I am a very experienced triathlete, fast, KQed several times etc. but not a natural swimmer. Over the years i have gotten better at swimming, in the pool I can keep a fairly relaxed 1’40-1’45/100m pace for a long time, recently did a 10x400m tempo trainer session on 1’45 pace with one beep interval (so 20/25 sec). Pretty comfortable.
See my swim in OW this morning. Pace close to 2 mins, i didn’t start my watch until after warmup and stopped before c/d. It is not about sighting, as the watch measuted the distance in whatever direction. Not about the wetsuit, which is comfortable. How is this possible? Can it be the gps on my wahoo is so off?
You’re going in a circle. So part of it that when you turn, you lose some momentum. Do you also have a safety buoy? That slows you down a bit as well.
My OWS is typically slower on my own vs in the pool. But I’m fine in a race since there’s feet to draft, typically lots of buoys to sight off of, I’ve got my game face on, etc.
I’d be curious what your 1st lap speed for the 1st few 400yd or m is vs your last lap speed 400yd/m and how much you are falling off the backend as someone who’s not a natural swimmer. For 95% of athletes out there you should always be faster in a pool than OW (obvious reasons). It’s rare that someone is slow on in a pool that is a competent swimmer who then gets better in OW. It generally means you are having turn issues and yes ow comfort helps a ton, but generally most people are always slower going from a pool setup to an ow setup. That’s not really too alarming. So it really is how are you compared to the other athletes in a race that are more important than your “pace”, that sounds super counter-intutitave.
Wind, current, chop, not swimming in a straight line, no turns…. The list of variables for OW vs pool is large. You are probably just overthinking this.
I also think sometimes especially AG athletes view OW swim training incorrectly. They go to their lake, put on their wetsuit and float bouy and just swim 2k out, 2k back or 5 laps of a loop like above, get out and see they just swam their race distance and good to go. What they should be doing is still interval based training even within ow, they’ll get more where you swim 5 x 1 lap on X interval, than just swimming 5 laps. I get it athletes want to feel they can swim the distance, so sure if you need to do that 1 time, go for it. But once beyond that, take intervals to the open water location. That way you are keeping yourself accountable, etc than just “go swim”.
If you have an “loop” like above, if you know the general distance then you just set it on an interval, and you don’t deviate from that interval. If you don’t have that, just figure out what your ow location allows. If it’s just 6 mins in 1 direction and 6 mins back, then go 10 x 6 mins w/ 1-2 mins “rest” (swimming in place or laying on your back if you have a wetsuit). So a lot will be venue dependent, but you want to get faster in OW, take intervals to OW practice.
During covid I laughed when all the swim teams came to the lake that we did our open water swims. And they basically just had athletes swim the parameter of the lake, while I had my athletes doing essentially a pool swim setup (swim boys in the lake 100m in shape of a box), all on intervals. The coach saw me doing that, and he was like “that’s brilliant”, I laughed (swim coach learning from the tri coach…my how the tides have turned, lol), been doing this for a decade, lol. Within a few weeks they started having boys along the shore as well.
Might be getting your pool speed from pushing off the wall and getting that 3-second rest if you flip-turn every 25 seconds. I put it down to having to generate all momentum yourself, and naturally kicking less because of working continuously. For me another clue is that I’m faster without a wetsuit - probably mostly because I kick harder without the free buoyancy.
thanks. yes maybe as several of you are saying, maybe I am just overthinking this. It’s that in training it is easy to say lock into 230W on the bike or 4’10min/km pace on swim and run, but here in OW it’s like the pace while I try to simulate a race has got nothing to do with what I think I ought to be capable of. BWT, in OW with wetsuit I have swam 1’07-1’10 and 1’10 in Kona last year. thanks!
Thanks yes I hear you and agree, following Gerry Rodriguez’ view as well, there is not a lot of value in even pace sessions, it’s just that I wanted to try a race simulation once ahead of IM Vitoria next week. I have swam 1’07-1’10 in the past in wetsuit races (1’10 in Kona this year) and given that I have gotten so much faster in the pool I would have expected to have gone faster. It is pretty easy for me to lock into 230W in training on the bike and 4min/k on the run on tired legs even for long stretches (1h/10K on the run) so I was hoping to try this on the swim too, but I did not come even close. Funny enough, it’s not that my pace dropped off or anything like that, I just was not even close to what I think I should be able to swim.
Guess the answer is that at this point the main thing i can do is forget paces and just have the best swim i can next week, strong but sustainable pace, and that’s about it.
So look at your stroke rate and pace in your 1st few laps vs same for the last few laps. I’d be willing to bet your last lap was over 2:00/pace (I doubt you sat at 1:5x the entire time in your swim; most AG swimmers have degradation the longer they swim). If you were going 1:56 overall average. You probaly have a wider pace difference than you think. All those splits should be in strava or TP (if you use TP). Which means your stroke is falling apart the longer you swim. Sam Long swims what 54 in Kona and his swim breakdown is very evident the back half of almost all his swims (look at the time splits he loses in T100 races from 1 lap to the 2nd lap; he always loses more time back end)I his swim coach basically broke that down as one of his weaknesses, in addition to the setup of swim workouts when you don’t take that into account. (That pod on TTH with him and his “swim coach” Greg Harper was super enlightening).
Pretty much the same as me. I’m 1:31 per 100YD in the pool over a 1000 for time, but in open water I’m closer to 1:40. I find I push harder in the pool as you have pacing down extreamely well in the pool, and then the walls are worth a lot. I do open turns, but even there I’ve perfected the open turn and get probably 3-5 sec/100 from that alone.
Try do no push offs / open turns in the pool for a 500 and see what your time is. I also find I don’t kick near as much when in a wetsuit. If feals too much like having a buey, and we’ve prorgrammed ourselves to not kick.
I’m having this same problem. 30sec/100m slower in open water. Thinking about getting a new wetsuit with less buoyancy and better flexibility so its a bit more natural feeling. Also thinking I’m not a great swimmer and not having the push off the wall is really showing my weakness.
It looks to me that this swim that you did is on par with your ironman swims, so that is consistent. If we assume your watch is correct, it seems like you just dont work as hard once you leave the black line, and have trouble pacing without all the instant feedback. I’m not sure why folks keep saying you should be slower in the OW, that is not true if using a wetsuit vs just a speedo in the pool. You should absloulty be faster. Now I will concede that a lot of folks will tell you this because its what happens to them, but they are also lacking in something and following their advice, well like following the blind I suppose…
Its good for you to do more of these swims, you can dissect them and see where your pace falls off, if you go too hard too early, too slow, or just plain not hard enough the whole way. Then you can work on it, and then it should translate from faster pool swims to the OW…
No it’s actually because in general ow dynamics have much more variables that afffect you than the pool. Just putting on a wetsuit doesn’t make you any faster than your pool splits if you are affected by the very real factors that occur in open water, that don’t occur in the pool. FFS it’s not that complicated. Far out you seemingly love to discredit any knowledge I give on this site. It’s wild, you’ve been doing it for years now, like when the fuck did i piss in your corn flakes or soemthing?
And we are talking in generalities, there is always going to be exceptions to the norm, but most of the time it’s the norm/general priinciples that guide any conversation.
So as I said my guess is that it has more to do with the OP “running out of gas”, as I’m guessing there is probaly a 10+ second drop in pace in that swim from start pace to finish pace.
I’m talking to the OP here, you are just making shit up for some non apparent reason. He swam in a lake or what looks like a very calm bay, did a circle swim point to point, he is in that category of pace where he probably gets 12 to 16 seconds a 100 from a wetsuit, and it doesnt matter if he goes wonky, as his GPS just measures what he swims, not a prescribed course…
So you tell me coach, why is he now 20 seconds a 100 slower in the OW with his wetsuit, than he is in the pool? Dont make shit up, just talk to his situation…And yes I. know about wall push offs, so there is a second or two…
Go fucking read my posts upthread. I already explained why he’s slower. It’s my guess is that he is running out of gas doing a single straight swim where he’s not holding pace. I’d love to see him screen shot each lap or 400/500yd segments and see what the degradation is. So knowing the splits throughout the swim, will basically show you the answer, the “average” split is pretty meaningless if that is all you are saying. Again it’s not that fucking complicated bud.
So again for most people it’s 2 different complete environments. Comparing pool pace to ow pace has never made sense because of that. It’s why the old adage you compare your swim splits to the leaders and people in said race.
So who in triathlon swimming has set their swim PR’s in open water venues vs pool PR times? Please enlighten me, because I can’t find many that have and lots of there PR and data is all out there.
Lastly- in a pool no one ever is actually swimming the full distance, they are getting aid every time from the wall. And the better you are as a fish the better aid you get and the less swimming you actually have to do to be faster in the pool for said distance. But ow unless it’s current aided when it’s. a 2150yd swim, your swimming every stroke of that 2150yd, so your by default going to have to swim more in OW to cover the same distance. The longer you go, umm yeah by default the likely your stroke degrades for most people, even more so “average” swimmers like the OP. It’s not that fucking conmplicated.
He mentioned 400’s as a comparison, so he’s swimming ~7 mins straight and then taking a break (if send off is 8 mins he’s getting ~1 min of rest, for the entire 1hr20 mins he got 10 total mins of rest). And then comparing that to the pace for doing something 1hr15 mins straight, of course there is going to be stroke degradation going on there.
BTW don’t tell me not to make shit up and then you claim 12-16 wetsuit improvement. YOU are making shit up bud.
10x400 with 25 seconds rest is not a really good predictor of a 4km swim pace in ow unless you are an advanced swimmer and can feel your paces really well. This is too easy and allows over estimating
what pace do you think you’d like to hold in your 4km ow swims?
What is the best pace you can do a 3km in the pool?
Just as FYI, your watch was really off on that last pool swim as 1700 yd in 28:39 is 1:41/100 yd, not 1:20. And with an avg of 1:41, it is highly unlikely that your best 100 was 1:09. Interestingly, your watch seems accurate on the St George swim since 2124 yd in 28:35 is 1:21/100. It is moderately amazing that you went 20 sec/100 faster on race day; were you really tired on the 1700 swim and then rested a bunch before the race???
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