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Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions.
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Alright, so I have only done one 70.3 (Oceanside back in April) and I swam 37:25, but I was expecting to swim around 35 minutes. I did a few tests prior to Oceanside, mind you they were in the pool, and I swam 2100 scy in 32:40, but I still ended up swimming 37:25 in Oceanside, which is about 10s per yard slower than my pool time. I am not a bad navigator, as you can see from my GPS data here:



The questions I have for you, the guy swimming around 32-35 minutes for a salt-water, wetsuit legal swim are:

1.- What do you usually swim on a HIM race?
2.- How long have you been swimming?
3.- How many swims/yards a week do you do?
4.- What can you rep in a 20x100 with 10s rest?

I'm just trying to figure out if my pool fitness is still not enough to swim in that range, or if my open water skills are lacking significantly. I can do a 20x100 leaving on the 1:40, landing most of them around 1:31-1:32 and not be fully gassed by the end.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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Our pool times are similar. I swim 100 yards intervals at around 1:32 sec with open turns. I swam Gulf Coast last month in ~34:45.

I have only done 4 other HIM races, but no reference swims to compare. Each was either a bad swim or unique in some way (shortened, down river, etc.)

Swimming for about 4 years.

I swim about 6K yards/week.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [exxxviii] [ In reply to ]
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exxxviii wrote:
Our pool times are similar. I swim 100 yards intervals at around 1:32 sec with open turns. I swam Gulf Coast last month in ~34:45.

I have only done 4 other HIM races, but no reference swims to compare. Each was either a bad swim or unique in some way (shortened, down river, etc.)

Swimming for about 4 years.

I swim about 6K yards/week.

Thanks. Hmmm, for Oceanside I was swimming 3 times a week, for a total of about 10,000-12,000 yards.

I'm now swimming 4 times (added an open water swim per week), and yardage is now 12,000-14,000.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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Couple of thoughts here:

You may have swam near your ā€˜pool paceā€™ but swam a longer distance in open water for a variety of reasons. What distance and pace does your watch say you swam?

There may have been currents.

Chop will slow you down.

The course may have been longer than 1900m.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [dktxracer] [ In reply to ]
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Watch says I swam 2,155 yards.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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I am a bit below that range now, but was probably in the 32-34 range up until a few months ago when I drastically increased my yardage and started workshopping my stroke.

1. New to HIM distance but went 28:30 in a non wetsuit, freshwater HIM swim a few weeks ago. It was choppy and Iā€™m shit at sighting so I was pleasantly surprised by this. Before that I only have olympics or sprints to compare to.
2. Three and a half years
3. Up until March, I was doing 7-8k a week. Then I upped it to 12-15k and Iā€™m continuing to increase gradually.
4. Probably 1:15-17 on the 1:25-1:30. Havenā€™t done that set in a while though.

Iā€™d say the biggest differences for me came with
A) incorporating more pull work and paddles
B) trying to get in a short (~2k) open water swim every week
C) focusing on my catch

Oddly enough I havenā€™t seen huge improvements in my pool times. Only really in open water workouts or races have my times been dropping much.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [bullmoose] [ In reply to ]
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bullmoose wrote:
I am a bit below that range now, but was probably in the 32-34 range up until a few months ago when I drastically increased my yardage and started workshopping my stroke.

1. New to HIM distance but went 28:30 in a non wetsuit, freshwater HIM swim a few weeks ago. It was choppy and Iā€™m shit at sighting so I was pleasantly surprised by this. Before that I only have olympics or sprints to compare to.
2. Three and a half years
3. Up until March, I was doing 7-8k a week. Then I upped it to 12-15k and Iā€™m continuing to increase gradually.
4. Probably 1:15-17 on the 1:25-1:30. Havenā€™t done that set in a while though.

Iā€™d say the biggest differences for me came with
A) incorporating more pull work and paddles
B) trying to get in a short (~2k) open water swim every week
C) focusing on my catch

Oddly enough I havenā€™t seen huge improvements in my pool times. Only really in open water workouts or races have my times been dropping much.

Thanks for the info. I have also added one OWS workout a week, where I swim about 35-40 minutes, trying to get more comfortable in open water. I have also started to do a lot of pulling with paddles and using my strech chordz 3 times per week.

Iā€™m just very frustrated that Iā€™m about 10-15s slower in open water than in the pool for what to me feels the same effort.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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Can you share your stretch cordz workout? Just got a pair and honestly not sure how to best incorporate. Thx.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [ilikepizza] [ In reply to ]
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For now I just do ā€œnormalā€ pull motion, and Iā€™ll do 5x5 minutes. I was a Tower26 member and Gerry always had 3 sets of up to 100 before swimming preferably, but I always do them in the evenings, long after I swam.


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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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I started swimming when I was 20. Now 52. My HIM is usually 34-35 min. Usually swim 2-3 times a week total 6000 m average. I could do 20 times 100m on 1:50 doing the swims on 1:40. Sounds like you just had a bad swim. Did you get stuck in traffic alot? See what your next one is. If you like swimming 10-15 K yards a week great if not you likely don't need to.

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Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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Swimming in the ocean produces fairly random times for the AGers. Currents, swells, etc - a lot of random variables. You definitely overswam a bit on the way back inside the harbor and the track along Harbor blvd on the way out is a tad curvy.

I'd disregard or just work on sighting.

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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which is about 10s per yard slower than my pool time//

I hate to break it to you, but unless you wear your wetsuit in the pool, you swam about 20 seconds a 100 slower. A guy your speed should also get about 10 seconds per 100 from the wetsuit, especially in salt water. One thing that could have happened is that you went out too hard, got gassed, and had to really slow down to make it through. You didn't say anything about that, but it happens to a lot of people.


And I'm not even counting if you drafted or not(you didn't say there either), thats another 4 or so seconds a 100 faster..Really sounds to me like you need to do some high speed, long rest 100's, get used to swimming around 1;20 pace or faster.


Hard to know exactly with what you told us, but your are waaaaay slower in OW for some reason..
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
which is about 10s per yard slower than my pool time//

I hate to break it to you, but unless you wear your wetsuit in the pool, you swam about 20 seconds a 100 slower. A guy your speed should also get about 10 seconds per 100 from the wetsuit, especially in salt water. One thing that could have happened is that you went out too hard, got gassed, and had to really slow down to make it through. You didn't say anything about that, but it happens to a lot of people.


And I'm not even counting if you drafted or not(you didn't say there either), thats another 4 or so seconds a 100 faster..Really sounds to me like you need to do some high speed, long rest 100's, get used to swimming around 1;20 pace or faster.


Hard to know exactly with what you told us, but your are waaaaay slower in OW for some reason..

According to strava I averaged 1:44 pace, which is 10s slower than my "best" 2100 in the pool, 32:40. But on average, whenever I go out and do OWS, you are right, some times I'm as much as 20s slower per 100.

I swam solo most of the way, I am not very good at drafting, I keep losing people's feet; I either am going faster than them, or can't latch on. This has happened to me on every single race I have done in the past 2 years.

With regards to me fading, you may be right. I wasn't able to warm up before my wave started, and this could've been an issue, as I find that I need 5-10 minutes of warmup before I can really hit a solid pace and hold it. Looking at my pace graph from strava shows I slowed down:



Garmin Connect shows something similar:



I checked my TP file, and first 20 minutes I swam 1:38 avg pace, and the next 17 minutes avg pace was 1:52. So there was def a slow down on my part.

However, there is still a significant slowdown whenever I swim in open water. This part Sunday I went for a 40 minute swim, and my avg pace was 1:47, and this was at an effort than in the pool yields me around 1:37 / 100 yards.
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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Donā€™t forget the benefit of the speed off turns in pool swimming. If your turns are good then your pool times will definitely be faster than OW pace. Hereā€™s a formula of sorts ... OW pace = pool pace - benefit of turns + benefit of wetsuit - poor navigation +/- drafting/congestion - lack of fitness for the distance +/- water conditions (chop, current, etc...).
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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Probably the wrong person to post about this, but here it goes. I started swimming at 24 (29 now). I only swim once a week in an open water swim group and tend to not collect data. We usually swim 1.2-1.5 miles every Saturday and I usually end up around 30-40 minutes depending on the week and distance. My PR for a 70.3 is 29 something, but that was before I thought more about race strategy. 29 minutes for me is balls to the wall pace. I decided to never stress about the swim anymore and just glide and go with the flow. I know my strengths are much more bike and run oriented, so I figure it's best to save my energy for those. Similar to the andy potts technique, make it a two sport event (putting aside the fact that andy is an elite swimmer). This strategy has worked well in 70.3's, but it becomes hard to turn it up in sprints and Olympics once you've employed this strategy. I swim solidly in the 32 minute range without stressing, which is obviously giving away a fair amount, but I leave the water feeling pretty confident and relaxed for the bike and run. Again, I could probably move the strategy in the right direction if I swam more than once a week. I hate living in LA though, not ideal for training in my opinion.

Team Zoot 2023
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [TulkasTri] [ In reply to ]
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I'm about the guy you're asking, I swam 38' in a 70.3 2 weeks ago but there was a small run in the middle of 2' so there remains 36'. This was fresh water with wetsuit.

My pool times are hard to compare because we have these strange "meters" here instead of yards. Anyway, I swim 8' straight for 400m in a 50m pool without a wetsuit and 7'20" with.

First of all: you can never really compare open water swims, because you never know where they throw the buoys in. Was it 1800m? Was it 2100m? You never know. Forget gps in the water.

Secondly, I'm noticably faster in a 25m pool compared to a 50m one, and I would say one wins 4" per turn. This means, you're 2 minutes faster over 1900m in a 50m pool compared with open water.

Thirdly, if you manage to get advantage with drafting you might win something. But I am always already glad to swim halfway comfortably, and do not know whether being able to take real advantage of drafting.
Last edited by: longtrousers: Jun 13, 18 0:38
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Re: Adult On-set Swimmers in the 32-35min rage for a HIM swim. I have a few questions. [windschatten] [ In reply to ]
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It also looks like you may lack the endurance at race pace, so you'd need more continuous swimming at or near threshold (400's or 800's).

I changed coaches after Oceanside, and the new coach has me doing at least once a week some longer reps (5x400, 4x500, and this Friday I have a 3x800). I also have an open water swim once a week where I just go out and swim continuously for about 35-40 minutes before my long run.
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