This almost proves my point for me. And he’s one of the FEW who have made the jump from pure running with no swim background to being able to compete at ITU-level swimming.
I’ll bet Sam Long is even less (probably significantly so) talented at swimming that McElroy just based on his swim race results, and would have even less of a chance of achieving what McElroy has done even if he did the exact same training.
No, I’m absolutely NOT missing the point.
You gotta meet the demands of competition REALISTICALLY.
SL might have is goal to make 1st pack at Kona as long as he wants, but if his intrinsic max ability wont’ allow him to make it, that’s the hard reality. We dont’ know for sure that he doesn’t have this ability, but with 5+ years of race results showing otherwise, it’s very unlikely at this point. He’s not just off the first pack in a competitive swim leg, he’s off the 2nd, and 3rd packs.
I’d say you are the delusional one. You’re expecting an established top pro to somehow defy his entire lifetime of swim results with some magic training or coaching to jump a whole level in ability (which still doesn’t get him into the lead pack or even the 2nd pack in a fast swim race.)
I’d say in prior years he had a fair claim (contested, of course!) to that moniker.
I don’t hear him using it as much this year in his race videos and training videos as prior years, as number of guys clearly can equal and exceed him.
Still, on a good day for him, I wouldn’t bet against those legs!
Actually can you point to where I’ve said any specific packs he can make with his improved swim? I think I’ve simply said that I have no clue how good or not good he can get with a better prepared swim plan/training. That I’m just countering your inaccurate assessment that he’s “maxed out” his swim ability.
I’ve said that I think even “marginal” gains that is your assessment will likely put him in a better position than currently he is. I just don’t think it’s this impossible task to improve his swim and to then let the chips fall where they are. I’ve never once guranteed it’s going to lead to him winning. What I’ve said is that that is the current demands that he somehow has to figure out how to match.
No one has a fucking clue how good or not good he can actually do. I’m just pointing out that he’s likely less “swim focused” in his tri career than focused in my professional opinion. You keep harping race results, so in just 2 months of swim training, he’s improved 45s- 1 min, does he have more time to gain with an year of this plan? We have no clue, you don’t, I don’t, but he’s far from “maxed out” his improvement that your saying he is at.
We have a pretty good clue. 5 year of race results after hard training that all correlate.
That’s as good a clue as you’ll ever get. There is no better data set to predict future race results.
It is a very important distinction for a meaningful improvement. Context matters. A already top pure 1500 swimmer might only need a few seconds or less for total victory.
Sam is far enough back that unless he picks up at least 1:30 and that’s a minimum, he’s not making any real difference against his competition. He likely will gain more by playing to his run and bike strengths if this is the case.
Your proving my point. Your using 5 years worth of data that included times where he was “invested” in the swim (4-5 years ago) and then times also where he self admitted he wasn’t “invested” in his swim. Come back to this thread in 2 years assuming he stays on this swim plan, and let’s see where he’s at.
You say he needs 1:30 minimum, ok let’s use RACE RESULTS from T100 to showcase he’s gained 1 min in just 2 months of this plan.
RACE RESULTS T100 '25
Singapore swim deficit (April)- 5:36
FR swim deficit (end of Aug)- 4:38
Yes let’s. He would be the first to ever make a big swim jump at this point in his pro tri career if he pulls it off. I can’t think of a single other pro well into their prime making such a jump.
1 min gain in one race is one result. It’s the right direction, but I’ll reserve judgment until he can reproduce it more than once. Especially with the vagaries of open water swimming.
Im rooting for him and Lionel but I’m not holding my breath . Your McElroy example is just one of countless examples where folks hit a progress wall in the swim well short of what they hoped.
There isn’t a single person on this planet that was disappointed by McElroy’s swim progress, he was NEVER going to hit FOP, nor was that ever the expectation/goal/understanding. The same for Long and LS and countless other BOP/MOP swimmers; for the most part it’s NEVER going to be about getting to the front pack as the goal; that’s an unachiaveable goal. But to put yourself in a better position by “investing” in this key weakness and seeing where that puts you, is all you can ask for.
If you can say you did all you can, then the result is what it is. I just contend we aren’t there yet for Long, so let’s get to that point and then assess. Your insistence that Long has gotten to that point, I just call bullshit.
That’s so obvious it doesn’t even need to be said.
That’s a lot different than the legit discussion on if why or how Sam should invest gobs more time to possibly get into a more competitive swim pack when it will clearly require heroic swim efforts even for a pro. You gotta ask the hard question in his case if it’s worth it especially as it might hurt his bike run training volume.
There’s a legit case to be made that given his relatively fixed swim results he shouldn’t change much and shoot for minimal swim gains but bigger bike run gains for the time and effort spent.
You can call my expectations on SL bs all you want . It doesn’t change the reality of his years of swim race results. I’m not the one in fantasy land hoping for a reality totally different than them past 5 years. I’d say I’m easily more objective about this than you are because I’m going on real data over a LONG period. Not one measly race.
Did you do any sport as a kid?
It works like this - kid goes to sport, kid gets friends there, kid does it for a few years until end of high school. Kid then stops.
If they kept it up and did triathloning for a job, they could swim with basically most any swim field in any race noting how shit arse swimming in triathlon is.
Talent? The kid just needs to not be completely shit…
If your trying to win WC’s and all that Long has continued to state are his goals, then it’s a no brainer you go “all in” on the swim to put yourself in the best position because at this point in the triathlon world, that weak of a swim that he currently has will not achieve the big goals he wants. That was why this year with the T100 $150k racing 5 times w/ MOP results was like a total green light to go all in on the swim.
No amount of B/R improvement can overcome the group dynamics that happens at the FOP athletes these days. He can’t choose B/R over the swim and win. He may not be able to choose swim over the B/R and win either. But that’s not really the point is it? The point is to put yourself in the best position possible with the current demands of the sport. Currently you have to be better in the water because there are just too many overall triathletes that can easily beat the “uber” (biker or runner) with ease these days.
So what is the goal? If it’s to put yourself in the best position to win a world championship, then the swim has to improve. If that means going into full blown swim blocks, then so be it. If the goal is to simply ride out the B/R talent and win B level N.A. races while “providing for my family” and “struggle” more often then not in the WC class fields, then stay the status quo.
Obviously his line in the sand happened this summer with his swim and decided to get better help then whatever process he was doing previously.
McElroy ate Paulo swim training for years and improved that way. He also was comfortable in ow and crafty from the podcasts. But he did his time with a coach who had gotten a few runners up to speed in swimming and chased Eric L for a few years
Jeez, the delusion of some here is ridiculous.
You seriously think ANY kid can make a competitive junior swim squad and improve enough over the years that they’ll make the Olympics?
I did sports my whole life growing up, and always marveled as a less-talented one, how little the best one could often do and still completely dominate. I also happened to be more talented than I though at violin, and constantly wondered while looking at the kid seated one down from me (competitive seating with auditions) in the orchestra, why he practiced like 3x more than I did, yet I just knew, even as 6th grader, that there was sadly nothing this kid could do to equal my performance as long as I did a minimal amount of practice (like <45 minutes a few days a week). And that was the second-best kid in the county at the time, not some rando. Same thing played out at the state level when I was #1 in NY in high school - big talent gap between me and the still-really-good next kid down from me. Even though I practiced a lot to get that good, I’d be lying through my teeth to say I was better sheerly because of practice - it was definitely mostly talent, and the difference between me and the virtuouso violin pros who were yet still better than I was, was an even bigger talent gap. (I never aspired to be a pro, as that talent gap was obvious to me.)
I agree with you that AG triathlon is so slow that even sucky swimmers like myself can work hard at it and be reasonably competitive, but this is a discussion about how SL can possibly close the gap between him and the top guys who are killing him predominantly with their top-tier swim. Not remotely the same as sucky AG swimming competition.
Yeah, and he’s like one of the FEW who have made it. It’s not like you can take nearly any good runner/cyclist, stick 'em in that program and have them swimming at competitive ITU level. He stands out because he’s so rare to have accomplished this, in fact.
Ironically, nobody ever really talks about his strong running/cycling, just because he was intrinsically good at it. But that’s the real lesson here - intrinsic talent rules at the top levels, so much so it’s even overlooked ‘because duh.’
i need to go get yelled at in a work meeting but will write back to this later
Hah cheers - best description of work meetings ever!
Long is one of the few athletes who’s max volume swim volume pr is apparently under 40k to then have people say he’s “maxed out” his swim ability.
(From a winter 25 video on socials apparently)
I don’t think his swim volume matters that much over the 20kish that he’s swimming. Last year some already-strong female triathlete (forgot her name, but not Lucy Charles, who I think also did 70kish at one point) was swimming 80k/wk into a race (I think she was coming off an injury that limited their run, but I’m not sure), and they didnt even win the swim leg of their race nor did they burn the house down with a PR swim.
I think SL would get slightly faster swim results with something like 40k of swimming per week but I doubt it’s the factor between him and a meaningful jump in his swim performance. I do agree that more is better all things considered, though, he needs every edge he can get.
Swimming is nothing but a math equation.
If he swims 3500yd/hr (1:43/100yd “average”), ~20k yardage is *only 6 hours a week of swimming. So I’m not suggesting that “volume” is the answer, I’m just more showcasing that what his “max” volume has been is pretty pedestrian for a supposed “swim block”. One thing Long mentions in the podcast with Jack and his coach was just within 1 week he had more “body awareness” and he wasn’t even actually trying to go faster with sculling, but just being in better position and thus improving it, made him go faster (on the same effort as previous). So let’s just get to a point where we all agree that he’s finally fulled “invested” in this weakness and see how it actually goes in the RACE RESULTS. (I dont think Nice will go well, but I also think we need through the summer of next year results to actually decided whether it worked or not; I guess it’ll be more revealing at WC races next year, B level NA races don’t always show much indication how good/bad the improvement is).
Look im not saying that any kid can make a junior swim squad and then make the OLY. Not what I said. I said the good kids are going for OLY trials and the average kids who like it will have a go at triathlon. If they keep it up long enough and they cant swim way better than SL something is going very wrong.
Tha is what Josh Amberger did, he just liked sport, but was not as fast as his squad mates and kind of liked doing running too. So he got into tri. But to be honest he was in a very good squad (not an average squad)
I think in sport the age curve / peak improvement is quite important. Got to be doing it young enough to have the skill (not the talent) down and then take it away from there. Plenty of kids not very good at 9-12, but if they hang until 15-17 and then start training proper when they are 17-19, they are going to be quite accomplished by then. How much better at viol could you have been if you started practising the house down by 17-21, or is that past the relvevant age curve for that activity, i dont really undersand how music development works.
Isnt it what someone wants to do that is important? Of all pursuits, some people just will themselves into doing pro sport and have the right coaches and political / family connections. Only need middle level genetics and then training for years and you can be pro at triathlon (this is an aerobic sport, not a high skill sport).
Even people who never knew what a swim pool was until they were 18 can do this sport and win races LOL
Re McEL, I am pretty sure Paulo found the template for how to get someone good before McEL. It was another guy who was with him before, but not as well known. Jason PEderson maybe? He really hammered him with heaps of swimming, but think they realised you dont need 50km weeks for ages to make it stick He also surfed since he was a kid, so would have spent heaps of times in OW to get those skills up