I like to swim 500’s, but I’m fairly new to the sport and I’m not sure what a decent time is for a 500. My fastest time is 8:20, but I usually swim my 500’s in about 8:50 - is this very slow (I don’t know how to do flip turns, so I probably lose time reaching for the wall each lap)
Slow is relative.
Thats a 1.15 IM roughly.
1000 or 1500 TT’s are better and if you do a search over at El G’s there is a ton of info about what you should work on at different speeds.
For example one of the comments was, and I paraphrase, until you hit 23 flat for 1500 you need to work on form, at about 22-23 min fitness and form combined become important but until you get to 23 form is likely to be what is slowing you down.
The easiest way to figure it out is look at results from some races on the internet. The swim split times are usually listed along with the time per 100 yds. 8:50 is about 1:45/100yds. That usually puts you in the rear of the middle of the pack. Maybe 45th percentile.
a quick breakdown for 500 yd times in relation to triathlon:
</=5:00 pro & national amateur level (for the swim at least)
~5-6minute top amateur
~6-7minute front of AG pack
~7-9mid AG pack
9:00 BOP (for younger AGs)
considering you’re new to the sport your time is not slow. That’s actually a good time for a newbie. With regular practice, and most importantly, form, technique, and drill work, you are sure to improve. Join a master’s team or have a knowledgeable coach give you regular feedback on your stroke technique. Have fun.
FWIW the qualifying time for te Ocean City Beach Patrol is to swim 500 in ten minutes. In case your interested their brochure for emoployment and the qualification requirements is here…
Did a 6:40 500 yd this morning at a swim meet. This was after a 100 @ 1:03 and a 200 @ 2:22. Thought the 500 should have been a bit faster but I had some lactate in the muscles after the first two events.
One of my favorite swim workouts for a 1/2 IM is a long warmup and cooldown with a main set of 5x500 done at a comfortable pace, no rest, each 500 in 8:00. I find that I can finish any distance in a tri in mid-pack or better and never feel like I even tried. I’m planning on a 35’ 1/2 IM swim in my upcoming A race at what will feel like just above warmup speed.
I think that I’m at the breakpoint where I would have to put in significant amounts of work to get even a little faster. Unfortunately my bike is so slow that I must put my time there.
People like you and your 5X500 8 minute “comfortable” swim times amaze anchors like me. I can do maybe 1 500 YARD swim in 8:00 if a crocodile was after me…and he still might get my toes before I got out to safety. I’m working on it, but, I’ve got a long way to go. I’ve gone from no swimming 2.5 years ago, to better than MOP on the swim split in a tri…but, my HR is very high upon exit from the water. I know most people say this will really hurt me the rest of the race, but, I don’t buy it…unless you’re talking about 1/2’s and full IM’s.
I practiced last year on an actual course at lower HR’s in the swim followed by the bike and run. Going slower at a lower HR in the water didn’t help my bike or run. I can exit the water at HR 170 and settle in on the bike at 155-160 for an Olympic and have a bike split in the top 10%, and a run in the top 15-20% (and I didn’t consider myself a runner last year…this year…I’m running much better). SO, if I were you, I’d try swimming harder and see if it hurts your bike and run splits…you might find it doesn’t, and you could pick up a couple of more minutes.
Wish I could help your biking in exchange for you helping my swimming.
My signature should be: Make the swim equivalent to a bath so we can be sure to be clean before we start the bike leg…give us anchors a chance!
FWIW thats about the same times I get. My tri swimms have resulted in 22 minutes flat for Oly and 1:06 for IM distances.
Did a 6:40 500 yd this morning at a swim meet. This was after a 100 @ 1:03 and a 200 @ 2:22.
Hehe. I’m with Tom on this one. I’m a strong swimmer, but I’ve changed my philosophy on the swim from placing well to finishing feeling fresh. The difference between top 10% and top 33% in a 1/2 IM is usually only about 2-3 minutes. I’d rather give up the 2-3 minutes and feel great than to fininsh in the top of my AG. So I’ll get out of the water @ 33-34 minutes next week at GCT (top 20% or so) feeling like I just rolled out of the sack, maintain a decent position on the bike (21 mph or so) only to get stomped like a narc at a biker rally on the run with my “fixed gear” running style that redlines around 9:50/mile.
I’d trade you swimming for running in a heart beat. I’d give my left gresticle to run an 8:00 pace. Swimming gets me nowhere… Even though my bike is decent, its not enough to maintain my place after the swim. So I get out of the water up front and spend the remainder of the race being passed. Not good for the psychological aspect of the race. Its better to have a target in sight than to be the target for everyone else. I think I’ll start a support group for other strong swimmers. We can call it Team Roadkill. Our team jersey will have a cross hair sight picture on the back.
I have the answer for you Keyster. Run, run alot. I too am a strong swimmer (4:40 in the 500 in college, 40:00 for 3300yds last year). I took this winter basically off from swimming, about once a week, and ran 5 times a week. I’m still able to go sub-6:30 for a 500 free pretty comfortably, but my running is much better. I did my first 1/2 marathon ever this past weekend on a very hilly course and went 1:29:04, hopefully it will mean a good marathon is a month and good tri splits this season. So here is my advice: run, Forest run. My big weeks were 1 LSD (2.5 hrs+), 1 tempo (upto 1 hr of tempo) and 3 other runs. It works me, so far…
I think pool times are not representative of what you’ll do in an open water race. I’ll do sub 16’s for 1000 yard workouts in the pool, where I can swim nice and straight, and come off the walls. This equates to slightly over 33 min for a 1.2 mile 1/2 IM swim. However my best day ever is a 37:40, and I did north of 40 minutes at Ralphs. First of all, there’s no walls to do flips off of (big time gainer) which perhaps is offset by the wetsuit (to what degree nobody knows). Then you’ve got to swim straight out there and navigate perfectly in order to swim only the distance advertised. This is where I’ve got big problems. Swimming straight and sighting often in a churning mass of currents and other swimmers isn’t easy. As much as I want to improve form, take it easy, and all the rest…open water navigation seems to me to be the #1 thing to work on after you’ve gotten to average MOP speed, not to mention swimming often in the wetsuit to make stroke adjustments for that.
I do just the opposite, I swim faster in open water than in a pool…one reason is I don’t know how (don’t try) to do flip turns.
The poster before this one (VT-tri?) says he holds 21 mph on the bike…I’m really surprised they aren’t breaking 8 minutes per mile. 21 mph is decent for anything over a sprint, I’m with chris…RUN Forest, RUN! If this just worked for me, I’d SWIM a lot…unfortunately, I think I’m just practicing a bad stroke…that won’t get me faster.
I have had a hard time finding someone that knows “triathlon-type” swimming…most everyone wants to do kickboard drills ad nauseum…I don’t think that’s what I see happening in the front of the pack…those people don’t seem to kick at all, and they are flying!
I’m with Tom and Keyster here. I was a water baby and grew up water skiing and swimming almost every day, but never organized. I had to work hard on drills and technique to become a MOP guy at best. It’s been about 3 years now since I hit the pool and started to “learn” to swim. I have concentrated almost entirely on drills and intervals (less than 500 yards) with the ocassional 3000 yard ladder as a long workout.
When I got to the point where I could swim a 1:45 200, I concentrated on keeping my heartrate in check. I was amazed at how much effort it took to reach 1:35 - definitely not comensurate with the small increase in speed. I would drill, drill, drill, then test myself against the pace clock at a given heartrate. I noticed that staying aerobic during the swim is relaxing and keeps you focused on the first leg of a long race. I set my HR monitor to alarm at about 155 (36 years old with 195 max) so I know when I am churning too much or “slipping” by pulling too hard. When it beeps, I pull off a bit and know that I am still swimming at about the same pace. I know this only because of the pool trials.
When I get back to training after a race, I just keep drilling and swimming intervals. When I concetrate on form in training, the tests at heartrate keep coming down. Now I can swim a 1:30 and stay under the 155 and I have to really push to get to 1:20. I will just keep on with this system and see where I plateau, but in a race I will not leave the water with a +180 HR, I know it just does not pay to swim that “hard”. And the swim is a lot more fun. The key is to find out the information in the pool and then swim with a specific plan. IMHO.
Now I have to figure out a way to run sub-8s. I know - run, Forest, run.
They’re kicking. It’s just that the twelve zillion kickboard drills have left them with extremely efficient kicks. You don’t need to be moving your feet really all that much and generating whitewater if you’ve got nice flexible ankles and have learned to make every little bit of your kick count.
The goal of most structured swim teams is to make you a well rounded swimmer who can handle nearly every event on the competitive program. As long as you’re getting in some sets with 300s or 400s repeats every week, a decent amount of sprinting is actually good for you. Learn how to swim fast for short distances, and then eventually you’ll learn how to carry speed and form for longer ones.
Of course, you are right. I don’t have nice, flexible ankles. For my workouts, I do lots of 100’s with 6-10 good deep breaths between each 100, unless I’m getting closer to an actual race, then I’ll do up to 500’s. I just lose the little bit of form I have when I do much more than 500 at one time.
One thing that does have me confused is the “turning issue”. Some people say your navel should first point to one wall and then the other as you swim…really rolling side to side, and some say to glide, others say don’t glide. Still others say to stay much more flat. Either camp outswims me with ease. Is there such a thing as the right way, or is it just personal preference?
I didn’t have this much problem learning to play to a 7 handicap in golf in only a year! I admire those of you that swim well.
I’m a decent swimmer (4:40 for 500 yards and 16:08 for the 1650). I think kicking is extremely important even in triathlon training. Although I rarely kick in triathlons, doing the kicking drills really helps by giving you a good body position even if you don’t actually kick much in the race. For example, at Stanford, they can tell who the best swimmers are going to be by how much of their body floats when just lying on top of the water. The best swimmers’ entire bodies and legs will stay on top of the water without any movement. I think the best thing to do to improve swimming significantly is to get a coach who knows what good technique is. Even coaches with no triathlon exposure will do extremely well, and maybe even better. I came from a swimming background so I have always gone back to my old age group team, and they’ve served me very well. The problem with swim training is that technique is so important, especially relative to running and biking, so just putting in a ton of training won’t help nearly as much as learning proper technique, whereas putting in a lot of smart mileage in running and biking leads to decent improvements up to a certain point. The best ironman workout came when I was training with our team’s distance swimmers (including the women’s 2000 olympic gold medalist in the 800): 10x400 meters long course, starting at 4:45 and descending 5 seconds per 2 400s, down to a 4:25 (about a 4:50 pace for 500 yards). But unfortunately, I agree with the rest of the posters in that being a good swimmer doesn’t help you. I would definitely trade my swimming ability for equivalent running ability. I didn’t enjoy going a 52:00 at IM USA in 2001 and 2002 only to get passed by seemingly everyone on the marathon.
Once you get past “hips up!” and a couple other basic parts of freestyle, you get into the realm of “do whatever works for you”. Body roll: some is good because you’re getting a longer pull that way, and you’re generally quicker going through the water sideways, but there’s a spectrum of different things that work for different people as long as you’re neither totally flat or rolling a full 90 degrees sideways on your stroke. It’s the part where good swimming turns into art as well as science.
As for workout distances, when I was doing 200/500/100/1650 at meets, we’d train with a ton of 300s and 400s. Say 8 or 6x300 on an interval where you were expected to be on the border of aerobic and anaerobic in order to get 20 seconds rest after each, followed by a 1000 kick set to keep the heart rate up while giving the arms a rest, then 5x400 fairly hard again.
For tris, I’ll do something like 500 warm-up, 10x100 on a tight interval, 5x300 on a slightly easier interval, and then a bit of a warm down. I just don’t have the motivation to hurt in the pool like I used to, and time’s better spent trying to improve my thoroughly awful running.
You’re right. The 52’ wasn’t very good comparatively for 3 reasons. #1-I was about 10-15 pounds lighter during the ironman than when I did those swim times due to training for running and biking. My best swim times are from being fully tapered and shaved at the end of a collegiate swim season (training 12-14000 yards a day rather than about 5000 meters 3x a week during the triathlon season). I went 4:10 a few years ago for the 400m LC fully swim trained, but my best is about 4:22 when triathlon trained. #2-I’m more of a sprinter physiologically than a distance swimmer. My best events are the 100 and 200 in swimming. #3-At IMUSA the pros got a 10 meter head start, and I sprinted at the beginning to try and catch them to get in the 47’ pack of pros, but I ended up getting stuck in the middle of a very large group of slower pros and got kicked in the face. When I finally broke free, I looked for the lead pack, but it looked like they had a good 50 meters on me, so I decided to just ease up and loaf the swim, and save a lot for the bike and run. I had wanted to go all out on the swim and come out with the lead pros just for fun, knowing I’m not a very good biker and especially runner and planning on a goal time of about 10:30. The previous year was my first IM, so I just wanted to take it really easy and was just planning on finishing. I’ve attempted some crazy swim workouts on that team though. We have 2 girls between 4:07 and 4:12, and several guys between 3:55 and 3:58, so I get dropped in some of their workouts pretty quickly. One of the girls can swim 4:15s on like 10s rest seemingly forever.
Also, I do agree with feeling a little slower in open water. I think I have a problem with sighting, and have a huge tendency to get really foggy goggles, or choose the wrong tint of goggles depending on the weather conditions (ie wearing clear goggles and ending up looking right into the sun, or bringing dark goggles and it ends up being really overcast once the race starts), or just plain picking bad lines to take.