Actually, very few people swim that "1-mile cable swim" and that record is not really appropriate for comparison to the USATF 5000 m record. We really need to compare WRs in the pool and on the track. The FINA WR for the 65-69 AG for 1500 scm is 18:54 (1:15.6/100 scm or about 1:08/100 yd), which is about 34% slower than the WR for 1500 scm of 14:08. The WR for the 65-69 for 5000 m is 16:39 (5:21.6/mi), which is about 32% slower than the WR of 12:37.

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

Evaluate as a percent of world class. Can be applied to any sport and score.

World Score / Your Score

Our ocean mile was won @ 23.16 by a South African beast. Canadian National-level club swimmers were also in that time 23.xx. The times vary a lot depending on current, wave action and course length.

If you are 70-80% of best or world class score that is pretty good for amateur or triathlete in my books.

Example running 14.5/22.5 for 5K nets 64% - running is tough.
14.5/20 is 72% I took 14.5 for 5K from Justin Kent local Canadian runner, won the West Van & Sun Run here.

Also can be applied to cycling times/speed, anything.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
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Exactly, can be applied to any sport that is timed. I prefer to use the reverse of your calculation though, e.g. for the 20 min 5K, 20.0/12.62 = 1.585 or 58.5% slower than the WR of 12:37. Your method does have the advantage of giving a "score" though, which is comparable to test scores in school. :)

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

If you mean 1500m, anything below 20mins is good.

You do not get many weekend warriors (so you can't use averages) in swimming and 18 year olds normally finish a 1500m in a pool between 16-18mins, which is significantly faster than I would see someone do in open water.

22mins is probably the equivalent of a 25min 5k

20mins is 21min 5km

18mins is sub 20min 5km

16mins is sub 16min 5km

Just a personal view, I can run 5km in around 19 minutes, and swim 1500m in around 23 minutes. In a triathlon I will usually place higher in the swim than in the run, so this makes me think that a 23 minute 1500m swim is "better" or at least rarer than a 19 minute 5km run.

Just my opinion, but I would equate a 20 minute 5km run, to a 25-26 minute 1500m swim.

Whether those times are "good" depends who else shows up!

I'm guessing that the "average athlete" is a lot better at running and cycling than swimming. Those of us who put in some effort or had the luxury of being able to swim everyday for fun developed muscle memory and a feel for the water that is hard to reproduce in the later years. So yeah, no weekend warriors makes for an easier field for those who still get in the water.

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"They know f_ck-all over at Slowtwitch"
- Lionel Sanders

For what AG? 20 min 1500 gets you ranked 5th on the 45-49 Canadian men’s rankings for 2018. There are a lot of guys who are faster than that who don’t swim the event, but even so, 20 mins is a pretty decent time, especially for someone without a youth swimming background. There are plenty of guys who are pretty dedicated who never crack the 20 min barrier.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

Very good point Jason. I'm not sure on mature swimming.

I was 20mins at 15 years of age, have never broken that 20min barrier my whole life tbh but I knew friends who would keep a 75sec pace per 100m for the 1.5km. So they were like 18-19mins at 17-18 years of age

Swimmers tend to get faster up until 22-25 and then start to slow down. HOWEVER!! 1.5k is borderline endurance and technique will see people keep going into their 40s i would suspect but can not prove without looking at the masters events.

I would take my times below 30 then. If you were swimming 6-8 times a week at 25. You should reach 20mins. I don't think triathletes train as much in the water.

I think I may be coming at this at too much of a purest pov

This is the one I think that's closest
The thing is in swimming,, a factor is swim background as a child or as an adult onset swimmer
To improve running as an adult is just easier than learning to swim from scratch.

Hmmm.

I'm a complete math geek, so, here goes:

The men's 5000m WR is just under 12:36.

How "good" is a 20min 5000m run?

Well, 12:36 divided by 20min is 63%.

What would 63% be in the 1500m swim?

Well, the SC WR is 14:08, divide by 0.63 and you get 22:26.

So, in my geeky math brain, a 20min 5km run is "as good as" a 22:26 1500m swim (in a 25m pool).

As a slight aside, my swim goals all revolve around the 59% level. :)

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I only swim.
I used to run. (31:09 10k)
I never did Triathlon.
Sue me.

excellent analysis, I think it produces a very solid answer that aligns well with intuition.

Agreed. I like the formulas that were brought to the question, comparing times to the world 5K record as compared to a 20:00 5K and so on.

But given that this is a triathlon site, I also think we should consider what the word "good" means in our sport. The closest we would get to a mile would be 1.2 miles in open water in a 70.3 and we could decide that "good" could mean something like the 66th percentile. Look up any age group that you care about.

In triathlon context at 1.2 miles, I think that we would often find that "good" is in the mid to high 30s for most age groups.

(I think that "good" can be a long way off from "winning" or front of pack in the swim).

Here’s a link to the USA Swimming National Motivational time standards for age group swimmers. If I remember right, the quad-A standard represents the top 1% of swimmers and the B is around the 40th percentile.

Hope this helps. https://www.usaswimming.org/...ionaltimes-top16.pdf[/url]

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http://www.snappingtortuga.com
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Swimmers are silly. One length of the pool is a 'lap' and 1500 is a mile.

I once ran a 3:57.9 1500m.

Hey!! I'm a SUB4 MILER!!!

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I only swim.
I used to run. (31:09 10k)
I never did Triathlon.
Sue me.

Ok, lets compare apples to apples. In triathlon, best swimmers have a 16 flat PB in 50m pool. Best runners have a 28 flat in 10k. If you run 4m/km you are exceeding 43% their times. So, excced 43% of 16m and then you have 22m.50s for 1500m in a 50m pool. If think 22.30-23.00 is the figure more or less equivalent to run 4m/km.... this does not mean at all that if you run 4m/km you have the potential to swim that, or the inverse. Not all the 16m guys in the pool (Varga, Gomez, Polyaanski) can run 28 flat or 28.30. Of course, the best ones can (Luis, Gomez, Schoeman, maybe AB)...but the vast majority cannot. That´s the best of this sport...you can almost "suck" at swimming like Peter Robertson and win 3 world championships.

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

Agreed. What really matters is how you do relative to others in you AG. At this point I'd be happy with under 28-29min (50+yo female) for a mile! Under 32min for 1.2.

It is relative. But with an honest mile, open water race conditions 28-29 is a great time. The top club (nationals) swimmers/open water masters champs do the mile in around 24min. We race every year in the ocean on Vancouver Island.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
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Background in any event is key, (especially swimming) but I'd say most people think "pretty good" might be:

1500 swim: 24 minutes

20k bike: 30 minutes

5k run: 20 minutes

Summer Macintosh is 14. She went 16:15 LCM. : )

If I recall, Potts was 4th in 400IM

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

I've been consistently under 17:10 SCM in 2017 (40), 2018(41), 2019(42) no opportunities in 2020 where I only had 1 meet and 800/1500 were not on offer.

For 2020 I was ranked 3rd in the World in M40-44 for the 400 IM...

For context my lifetime opener 1500m Free was a 21:35 (scm) at 11 years old.

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

The low 17 minute range is excellent on a 1500. What was your 400 IM time?

4:51.32 (Feb 1, 2020).


I swam 4:50.81 in April 2017 when I swam 16:58 for 1500m the previous day. I had to rush to another pool to officiate my kids meet after that IM.

Solid race for early in the season without a taper. Just a few extra days off weights and some race prep sessions.

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

That’s a very good time on a 400 IM. Just really good.

Really worked on my breastroke, it takes the pressure off the other splits and allows for a more even effort through the race. Growing up I front loaded the IM to make up for my breastroke.

200 IM - 2018 Nationals
I went super easy on fly, build back, long pullouts on breast and hang on for dear life in free.

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