the question is as follows: can we stiputate that if you lead the 1:10 lane in your masters workout then you’re a 49- or 50-minute Kona swimmer? let’s forget other ironman swims, wetsuit or non wetsuit, we’ll take a repeatable effort like kona, where in the normal year the lead group of swimmers are out in 51-flat and a breakaway swimmer that is not lars jorgensen is going to be out in 48 or 49. if you are in the 1:10 lane but are not leading it, then you’re in that lead group in kona. does that sound about right?
if so, then, let’s talk about the 1:20 lane. there are 42 100s in an ironman swim, so, that’s 4200 seconds, or 7 minutes. if you’re a 51-flat swimmer in kona leaving 3rd or 4th in the 1:10 lane, are you then a 58-flat swimmer if you’re leaving 3rd or 4th in the 1:20 lane? are you a 1:05 swimmer if you’re same guy or gal just in the 1:30 lane? 1:12 in the 1:40 lane? 1:20 swimmer in kona in the 1:50 lane? if you leave in the 2-minute lane are you a 1:25 to 1:30 swimmer in kona?
or, do the dynamics of the swim not quite equal this calculus? are you an incrementally slower swimmer in the open water? in other words, if you swim in the 1:30 lane are you more than 7 minutes behind somebody who swims in the 1:20 lane, because that 1:20 swimmer drafts better than you in the open water, swims a straighter line, fights the swells better and so on?
Maybe this is a regional thing, but what do you mean by a 1:10 lane? Do you mean a lane which does repeats of say 20x100 on 1:10 (so swimming 1:00 to 1:05 on each repeat?) or a lane which holds a 1:10 per 100 pace on longer swims, say 400s on 5:15, coming in on 4:40?
first, if your leading the lane…you might not be that good at drafting. and i just dont think leading, going second or third as much importance and correlation with your performance. not from my observation/experience anyway.
Second, open water skill is everything in triathlon. I see lots of strange things happen on race day from very good pool swimmer that cant make it happen in open water. And i see lots of terrible swimmer that are master of open water and get out near the front all the time.
different ball game in my opinion and triathlete dont pass near enough time focusing on open water. now can we talk meters instead of years
what i mean by the 1:10 lane is that, on average, you repeat on the 1:10 base, and that would mean that in a short course pool (25 yards) if you did a set of, say, 10 x 100yds, you might swim each 100 in 1:03 or 1:04 and then when the clock hits 1:10 you leave again. so, 1:10 includes the swim + the rest interval.
if you were swimmin 8 x 200yd in the “1:20 lane” you’d leave every 2:40. you’d swim your 200yd in 2:25, let’s say, get 15sec rest, and leave on 2:40. you’d leave on 2:40 because it’s the 1:20 per 100 base scaled up.
obviously if you’re swimming meters you’d have to be a much faster swimmer. if i’m swimming on the 1:20 base in a yards pool, it’s probably 1:30 base in a short course meters pool and if it’s long course meters i might still swim that base but it’s a little tougher since i’m missing some turns.
okay, but then, on average, what is it? if 10sec per 100 in the pool, as a leave interval, is not worth 7min in a no-wetsuit IM swim, what is it worth?
i know there’s variability. but if i asked you, what is the age of the average ironman hawaii participant, is it 41, it’s not helpful to get the answer back that it doesn’t work that way, some people are younger, some are older. there is an average age. likewise, law of large numbers, there is probably a good rule of thumb as to what the leave interval in a short course yards pool relates to for an IM swim. i’m just asking what each successive 10sec leave interval means, timewise.
Having never done Kona, or any 140.6, for that matter, I dunno, and I’m not sure if anyone really does except for possibly some of the coaches on here. This might be worth a sticky thread so folks on here who have done Kona can post their swim times from Kona and also what the toughest repeat times they can do for 10x100 yards are…
I think it’s a reasonable average, and useful for predicting IM times. I do think there’s more variability the slower the lane gets. For example, more of the 1:50 lane people will be faster than a 1:20 IM because they don’t swim hard intervals in training, but have the endurance to hold a steady 1:45-1:50/100 pace for 2.4 miles.
In other words, the less someone “swims like a real swimmer” (ie: they don’t do hard intervals with flip turns), the more likely they’ll be faster in IM than your model predicts–at least if they’re swimming ~5000 yards/week or more.
Unless, as you mentioned, it’s cold and/or rough conditions, which will affect slower swimmers more.
Dan, I feel like most of the swimmers in the 1:10 lane are probably former swimmers. (While I have come across a few non-swimmers who can swim in the 1:10, they are few and far between and likely pros who have forced themselves to become good swimmers). Former swimmers have great turns and streamline off the walls and such and, while they might be good open water swimmers, their advantage over non-swimmers diminishes in the swim portion of the IM. Said another way: A 1:10 lane swimmer is approximately 15% faster than a 1:20 lane swimmer, but I suspect that, on average, that same 1:10 swimmer would not be 15% faster in the IM swim. So, it’s not linear.
As an example, I am a 1:10 lane swimmer, but I have only done :51-:55 in IM swims and :54 and :55 in my two Kona swims. A friend of mine is a 1:20 lane swimmer and he is regularly under 1:00 in the IM swim. He is a non-swimmer and his turns suck. This is only n=1, but I think that theory would hold across a wider spectrum.
It’s probably a reasonable hypothesis. You would need to assume that all the swimmers have the volume of training and fitness required to do the distance and that they all have the prerequiste OW skills (sighting, swimming a straight line, etc.). Given all that, the relative performance of your different pace groups should be the same, with some factor to account for the longer distance and other random variables.
Of course the way to confirm all that would be to actually run the numbers on a sample set of competitors.
I don’t think it extrapolates out that way. In any given season, I am doing repeats on the 1:25- 1:30 send-off and hitting the wall with adequate but not overzealous rest. According to your hypothesis, this would put me 16-21 minutes behind the 50 minute guy, or 1:06-1:11. Granted, I’m not good enough to have KQ, which might completely invalidate my inclusion in this thread, but I’ve been a comfortable :57.xx in a wetsuit. Should I ever make the show, I’d have a hard time accepting my IMK swim in that range, especially when paired with all of the talent.
I think something else missing from your thought process is that not everyone executes the same in practice and on game day. Interpreting your idea, you’d say that everyone in the same send-off lane will come out of the water at the same time, +/- 1 minute. I don’t think this is realistically the case.
this is what i want. some data. but i’d like to normalize it all to one swim, one course, repeatable times. so, is a 48min wetsuit swim in canada a 53min kona swim? or what? if i knew what other swimmers swam in kona when you swam 57min, then that gives us a basis for normalizing for kona.
i’d like to have a lot of people say on this thread, “i swim in the 1:40 lane, SCY, and i routinely swim in the 90min range in kona.” that kind of stuff.
Thinking back to our old carlsbad workouts and all the folks there, the leaders of the fast lane (usually 1;20, occasionally 1;15 SCM), they would be 47/48/49 swimmers in hawaii. I was back a few spots there or in the 2nd lane leading the 1;20/25 lane and i did a 50;11 once, usually 51+ in the first group. Guys like Jurgen would pull in the 2nd lane at 1;20, but could swim 1;25/30 on his own. He usually was a 54/55, once did a high 52 i think. PNF would swim 1;30 and do a 53/54. Michelle would sit at the back of the fast lane once in a blue moon, or lead the 2nd lane and she was about a 52. Wendy Ingrahm would be solid 1;20 and she was always around 51, once breaking 50 i think. But i think that all the triathletes at carlsbad were outliers in the sense that we swam a lot faster than stats would have us. I think your assumptions are pretty close in general, but a large bell curve on this one. Just so many people really horrible in OW to weight down that end of the curve, and just a few better than their pool would suggest on the other. So i guess not really a bell curve, more like a wave, uneven and weighted heavy at the bottom…
It could also mean that really fast swimmers are just a lot better at drafting/sighting(which is true) so they will tend to do a lot better in OW. But once again that is a generalization, i also know of some really fine pool swimmers that stink it up in the ocean, but far fewer than the MOP/BOP folks.
And for comparison sakes, probably take 7/8 or so seconds off the SCM times to get the SCY base.
thanks. i think the 7/8 add for yards to meters is for you. i think you’d probably have to add a second for every 10sec in leave interval, more or less.
i’d like to have a lot of people say on this thread, “i swim in the 1:40 lane, SCY, and i routinely swim in the 90min range in kona.” that kind of stuff.
Yes. I am an example of someone who is pretty good in a pool and rather pedestrian in open water. I could do sets at 1:10 yards. I bet I wouldn’t be better than 57 minutes at Kona.
If it is not exact I think it is pretty darn close. I have done 8 IM swims, none at Kona but bear with me. I also have done a varying amount of swim training getting ready for them. Of those eight swims they range in times from 1:08 - 1:19 all have been with a wetsuit and only one is an outlier from what your 10 seconds = 7 minutes would predict. And that was last year’s AZ where I absolutely never got comfortable in the swim and ended up 7 - 12 minutes slower than I would have projected from my pool swim times. The other swims have really been pretty similar where I would find open space, got into a rhythm and had times very much in line with where I was swimming at the time.
Not too long ago, it took a heck of an effort to hold 10x100y@1:15. I think my IM time now would be 55-56 depending on course conditions/accuracy. I haven’t been on an accurate course… well, probably never. The last 2.4 I did in 52, but a friend with a Garmin recorded 2.26 miles… 55ish then?
your calculations work for my pace (1:05 kona swim, from 1:30 lane)
SCY
if doing 400y repeats, I would be in the 1:30 lane, coming into the wall around 1:22 with 8 sec rest (that would feel quite comfortable for me, not “hard”)
I’d be in ballpark of 1:05 kona swim
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Not too long ago, it took a heck of an effort to hold 10x100y@1:15.//
I think the way dan is thinking is that you would not be a true 1;15 swimmer. Yes you can make one small set on that interval, but in general you are a 1;20+ base guy now. I think he means what the lane does for an entire workout, or at least most of it. So you would be right about where he predicts you would be in a kona swim.
