As many of you know, I’ve been swimming my whole life. Calculating paces and following complicated sets are second nature to me. However…
I’ve been coaching a few (tri)athletes who have never trained with pace clocks before and they seem to be struggling to grasp the concept. Here is an example of a fairly simple set to follow: 12X75 on 1:25. So, you do your send off on the 60, 25, 50, 15, 40, etc. Simple, right? Not so fast. My athletes want to know about the minutes. Well, the minutes speak for themselves. If you finish on the 5, that’s 1:05 and you get 20 seconds rest. Longer sets may be a bit more challenging since there may be a bigger change in times. 800s on 13:35 may be a bit tougher because a :05 finish may not indicate 13:05. That will come with time, as will learning to swim consistent paces, checking your splits, and using those splits to count laps and repetitions. Other concepts which I consider simple (during the 12X75 set) are: knowing that if you’re at the opposite end of the pool, you have done an odd number of intervals, and knowing that if you’re going on the 10, you have two left.
I’m kind of confused about why people don’t get this, especially engineers and mathematically oriented people. Am I in the wrong here for assuming that people should know how to follow a set like the one above listed? How do you “teach” someone to use a pace clock, take their splits, and learn from this information? Any information is appreciated.
I am one of those people you spoke of. I am an engineer, and a non swimmer. It’s taken me 2-3 months of consistent swimming to catch on to these tricks you speak of, but I’ve pretty much got the stuff you mentioned figured out, although I sometimes have to ask the folks in my lane to make sure I’ve got it right. Although if you wanted me to do 800 on 13:35 figuring the pace clock out would be the least of the problems.
as another non-swimmer and engineer, i can struggle at times. My brain starts getting overloaded when I’m focusing on stroke flaws I’m working on from my last lesson, how many laps/lengths I need to swim, how many more in the set, and the time… all while being pretty oxygen starved from a hard set. I gave in and started using a watch to take my splits, instead of trying to remember on top of all that.
Am I in the wrong here for assuming that people should know how to follow a set like the one above listed? How do you “teach” someone to use a pace clock, take their splits, and learn from this information? Any information is appreciated.
Thanks,
There are a couple of articles in the ASCA masters swim coaching manual that you can send tot he swimmers. My swimmers have appreciated it.
I also am a little dumbfounded by all the trouble but I started swimming myself not all that long ago and do remember it took some getting used to.
Thinking small makes it alot easier to get your head around the pace clock. I think newer swimmers get a little overwhelmed with the clock because they fail to focus on the fact that they really only need to worry about a very very small range of time, a few seconds really. No matter what level of swimming you are at, if you swim, say, a 200 in practice, you’re time is going to be within about a 10-15 second range. Once you have done one swim (ie the first in a set) even a novice should be able to know within less than 10 seconds what the time on the next one is going to be. So, you are not trying to read a clock to see if you time was somewhere between 0 and infinity but just to see if if it was between, say, 2:40 and 2:50. (an very experienced swimmer will usually be able to guess their time within 2 seconds or so - freaks will be guessing within a few tenths when they are in the zone).
It’s alot like looking at your speedometer in your car. You don’t look down and study the numbers to try and figure out if you are going 5 mph or 80 mph - you have a pretty good clue how fast you are going (eg 60-70 on the highway) and you just verify where you are in that range, you don’t intently study the whole dial.
As for the intervals, as long as they are fixed, they with always fall into a pattern. The clock will either be moving ahead or back a fixed amount based on the difference between the interval and :00. For example, if you are going on the 2:10, the leave time is going to be 00 :10 :20 etc. If you are going on the 1:50, the clock will go backwards ie 00 :50 :40 etc.
If they get more complicated than that, bitch at the coach. There is no reason to make swimmers do complicated math during a workout so speak up if you are being tortured.
Shit, I thought this was just my athletes!
Again, some very bright individuals who just can’t seem to grasp it or follow simple mathemaics.
Another thing I see with new swimmers is that they lose track of time so easy. An example, I give them a simple set like 4X300 @ HIM pace and I’ll ask them to report back and include their times in the log. I’ll get reports like: 5:35, 5:40, 6:41, 5:37 and they’ll say “not sure what happened on the 3rd one, I felt about the same speed”
I think the poster who mentioned that many don’t realize they’re dealing with pretty small swings in time is correct.
It was (and still is) a bit frustrating for me that they can rhyme off their full power profile and Daniel’s running pace chart but they don’t take the time to pay attention to the pace clock regardless of how much I harp on them.
"its funny, i’ve never seen a single non-triathlete swim without a watch, but at every pool i go to you can pick them out by the watch. "
Out of curiosity, what do swimmers do with vision issues? I hate wearing a watch when I swim but if I’m not in the first 2 lanes can’t read the pace clock. Do they all wear prescription goggles?
I would at least like to try and look like a swimmer when I’m in between sets, obviously it’'ll never happen while I’m swimming…
"its funny, i’ve never seen a single non-triathlete swim without a watch, but at every pool i go to you can pick them out by the watch. "
Out of curiosity, what do swimmers do with vision issues? I hate wearing a watch when I swim but if I’m not in the first 2 lanes can’t read the pace clock. Do they all wear prescription goggles?
I would at least like to try and look like a swimmer when I’m in between sets, obviously it’'ll never happen while I’m swimming…
A swimming buddy of mine who has astigmatism took an old pair of glasses and cut the lenses to fit into an old pair of goggles, and epoxied them in place. Voila! custom prescription goggles.
As for the clock: there are those who have throughout their lives played with math and numbers in their heads just for fun, and those I suspect found it easy to adapt to the pace clock. I know that worked for me (having first used a pace clock in a pool at age 26). I now find the digital ones much easier to use.
Out of curiosity, what do swimmers do with vision issues?
Back in the day, I swam without contacts or lenses and had about 20-200 vision. With a hand pace clock, I could still easily get my times since I could make out the relative position of the red second hand. I would have been totally lost if we had had a digital pace clock (if there had been such a thing back then . . .)
Although it is nice, you don’t really need to see your time down to the second most of the time. Its much more important to be able to quickly identify the time relative to the previous swims in the set and see the interval you are supposed to leave on. A hand on a clock face is much better for that than a number on a digital clock, especially if you are visually impaired.
For a host of reasons, I think analog pace clocks are way better. In addtion to better visibility, they let the swimmers work off visual patterns instead of doing math (simple as it is) which I always find much easier. I have a much easier time thinking about times and intervals in terms of where the hand will be moving to rather than seeing a number and processing it.
"its funny, i’ve never seen a single non-triathlete swim without a watch, but at every pool i go to you can pick them out by the watch. "
Out of curiosity, what do swimmers do with vision issues? I hate wearing a watch when I swim but if I’m not in the first 2 lanes can’t read the pace clock. Do they all wear prescription goggles?
I would at least like to try and look like a swimmer when I’m in between sets, obviously it’'ll never happen while I’m swimming…
I’ve worn contacts since middle school, and I think in all that time I’ve lost one contact. Maybe two.
"its funny, i’ve never seen a single non-triathlete swim without a watch, but at every pool i go to you can pick them out by the watch. "
Out of curiosity, what do swimmers do with vision issues? I hate wearing a watch when I swim but if I’m not in the first 2 lanes can’t read the pace clock. Do they all wear prescription goggles?
I would at least like to try and look like a swimmer when I’m in between sets, obviously it’'ll never happen while I’m swimming…
I’ve worn contacts since middle school, and I think in all that time I’ve lost one contact. Maybe two.
John
x2 and I played waterpolo in them as well. Okay, maybe I lost 3
…For a host of reasons, I think analog pace clocks are way better. In addtion to better visibility, they let the swimmers work off visual patterns instead of doing math (simple as it is) which I always find much easier. I have a much easier time thinking about times and intervals in terms of where the hand will be moving to rather than seeing a number and processing it.
I totally agree… it seems like it takes less brainpower when you’re fried in the middle of a big set to “see” the dial in quarters or thirds rather than adding/subtracting :15 or :20.
Here’s another slightly-related tangent… I always used to get into it w/ my dad (a runner) who insisted on counting “laps” by the 50 rather than lengths like all of us swimmers were used to. I couldn’t convince him that’s just swimming jargon to equate lap to length, and sticking with the semantically correct definition always outed him as a non-swimmer. The practical advantage (similar to what was pointed out w doing sets of 75s or 125s) is that it’s easier to keep track when odds/evens are always on opposing ends/directions from each other, since it’s usually easier to tell if your count is off by 2 instead of just 1.
As an “old-timer”, I have trouble when they have the digital pace clocks. The old school analog are so easy to keep track. One area where I’m not sure technology hit it.
Funny, as a former swimmer, it has never even occured to me that people might struggle with pace clock related issues. But I guess that makes sense. It’s so second nature to me, I don’t even think about it. I guess it takes a tiny bit more effort for intervals that are :25 or :35, like a 200 on 2:25 or something, but everything else is easy and symmetrical.
For those experienced swimmers, you can use the pace clock to count laps if you happen to lose track. Say, you are doing a set of 300s and part way into it you momentarily forget: am I at the 200 or the 250? Well, just look at the clock immediately before or after the flip turn, depending upon what side the clock is on and what side you happen to be breathing.
Speedo makes prescription goggles you can buy off the shelf. At last check they were under $20. I’m horribly nearsighted so they are a real life saver for me in the open water, and in the pool as well.
I’ve been using a pace clock since I was 5 so I had no idea it was difficult for people… funny what you assume everybody just knows.
I find that using a pace clock is invaluable during long sets. No matter how hard I try I always loose track of where I’m at in anything over a 500. But as one poster pointed out, count laps by glancing at the clock during a breath out of a turn makes things way easier.
Maybe using a clock with a minute hand until your swimmers get better at it will help? Once they realize the minutes are mostly irrelevant they should be able to use anything.
Also,
freaks will be guessing within a few tenths when they are in the zone).
