Curious how important it is to line up near the front of the ows if you’re an above average age grouper.
I typically finish top 25-15% in the swim, and in retrospect my fastest swims were all when I seeded myself aggressively, took the beating of the washing machine and came out well.
The other races where I opt for misplace i got beat quite significantly by people who have no chance against me in the pool in my Triclub.
I practice ows too an am not a rookie.
I think a lot depends.
One strategy- is to fight it out with the other yahoos at the front. The goal here is to fight your way on to the fastest set of feet you can find, and hold on.
This might work.
I would use this strategy - IF the goal is to have the fastest possible swim (regardless of effort) AND there are a decent number of fast swimmers.
On the other hand, this strategy has some obvious pitfalls.
A) What if you choose the wrong feet?
B) There is liable to be an unnecessary amount of high intensity surges and emotional stress. The time gains might be neglible.
Another strategy is to get into the water in the middle of the field. Swim through the field using other swimmers slip stream to propel you ahead.
You get good acceleration passing slower swimmers!!
If you don’t mind occasionally accidentally pummeling a slower swimmer- this is a low stress, low intensity strategy.
The pitfall to this strategy is that you might get blocked (because of politeness or o a general inability to accelerate).
I’ve being doing the middle of the field swim up strategy but I think I’m getting boxed in. I got beat by a minute in a sprint tri swim by a guy who can’t even keep pace with me in my masters lane after 500 yds.
What race distance are we talking.
How big is the field?
I think it is possible to get a great draft from a much faster swimmer.
But I don’t think it’s that likely.
I have some friends that try to draft me.
They have the advantage of knowing that I am a fast swimmer. And I will even tell them how fast I plan to go and where I plan to swim.
It doesn’t usually work out for them though.
I accelerate too fast. Or swim in an unpredictable fashion or someone else pushes them off my feet. And then they both get dropped.
I used to start at the front of the race.
I don’t do that anymore:
If I were racing as a pro, or in a stand alone open water swim- I would still choose to fight it out at the front.
I generally found it best to line up at/near the front.
You will generally be swimming amongst skilled and more aware swimmers, and that generally lessens the beating. I always found calmer seas quicker when lining up at the front, as opposed to wrestling around with the less skilled further back.
At IMC I accidentally lined up front row, right in the bloody center of the starting line when the horn went. I’m just under an hour IM swimmer, and it was one of the cleanest swims ever for me, despite the big field and my placement.
Mass start in a big race
Mass start in a small race
Wave start in a age-group championship race
Self-seeding in a large race
Self-seeding in a small race
Open water swim race with other fast (or faster swimmer’s).
I would treat each of these scenarios differently.
Sure, but if you’re a FOP swimmer, as OP seems to be (or at least on the verge of FOP) I can’t imagine any scenario where starting mid pack would be advantageous in any of your scenarios.
Line up close to the front. I am a top 10 AG swimmer in 70.3, and you waste a crapton of time passing if you are not near the front.
I’d consider myself MOP. Plenty of bikes on the rack when I’m done. I think it’s a lot harder to sight in the mass of the mop and the feet are unreliable and you also waste time swimming around slower swimmers.
I’m just not sure if it is THE reason I’m getting beat by swimmers I’m always better than in the pool.
Wish I was fast enough to cut through the masses like I might on the bike but no such luck for me on the swim.
I am an FOP swimmer.
But I am also an FOP triathlete
There are a lot of different scenarios.
I can think of quite a few reasons why being at the front of the race, too early, might be DISadventageous.
A few:
There is a significant aerodynamic and psychological advantage to be gained by passing people.
It is often easier to find appropriate legal draft partner’s when you come out of the race with or after your partners.
Mass starts in big races used to involve fast swimmers (like me) pummeling not so fast swimmers who pushed their way into prime position.
(Nowadays, with self seeding, things are usually more chill!)
Bottom line…
The old saying “You can’t win the race on the swim. But you can lose it.”
Is true!
It’s harder to make a fatal mistake - if you are cool and collected. Worrying too much about maximizing position and place on the swim might mess with ones cool.
But that depends on the race and ones overall race strategy.
I’m a shit swimmer and I much prefer swimming over people than being swam over so I usually go middle to back of the pack. The bonus for the rest of the race is I’m passing people rather than being passed. I also don’t give a shit where I finish.
I’m just trying to figure out why these weaker swimmers than me are beating me in OWS, often by a full minute in an Olympic distance race, when in the pool I’m +5 to +7sec/100 (yep, I even lap one of those guys in a 300yd interval) once the wetsuits are on.
I def on average place lower than I expect in the race OWS swim compared to these guys. Either they’re just gaining a ton with the wetsuit (possible) or I’m underperforming in OWS. Again, I practice OWS a reasonable amount before race day, so there are no sighting or wetsuit comfort issues, and I’ve tested the wetsuit several times in the pool, it’s 7-10sec/100 faster for me than without, so no problem there.
Again, for sure the fastest swims I’ve had where I’ve beaten these regular slower local swimmers are when I lined up closer to the front and battled it out for the first 100-150. I don’t think I swam any harder in these races, either, but it’s possible.
I’ve also tried to draft in my OWS, but it never works out. The feet in front of me are either too fast or too slow or too off-course. I did stick on one pair once in a swim-run, and swam slightly better than I expected for results, but it wasn’t a magic bullet. My fastest OWS/highest placement was def no draft.
“Bingo!!! Right to the front row!”
Take the beating. Give the beating. I’ve had split lip, cut eye, head elbowed, feet grabbed.
Just take off. Find some fast feet. Hang on. The reward is an empty T1.
It’s race day!
I’m one of those guys who loses time in the pool compared to my tri team (3–5 sec per 100m) but can keep up in open water. One reason is that the swimmers on the team are lifelong pool swimmers, and their technique at tumble turns and push-offs is much better than mine. OWS negates that and I can hang on their feet and sometimes come out first
I forgot it’s very likely I am a superior tumble turner than these weaker swimmers. I still can’t believe though I can lap one of them in a pool 300 and he beats me by over a minute in an only swim.
Almost always i am equal or better than my better than me pool swimming buddies in OW. I figure wetsuit allows me better body position than them, my stroke rate is better suited to OW, and my pool turns are very ungood 
Hadn’t considered OW swim start as a reason… hmmm….
Start at the front. If you start further back and are passing, you might not be giving the proper effort as you “think” you are doing great, but really off the pace you should be.
That old saying is wrong. I have won based on my swim. My time was good 2’nd place was a bit worse than mine and I beat him by less than the swim margin.
Great turns are worth probably 1-3s per turn in a pool, maybe even more. I suck at pool turns, and I’m right on the line of swim ability where I should learn to flip turn, but I haven’t wanted to spend the few months time and effort to do it right without kicking my friends or dunking myself in the water. As well, depending on pool start order, I think water dynamics of sharing a lane can impact people a lot differently than OW, too.
The one thing I’ll add is that weaker swimmers often stop randomly to breast stroke and catch their bearings. Its usually clustered around the turn buoy but can happen anywhere along the route.
A few times I’ve been randomly kicked in the face on a breast stroke while trying to pass people and those are much worse than the jostling you’ll find at the front of the race with the strong swimmers, who are much more predictable.
In a perfect world where everyone was appropriately seeding themselves, you’d want to seed yourself a few % faster than if everything was a time trial, which means that everyone tries to do this, so you move up a bit, and so on. The ideal feet belong to a swimmer who is 5% than you are and swims much as you do - try to find that person! (My swim PB came after egregiously drafting one of the swimmers in my club. I knew exactly how fast he’d be swimming and just tried to hang on)
Of course, if you’re doing a 2 lap swim, you’re going to end up passing people anyway on the 2nd loop