in this thread, but providing a rigid number without any support is as bad as it gets.


I'm sorry my triathlon forum post doesn't meet the rigors of peer review /sort of pink
I'll walk back my 1/1000th of a percent comment to "virtually all" that I stated before and start designing the appropriate study parameters and statistical analysis.
I'd still stand by the point that virtually none (haven't checked with every single one) of the elite swimmers and olympians we see in swimming don't practice with a watch.


I get that you like your watch for swimming and have found it useful for pool swims, but I and most swimmers don't. It's a funny conversation that inevitably comes up during tri practices - someone always asks why I take my watch off before practice.
It ultimately boils down to the watch not offering enough benefit to offset the inconvenience.


Are you really okay, in any context, stating something as fact, when you actually have no evidence to suggest that you're correct? You're telling people things that they may believe and that will influence their decisions. That's not okay in any medium. If I could make any wish come true (outside of winning the lottery), it would be for people to appreciate that concept.

Edit: And for what it's worth, I'm sure you're right that many proficient swimmers don't use, and see no value in, a swim tracker.


Most of us can recognize hyperbole and donā€™t take it as literally true.


You may have missed that, but he wasn't being hyperbolic with his approximation. Furthermore, based upon the current political disaster in the US, it seems pretty clear that close to 50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. Granted, that will depend upon the influence of the individual that's making the statement.


Are you blind to the irony of your own cognitive dissonance here? Where is the scientific study for your ridiculous "50% of the population literally does not know how to distinguish truth from falsehood" claim?

Posted above. But you're right. If we extrapolate from the poll and assume republicans constitute approximately 50% of the population, and assume that zero democrats believe any of his lies, it's more like 40% of the US population doesn't know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. It's disappointing that I'm not more wrong.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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I'm still in awe of Jan's ability to hold that 1:12 consistently and I'll definitely be trying his 10x400 as a test set.
At what pace and interval?? I think this would be a great set for anyone trying to figure out what they could swim on a legit non wetsuit ironman swim. If you look at his 1;10 average over the 4k set, plug in the minute rest, account for no turns in the ocean, but the higher flotation in that really salty water, it is basically spot on as a predictor set for him..
And everyone looking at this set, no doubt he did it LCM..
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
I'm still in awe of Jan's ability to hold that 1:12 consistently and I'll definitely be trying his 10x400 as a test set.
At what pace and interval?? I think this would be a great set for anyone trying to figure out what they could swim on a legit non wetsuit ironman swim. If you look at his 1;10 average over the 4k set, plug in the minute rest, account for no turns in the ocean, but the higher flotation in that really salty water, it is basically spot on as a predictor set for him..
And everyone looking at this set, no doubt he did it LCM..

Not entirely sure - maybe try starting somewhere between 1:25-1:28/100m and adjusting from there. I like the 45s-1min rest between 400s, since I tend to do lots of 100s and 200s that give me 10s or less of rest. Hardest thing might be finding the pool time/space for it or convincing the coaches of the tri club that we should try it.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [-JBMarshTX] [ In reply to ]
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I swam in a pool for the four year cycle from London to rio that almost every gold medal winner in London swam in, at least once per year

The pool was open to the public whilst many international teams were on camps and it held the short course worlds

I never saw a swimmer with a watch

I did see, and wrote about it on here, a guy rock up with a lane to himself and swim 100 lcm unimaginably quickly for 60 minutes that watching him prevented me from swimming it was so captivating to watch

Swimmers don't need watches any more than MO fatah needs one. He will know give or take seconds his marathon mile pace irrespective of heat, incline, descent, or terrain in the same way professional cyclists will understand effort and power

Who needs a watch
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [hugoagogo] [ In reply to ]
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hugoagogo wrote:
What I don't get is how you can be that inconsistent in hitting your lap button. I agree that the intermediate splits are worthless -- but my interval times where I hit my lap button to start and stop are spot on for the time between when I hit the button the first time and when I hit it the next time. Maybe its some kind of user error.


So you touch the wall with the same hand every time regardless of pace?
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
I'm still in awe of Jan's ability to hold that 1:12 consistently and I'll definitely be trying his 10x400 as a test set.
At what pace and interval?? I think this would be a great set for anyone trying to figure out what they could swim on a legit non wetsuit ironman swim. If you look at his 1;10 average over the 4k set, plug in the minute rest, account for no turns in the ocean, but the higher flotation in that really salty water, it is basically spot on as a predictor set for him..
And everyone looking at this set, no doubt he did it LCM..

Yeah it was LCM.

Just a side note: the last day of training camp my college does the "set". It is 10 x 400 LCM best average. Seniors go first on the first one and set the goal/average for the lane. Everyone except the freshmen know we are only doing one. Our coach then gives this speech to the freshmen about growing up, being a leader, being a man. He tells them 9 more to go. And we aren't getting back onto the vans until they are all done. The freshmen take off like bandits, we follow then get out at the 50 until they figure out, yeah, were not actually expecting a 200 breaststroker hold 4:30s for a set of 400s.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
hugoagogo wrote:
What I don't get is how you can be that inconsistent in hitting your lap button. I agree that the intermediate splits are worthless -- but my interval times where I hit my lap button to start and stop are spot on for the time between when I hit the button the first time and when I hit it the next time. Maybe its some kind of user error.


So you touch the wall with the same hand every time regardless of pace?

No, it would be closer to touching the wall with both hands (or more often, neither hand because both elbows are bent while I hit the lap button). These days I am swimming at about a 1:25/100 yds pace (I know that's slow, but I am pleading age as my defense), so if I accidentally hit the lap 6 inches early, I've only exaggerated my lap time by about a 0.1 second. I start each interval underwater, both feet on wall with both hands in front of me, finger on lap button, hit lap button, hands in streamline, push off wall. So for whatever the delay is from hitting lap button to starting push off, my interval is that much faster than I measure. Ultimately, I care a little bit less about accuracy than precision. I think my lap button hitting is very consistent, so a comparison of one interval to another is meaningful (interval measurements are "precise"). If my accuracy is always off by the same amount (even by a second or more) in the same direction, it is not really relevant to me. I have no accurate way to convert a SCY, SCM, or LCM to open water times, so accuracy of my timing doesn't matter. Similarly, it doesn't matter to me that I don't have a good one hand finish at the wall. I know that would be a little quicker, but if I finish each interval the same way, I have a good apples to apples comparison from interval to interval and a good one hand touch is irrelevant to triathlon (unless one is going for best swim split in a triathlon with a pool swim -- which I never am).

BTW, the pool I usually swim in has one smallish pace clock on the deck near one end of the pool. If I were doing a good one hand finish with my right hand, I would finish with my body facing away from the clock; with left hand toward the clock -- it seems that would introduce a lot of variability in measurement using the pace clock -- maybe more than from using my watch. Anyway, in no point in my life were my freestyle times anywhere close to making me a real swimmer (and I wear a jammer), so I am not really the point of this conversation ;).
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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ajthomas wrote:
domingjm wrote:
ajthomas wrote:
I did 8 x 100's on 1:26 (dont ask) with a goal to hold 1:14 on all of them....

The difference between what I actually did and what the watch recorded is the difference between knowing the previous 6 week swim build had been effective vs ineffective


Now are you really going to tell me you can get 0.35 from a wall clock? Because it's been stated prolifically here that a wall clock can do everything that a swim tracker can do, and it simply isn't true.


1) I didn't claim I could perceive 0.35 from a wall clock**. I said the difference between the clock and the watch - or put another way the inaccuracy of the watch - is the difference between knowing the previous 6 week swim build was effective vs ineffective.

2) It has been stated prolifically here that a wall clock and an properly engaged brain processing data real time is BETTER that that a swim tracker with variable accuracy. You don't get to frame the arguments being made to fit your false narrative.

3) 0.35sec /100M is the difference between SUCCESS and FAILURE. The inaccuracy of the watch is greater than that SUCCESS/FAILURE parameter. This is fundamental. The devices percision tollerance is greater than the needed precision.

4) The watch had 2 x 1:15s that were 1:14s (off by 1 second) and 2 1:14s that were 1:13s. So it was off by 4 seconds in an 900M / 11 minutes set. That is 0.6%. YES: I am saying that is meaningful data to someone who actually cares about 13 seconds over 3800M. Feel free to think it doesn't matter. And chalk up the large performance gap between people who think it does not matter to whatever explanation you would like.

I read all of this and it still sounds like you're saying you can finish your interval, look up at the pace clock, and read a precise enough time to distinguish .35 seconds. There's no way you can read fractions of a second precisely on a pace clock. Hell, the digital pace clocks I've seen don't even have fractions of a second. The only way this argument works is if there's a coach on deck timing you.

I get pretty damn repeatable data from my watch. Am I likely adding time to the interval at the beginning and end pushing buttons? Absolutely. But if I add that same time to every interval then it doesn't really matter. Every once in awhile I will "miss" hitting the button and add a little time to an interval but that's rare.

And you do get instantaneous feedback from the watch after every interval. Finish the interval, hit the lap button, see what your time was (as well as pace/100 if longer interval). Watch is also counting the rest interval for you as well as the send off interval, use whichever you want.

IMO all this talk about the watch being distracting is garbage. It's a great training tool when used properly. If you need something more accurate than the watch, the pace clock just isn't going to do it for you either. You'll need someone on deck timing you.

If real swimmers prefer using the pace clock because that's how they've always done it, fine. But the watch is just as good, with the benefit of also recording your data for you.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Sean H] [ In reply to ]
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I would imagine that if a real swimmer read this thread they would be laughing at a bunch of people arguing about "real swimmers" and whether or not you should/shouldn't wear a watch....and the fact that your 12th 100 is 3/32's of a second off....therefore the data is useless.

The reason I asked the question in the first place was out of sarcasm. Nevertheless, here we are 6 pages later....and since we are posting pics. Here is one of Lucy in the pool...with a watch.


Last edited by: Mike Alexander: Oct 25, 18 16:58
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I would imagine that if a real swimmer read this thread they would be laughing at a bunch of people arguing about "real swimmers" and whether or not you should/shouldn't wear a watch....and the fact that your 12th 100 is 3/32's of a second off....therefore the data is useless.

The reason I asked the question in the first place was out of sarcasm. Nevertheless, here we are 6 pages later....and since we are posting pics. Here is one of Lucy in the pool.


I'm certainly laughing at this thread, and also wondering what the definition of a "real swimmer" is. I am 36 and have been swimming competitively for 30 years, and was an Olympic trials level distance freestyler, but yet I am still getting smoked by some adult onset swimmers in IM swim legs. Do you get the honor of being called a real swimmer when you eclipse a certain time, or do you have do have some level of experience?

I think triathletes in general are all smart enough to figure out if wearing a watch helps you in pool training - it is an annoyance and useless for me but go for it if it helps you.

Strava
Last edited by: sch340: Oct 25, 18 16:54
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [sch340] [ In reply to ]
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sch340 wrote:

I'm certainly laughing at this thread, and also wondering what the definition of a "real swimmer" is. I am 36 and have been swimming competitively for 30 years, and was an Olympic trials level distance freestyler, but yet I am still getting smoked by some adult onset swimmers in IM swim legs. Do you get the honor of being called a real swimmer when you eclipse a certain time, or do you have do have some level of experience?

If you can do a full deck change in less than 45 seconds, you are a real swimmer.

blog
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Sean H] [ In reply to ]
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Real swimmers donā€™t use the clock ā€œbecause they always have.ā€ I laid out data, I presented an argument and you donā€™t buy it. Fine. But for you to presume you know more about what motivates me is the height of arrogance.

Ive tried to use the watch. It doesnā€™t do what I want. You have to accomdate the watch to get consistent results, it takes your focus away from your swimming, it sacrifices streamline and when the ā€œwrongā€ hand touches the wall the data is inconsistent. I get it. Those little things donā€™t add up to much and you have found ways to account for them. But the difference between success and failure can be as small as .35 / 100. Little things do t matter to you But that - not your send off times - is why you arenā€™t a real swimmer. You have no respect for the sport. My son is debating between taking 4 or 5 dolphin kicks off the wall in a 50. You think pushing off with your right hand in the wrong position is irrelevant.
Last edited by: ajthomas: Oct 25, 18 18:16
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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I use the clock to start/stop intervals, and have my watch as backup in case I lose track of where i am, then keep all the data so i can see where I'm at year on year... best of both worlds!!

By the way...this thread is a good reason why this site is often referred to as Slow Twits. Started well, tailed off badly.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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Boy, that escalated quickly. I have no respect for the sport? šŸ˜‚

Your argument in this post is much better than your one about the data which I responded to previously. But I still donā€™t think itā€™s relevant in the realm of triathlon swimming.

Edit: and where did I say I knew what motivated you? Why are you so angry?
Last edited by: Sean H: Oct 25, 18 18:46
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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So to summarize, swimmers are as elitist and weird now as ever. Got it.
Last edited by: DFW_Tri: Oct 26, 18 8:42
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [The59Swim] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for the link to the Louisville practice, cool to watch!!! And not a watch in sight. :)


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Mike Alexander] [ In reply to ]
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Mike Alexander wrote:
I would imagine that if a real swimmer read this thread they would be laughing at a bunch of people arguing about "real swimmers" and whether or not you should/shouldn't wear a watch....and the fact that your 12th 100 is 3/32's of a second off....therefore the data is useless.
The reason I asked the question in the first place was out of sarcasm. Nevertheless, here we are 6 pages later....and since we are posting pics. Here is one of Lucy in the pool...with a watch.


She's also wearing a swimskin in a pool...

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [domingjm] [ In reply to ]
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domingjm wrote:

Posted above. But you're right. If we extrapolate from the poll and assume republicans constitute approximately 50% of the population, and assume that zero democrats believe any of his lies, it's more like 40% of the US population doesn't know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. It's disappointing that I'm not more wrong.


depending on which polls/measurements you want to believe, Rs are about 30% of the population. Encouragingly, that means well over 70% of the population is capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood. For the rest, note we are in base crazy territory here, the 27% Crazification Factor identified back in the Bush years. The problem is that gerrymandering and Fox News and voter suppression and Facebook Russian ads, between them all, give that crazy base surprising power.


"Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population."
Last edited by: doug in co: Oct 26, 18 8:42
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Andrewmc wrote:
I did see, and wrote about it on here, a guy rock up with a lane to himself and swim 100 lcm unimaginably quickly for 60 minutes that watching him prevented me from swimming it was so captivating to watch

once swam in the Edinburgh Commonwealth 50m pool, got in for a short 20min workout while waiting for #1 son to finish his weights workout, then swam with him for another 40min.
When I started, a swimmer in the next lane was doing 100 repeats in about 1:00-1:02 on each repeat, when we got out, she was still going.. turned out to be Keri-Anne Payne training for the Rio 10k..

no watch, oddly. ha.
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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Looks like he was a 1:53LCM 200F and 1:39/4:25 200/500yds while at Harvard. I wonder how fast he is in the pool now if he says he can do 10x400s under 4:40 with 45-60 sec rest. I'd put him at a 4:07-4:10 400LCM and maybe 1:43/4:35 200/500yds.

https://www.instagram.com/...alendurancecoaching/
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah the 10x400's is pretty impressive. I certainly can't do that now, but that would have been a regular staple back in high school and college, but on less rest that Jan used (more like a 5:00 send off).

not at monty--

as for the watch debate (which is pretty freaking silly and I haven't even gotten all the way through the thread), I use one, anyone care to call me not a real swimmer? My Garmin920 never gets the distance wrong, unless I dip below the 1:00/100y pace, then it can miss a length here and there. I know this, so I put the watch into drill mode and tell it how far I went at the end of an interval. I used to use a simple Timex and write down all the splits from my main set. The swim watch makes that easier, and it tracks distance so I don't have to do the math to determine what 100 I might be on if I lose focus for a couple laps. I can remember every time from a 20x100 set, but the watch means I don't have to.

The reasons to use a watch:
-auto sync to whatever training log
-historical tracking. I do the same sets over and over and have 5 or so test sets that I want to see progress on.
-accuracy is fine, you just need to understand there will be an offset between a watch and pace clock, and even a third-party timing you (coach or actual clock system with a touchpad), as long as you're consistent.
-having a clock when there is no pace clock, or it can't be trusted. I've seen analog clocks that glitch at the same spot around the dial, and I've seen digital pace clocks get unplugged by dbags who want to charge their phone while sitting in the hot tub.

Reasons not to wear a watch:
-maybe it throws off your stroke (but really not much, and you can adapt)
-getting the most accurate time means finishing with two hands all the time

I think it's a wash on which is more convenient. Pushing a button as you push off and finish is totally not difficult. Sometimes seeing the watch during a flipturn is hard (esp with foggy goggles), if you want to check your pace every 100 (which I do), but if the pace clock on the wall is in a bad spot, you either pick your head up going into your turn, coming out of it, or maybe can't see it all all unless you are stopped on the wall, and each of those impacts your technique. I would argue in a triathlon perspective, having to pick your head up coming off the wall to see a clock at the other end of the pool is good, as it practices sighting, but then you have a 2-3s delay in getting your split.

For a team environment, it is the coaches' job to track splits of important intervals. They give the 'ready..go', start their stopwatch, and give swimmers their time at the end. I don't swim in a group, so I have no coach on the deck, so I use a watch. You can't get tenths of a second from a digital wall clock that doesn't have them, or from the analog pace clock. Doing hard or decend 100's, I want those tenths.

When I swam on a team, I didn't wear a watch because I didn't need to. Had a coach for important splits, and who would track our performance and adjust the same sets over time through harder intervals. Always had a working pace clock.

Do I use the watch to care about my splits within my first 300 warmup? Nope. Having each 25 documented isn't useful in training for a 500 or a 1-mile open water swim, but it is if you're training for a 100.

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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [Optimal_Adrian] [ In reply to ]
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You wear a watch when you swim. Ergo, you are not a Real Swimmer (tm). Don't you know how this works yet?

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: Ok Fishes, here is the interview we were all waiting for!! [monty] [ In reply to ]
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Sorry, a bit late to the party but that was me...
I knew who he was, I'd been told in the days leading up that he was trying to break the record and true to his word he lit it up like a Christmas tree...

I held on until the turn and thought better of it...(I doubt I coulda held on anyway)
and then another guy came up alongside me and we cruised to the finish..
I knew I was going to battle late in the day and the difference in effort between 46 and 47/48 is massive..

Big fella can swim like a fish!!! Huge performance!
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