Find a really good pacer?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

Talk to his coach about it

Seriously, I have no idea because I don't know what he is doing now.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

 
Spend more time swimming
(You poo pooed the much used response!)

Fly out to Penticton for some swim sessions with jonnyo!

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"I swim because that's how I get to ride my bike."

I think all you guys need to give the kid some time. He's still really new to the sport and figuring things out. He is going to get things to a certain point. Kienle was not particularly fast either in his early years when he came off Duathlon. Same deal with Stadler. They incrementally got better. It was pretty impressive at Kona that he rode totally solo and still ran 2:54 and it's not like he is the lightest/waif thin guy in the pro group.

I actually don't think he needs to improve his swim that much to win Kona. He already swam 2 min faster on the Hola swim a week before Kona. So just swim 2 min faster than that (so 4 min faster than race day), transition 60 second faster, and go get the aerodynamics cleaned up a bit. That might net him another 3-5 min. suddenly he's 8-10 min faster coming to T2 and likely biking with more guys, so maybe actually comes into T2 13-15 min faster. Now suddenly he's in the hunt.

I am actually impressed that he cranked off a really good hot weather run which really bodes well for him to give a Kona win a crack. Before this, his runs on hot days in Texas and Tremblant were not as "sharp".

Guys might be writing him off as a Kona contender, but he proved the most important thing if you want to be a contender. He had one of the top runs on the day on one of the hottest day in memory in Kona. Watch out of this guy if he just executes the swim a bit better, cleans up the aerodynamics and then comes in T2 in contention.

I was saying to Fleck there was some good Canadian athletes this year, but they have to actually put it together in Kona. I THINK we're yet to see the best of McMahon, Sanders and Symonds. Symonds run an unreal 2:50 after single leg pedaling the final 30K (or something like that). I am looking forward to seeing "Canadian team" on the run in Kona some day. Would be crazy to get a good temp day and have all three of them run sub 2:50!

The 'swim more' obvious response does raise the interesting question though - has he left it too late? Can someone who may not have a natural talent / affinity for picking up the nuances of high level swimming and who also missed the boat by not learning young (years of squads when young), ever get to the level to hang onto the feet of Potts, Frodo et al?

Oops, I figured everyone was familiar with his notorious training sessions he posts on his web site. He does have some detail in the "Interesting developments in the water" post. He mentioned possibly working with Tim Floyd and his team, not sure if that ever happened.

Also, if he is not getting the right instruction, is he just ingraining more bad habits by swimming more.

He needs to find something, but I don't know what that is. In one of the other threads, I suggested that one of the best things he could do would be to go talk to Byron at UofT. Sanders is young, but he isn't that young. He's 27, which really means that he has a couple of years to really improve the swim. He swam a 1:01 this year, which isn't close to cutting it. To have a chance at the win, he needs at least 6 minutes cut from that. If he's out of the water in 55, he's got a shot at getting to the front group in the bike.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Lionel did work with Tim briefly but as I understand it they are no longer working together.

I think he needs to spend more time training in a more structured environment and not the make it up as he goes which is what it seems like he does. He has some body position items that he needs to address and I think he needs to focus on his swim A LOT. Out of the Canadians I think he has the least likely to win with the other two racing. Symonds has the best chance in my opinion. Let me make this clear, I am a HUGE Lionel Sanders fan and hope he does win and has huge success but I feel Texas was a big wake up call. He can't rely on riding THAT hard in Kona and hope that he can run someone down or hold on. There are just too many great athletes that are more well rounded. I also think he races a little too much. If he want's to be the World Champion I think he needs to tighten his schedule up and find a coach that will help him become a more well rounded athlete.

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Kirk Noyes

Downtubes are for Dinosaurs

I agree, I think sub 55 is the number. Then he is in the conversation.

Potts and Frodo have a swimming background. I doubt he'd ever get to that level. But he also does not need to get to that level to win.

Honestly, at this point I would recommend dance classes. I have suggested this before to some non-swimmers who seemed to not be able to improve, none have taken the advice, none have improved IMO. Worth a shot.

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Sanders was 21:46 behind Frodo this year: 10:20 slower on the swim, 1:16 transitions, 7:50 bike, and 2:20 run. Thus he was slower in every single part of the race. I would think he could not afford to give up more than 3 min to Frodo on the swim, at the most. As to what to do to improve his swimming, ajthomas pointed out some months ago, after Sanders or someone posted one of video summaries of his day's training, that he should not be leaving his swim workout until the end of the day when he is already pretty tired from a 4 hr bike and 2-hr run. At least some days, say 3-4 days/wk, he should do his swim workout first when he is relatively fresh.

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

Jason, he swam 59 minutes on the Hola Swim on the identical course to the IM Hawaii swim the weekend before. So really he just needs to go from 59 to 56. His transitions were both slow/ He easily has 90 seconds there. He's going slower than age groupers in T1+T2. My 2010 combined Kona T1+T2 is around 25 seconds faster than Lionel (I was sub 5 min for the two). Lionel needs to be close to 4 min flat.

I think a lot of you guys are overblowing what he needs to do on the swim to have a shot at winning in Kona. Keep in mind that last year at Tremblant world's he out biked Frodo by 1.5 minutes. So if he can come off the swim 5-6 min back, and given that he is the same caliber biker as Frodo, he can potentially even close on the bike and then he is going to be competitive on the run.

He needs to swim 6 days a week first thing in the morning for 6 month starting now. I will take some shots for this but I think he needs to find a more established coach who has had some of the top athletes in the sport win the big races.

I would then balance this bike and running but the emphasis should be swimming for the next 6 months.

Wow ..I was just thinking the same thing when I first saw this thread title. It's a very specific sort dance mind you, in a not so common time signature.

Of the few snippets I've seen of his stroke I am surprised it's working as well as it is. But you (and I) did predict the waters of Kona would be a real challenge and that was true.

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Spend a summer with the distance squad at Miami (Aust) under Dennis Cotterell. Solved.

Just do Ironman Louisville, Coz, and other races with current assisted or shortened swims, or cancelled swims.

Assuming that he cant relocate I would suggest he finds out who the best local - local in that he can get to swim with them daily? coach's are, meets them, discusses where he is, where he wants to be and talks through how they'd approach it and then makes a determination as to who he could work with

If my memory serves me correctly, Gordo Byrn was not a swimmer before he gave up the VC lifestyle and started training - I think he was a low-mid 50 min swimmer at his peak - it can be done, his approach was to seek out the best minds in the business and ended up living in NZ and Boulder. I don't think LS needs to go that far to improve

Iam a huge Lionel sanders fan from Australia love reading his blog. I expected him to be around 10mins down on the leaders on the swim and I know this thread is about the swim but I was more surprised by his bike and run times. I honestly expected him to have at least a top 3 bike split if not fastest overall on the bike and same for the run. Some of the bike sessions and wattages he holds for extended periods in training are out of this world? I would think he would be the most powerful rider there for sure maybe the camelback was causing huge drag? And even his run workouts in training are animal like I expected him to throw down a fastest run spilt. Looking forward to following his progress next year. I hope mentally he can keep it together with those brutal indoor sessions

Just because he publishes his workouts doesn't make him the fastest or strongest. How do you know others can't produce the same kind of numbers? They might just not be as public about it.

You can't really compare swim times from different days in Kona. Swim conditions could easily account for the time difference and more.

I think you're using some serious mental gymnastics to make him a contender for the win in Kona at this point. Right now he's not quite there. He has incredible talent and achieved great results this year but despite that he seems to have lost some of his sharpness on the bike and the run as the season progressed. I know it's stupid to speculate without enough information but from what I've seen of his training it's probably too much and if he doesn't cut back a bit it might be hard to get that top end back. It's obvious he can do a huge amount of training but the question is if it's the right amount in order for him to reach his potential.

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