For me, pool is always faster. I think sighting and waves/currents are the biggest factors in that.

Depends on how well you can swim straight, water calmness/etc., whether you're wearing a wetsuit or not, and whether the course is *actually* accurate (many are off by a fair amount... laying buoys isn't consistent from year to year).

Totally different ways to swim, and so many different ways to do it. I have had folks that kick my butt in the pool but have yet to beat me in an OW swim. Who is a faster swimmer? Does it really matter, we are out having fun.

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On average my OWS time is 10-15 secs slower per 100yds than in the pool.
Just ain't good swimmer IMO.

Yeah, and I am a FOP swimmer. I look at my 100 splits in OW and I would be in the slow lane at masters....

Good flip vs poor/open turns in a pool is also a huge factor... I'm easily faster in a 25yd pool; maybe only slightly faster than OW in a 50m pool. I also have a 10-yr old sleeveless wetsuit so it's less of an advantage in OW than most these days.

I'm a good 15-20s slower per 100y in OWS :(

I have the same issue but I'm fairly certain the biggest factor is not swimming straight. You can add some significant yardage by zig zagging the course.

I find the open water zig zagging...fighting the waves...riding it....going against it...with it...fun.

I hate pool swimming. Such a ...sterile enviroment.

If you are pushing hard off the wall, you're gaining at least 5-6 m on each turn so that in 1500m in a 25m pool, you're really only swimming about 1200m and gliding about 300m, but going faster on a strong glide than you can when swimming. This is true even at the world class level, which is why the short course times are always faster than the long course. For example, Sun Yang went 14:31 for 1500 LCM at the Games but the 1500 SCM record is 14:10 by Hackett. (Sun Yang just hasn't swum a really fast 1500 SCM yet.) Hackett's WR in the 1500 LCM was 14:34 before Yang broke it, so to compare apples to apples, Hackett was about 24 sec faster over 1500 SCM ==> 30 extra turns ==> 24 sec/30 sec = 0.8 sec/turn, even at world record pace. Therefore, if Hackett were to swim 1500m on a well-marked swim requiring very little sighting and in calm waters, he'd probably have gone about 14:58 at his best, and Yang about 14:55. Bottom line: unless you just stop at each turn and push off very little from each wall, you're generally going to be slower in OW than in a pool. Exceptions would be if you are truly able to draft really well off a faster swimmer, and of course a favorable current will always help. However, usually if your swim seems "fast", it's cause the course is shorter than advertised. In my experience, the only real way to see how fast you swam is to compare to the fastest swimmers in the race. If a 1500m is really 1500m, then the top guys should be around 17:xx or even 18:xx depending on conditions. If the fastest swimmers came out in 14:xx, it wasn't 1500m but more like 1250m. Happens all the time in my experience.

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

Sadly, my Oly PR is "tainted" by an obviously short swim... I came out in 17 & change vs my normal 20-22; first swimmer out did 13-something(!). Beat my old PR by ~8 min so it clearly woulda been a PR regardless, but hard to say what a legit time should have been. The most annoying part is it was a long-standing race put on by the same organizers so I know they've been able to get it right as advertised in the past.

My N =1

My most recent "T-pace" test was 10x100 yards all out with 10" rest between each. Averaged high 1:20's. In my most recent wetsuit legal, non-current assisted Ironman swim, my pace was 1:37/100 yards. I would say in the months prior to my Ironman most of my swims were done at 1:30-135/100yds pace in the pool. But pool T-pace plus 10-15"/100 yards seems to work pretty well for a lot of people.

Only in triathlon do we have this problem:) I've had the exact same experience except that after accounting for the short swim it was not a PR for me, due to hilly bike and run.

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

This is so true. If you are at a local triathlon and a couple of people put up 17:XX splits, the course is defintely short.

Right, 17:xx are the ITU guys' splits, so ya at your average local tri the fastest should prob be 18:xx or 19:xx. Amazingly, ITU seems to be able to accurately measure swim courses when almost no one else can. Out of the 107 tri's I've done, I'd say about 100 were short, 6 accurate, and only 1 was "long", and it wasn't actually long cause I saw the guy measure 1500m out on the beach with a wheel. He thought he had it planned so that we would swim with the current but we ended up against the current. It took me 30:15 to swim it but everyone else had more trouble and I was first out by about 2:00. Probably the one and only race where all of my extra swim training really helped. I'd say the average 1500m swim legs I've done have generally been more like 1350m, as I'm coming out about 2 min faster on average than I'd go in the pool.

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

I've only done a dozen or so, but had one Olympic for sure long at CapTexTri couple years ago, RD claims to have measured in nautical mile units instead of terrestrial and that fit by my pace estimate. I came out first in AG and went on to have the best placing I've done in that race - happened to be in pretty decent swim shape for that race, finally paid off.

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some days you're the windshield some days the bug

You know, that's a really pathetic excuse; I mean the real distance is 1500 meters, no miles involved whatsoever. But I've heard that before but just not in a race I've done. I've also heard of races with 1500 FEET swims, which would be really absurd!!!

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

 I've also heard of races with 1500 FEET swims, which would be really absurd!!! //

It was atlanta USTS, either 84 or 85. When asked afterwards, the swim director said yards, feet, they are just about the same aren't they?? But i did get my lifetime PR for olympic distance swimming, about a 5;04.. (-;

I knew I had read about this somewhere but it's been so long, obv. Wow, that takes the cake for idiocy. Sure, feet, yards, whatever, they're just about the same. OBVIOUSLY, that person is NOT an engineer. Not that engineering has much to do with tri-sport but I'm an engineer by training and "units, units, units" was drilled into my head. Get your units right in your equation and you'll probably get the right answer, unless you make a simple math error.

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

Assuming no current helping you along, most people will be faster in the pool.

You really need to account for wetsuits if you have them in your area, though. That can be a huge advantage and put you back towards a pool swim.

Threadbump

Am i the only one significantly faster in OW than pool? Im reading everywhere that people are faster in the pool. Im an awful swimmer. about 1:58/100m in the pool, open turns and pool-bouy. I never see these times in OW even with currents. Granted im wearing a wettie, but on flat days my Garmin will give me paces of 1:30/100 which is massive difference. Does this mean im a brick in the water or that my Garmin is being a dick? Even with currents the slowest i have been is in the 1:40 times. Do some people just swim better in OW than pool? I swear a pool seriously roots me fitness wise even for 1km, but i feel like i can go for quite a while in OW with less effort. Im thinking buoyancy from the wettie?

I ain't a good swimmer at all and are faster outside than in the pool.
But we have only a lake, so there are no real waves and cause of temperature a wetsuit on.
Also I don't push myself crazy off the wall in the pool cause I don't think it's an advantage I could use outside and way too old to train the turn stuff anyways.

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-shoki

no far from it i expect, wetsuit gives me 10s per 100m, helps my body position no end. i would imagine poor swimmers get most benefit from a wetsuit

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