Originally Posted by
sirious94
I have never completed an IM because I am 18, and that would be rather bad for my body at this point in my life, and no not ALWAYS in front, but based on other open water swims of similar distances, i would have to say at least sub 1 hour, probably in the mid 50s. As for the tumbling, there should not be that much past the first 200m, and in that case, you won't exactly be stopped then.
Ah grasshopper, you might be surprised then
I did an IM a couple of months ago and at the halfway mark I was in a pack of around 200 people smashing each other to get around the buoys. Approaching the finish probably 100 or more funnelled through markers and there were LOTS of people stopping and starting.
Originally Posted by
sirious94
Most people do not do great underwaters like Thorpe, Hacket, or Phelps so closer to 22 meters.
Sorry to be pedantic but that's not right. I'm 1.8m tall so if I flip turn I immediately cut 3.6metres from a lap - and that's before I even push off the wall. I can easily push 2 metres off the wall so I'm losing nearly 4 metres per turn - 8 metres per lap, at least. You only need to compare swimming a 400 effort in a 25m pool against a 50m pool, the 25m is soooo much easier because you're swimming less distance.
Originally Posted by
sirious94
Of course, I agree that in between matters more than turns, and that Andy Potts spends little, if any time doing turn drills, but he does use turns in his training.
I think you're missing the point. He turns because he's a pool swimmer and has trained like that since he was a kid. He doesn't practice it because it's not important for tris. I'd guarantee if he was training for the Olympics he WOULD practice flip turns.
If someone is starting to swim for triathlons, especially if they've never swum as a kid, they don't need to waste time learning to flip turn. You're suggesting it's an essential part of tri training whilst I think there's more valuable things to learn - like proper stroke technique, sighting and open water experience.
Originally Posted by
sirious94
Also, I never said it was not fine, I just said it was slow and inefficient.
Actually, you said it was wrong, and it's not. In the grand scheme of things, it will make no difference to the performance of a person learning to swim for triathlon. Swimming in open water would be a far, far better way to learn to swim for open water. I'm staggered by the number of people who turn up for their first triathlon without ever having swum outside of a pool in a lane by themselves. Getting experience in open water will be the best way to improve their performance and build confidence - and confidence in the swim can be critical for 'non-swimmers'.
The message for the OP here is you can't simulate an open water swim or translate times - you have to DO it. The more you do it, the better and faster you'll be.
Originally Posted by
sirious94
Yes and no. Yes it is the best simulation, but some pool workouts are needed. It would be like doing run training without some track workouts, or bicycling without interval training.
I have no problem with swim training, in fact I've done quite a bit of it. I'd go further and say when training for an IM it's almost a necessity
but I don't subscribe to flip turns being necessary to 'improve' swim sets - but we can simply agree to disagree on that one