My question probably doesn’t have an easy or clear cut answer…with that being said, I’d like to see what slowtwitch thinks.
Say I can run a 16:45 5k. What would be the equivalent open water swim performance for a given distance, say 1/4 mile or 1500m? Similarly, what would a similar bike split be for a 20k or 40k triathlon split?
Maybe I’m trying to compare apples and oranges, but assuming that the athlete has the same potential for swimming or biking as running (yes, that is a fairly large assumption), I’m sure some rough approximations could be made.
McMillan Running Calculator provides some useful race-distance equivalencies for runners, even if it does often tend to over-predict the distance capabilities of speed-oriented runners. Is there, or could there be, a triathlon version of this?
You could probably get “equivalent” times by looking at where given performances place people relative to competition.
For example, a 16:45 5K would be a pretty good runner on a varsity HS XC team, so what would a good HS varsity swimmer do for a 1500?
As for how fast a 16:45 runner can swim a 1500, this depends hugely on their swim form. I’ve known faster runners than that that couldn’t break 30:00 for a 1500M OWS. I’ve known 18:00 1500 swimmers who couldn’t run a 20:00 5K.
The degree of error is always going to be massive when you’re converting between disciplines. If you just want a very rough gauge of *potential, *I’d have a browse of the results from a **big **local tri event (i.e. one with a good number of competitors at the kind of times you’re talking about) and see what kind of times they’re hitting on each split.
I’ll stick my neck out and take rough stab in the dark for you though! I’d say if you can run a 16:45 open 5k, you should be looking to run solidly sub-18 mins in a sprint and sub-37 in a Olympic run. People hitting those kind of run splits will be swimming 1500m OW around ~22 mins (+/- 2 mins), biking the 40k in around 1 hour (+/- 5 mins) and around 2:00 hours total for the Olympic distance. Obviously putting those three times together on race day requires a lot of tri-specific training and there will be a lot of people who are capable of a sub-17 open 5k who can’t get anywhere near to those other times.
That’s just my two cents.
My question probably doesn’t have an easy or clear cut answer…with that being said, I’d like to see what slowtwitch thinks.
Say I can run a 16:45 5k. What would be the equivalent open water swim performance for a given distance, say 1/4 mile or 1500m? Similarly, what would a similar bike split be for a 20k or 40k triathlon split?
Maybe I’m trying to compare apples and oranges, but assuming that the athlete has the same potential for swimming or biking as running (yes, that is a fairly large assumption), I’m sure some rough approximations could be made.
McMillan Running Calculator provides some useful race-distance equivalencies for runners, even if it does often tend to over-predict the distance capabilities of speed-oriented runners. Is there, or could there be, a triathlon version of this?
I’ve given this question much thought over the years and, while some may not agree, here is my take on it: Equal times in the swim vs the run can be roughly estimated by using the % over the WR for the analogous events. For example, the WR for the 400 LCM free is 3:40 vs the mile is about 3:43, so a 5:00 for the 400 lcm free would be about equiv of a 5:04 mile run. For your 5K in 16:45, the 5K WR is 12:37 so 16.75/12.62 = 1.33 or about 33% slower than WR pace. The analogous swim event is the 1500 lcm, with WR of 14:31, so 1.33*14.52 = 19:19, which is about 1:17/100 lcm. If you swim in a 25-yd (scy) pool, then you’d do a 1650 yd and you’d need to go 18:56 or about 1:09/100 scy, e.g. you should be faster due to more rest from the extra 36 turns:)
All this said, you’ll rarely see anyone going these times in AG triathlon, mainly b/c the really good swimmers aren’t swimming close to their potential b/c they’re concentrating on the B and R. In top level ITU racing though, you’ll see pretty comparable swim and run times:)