Originally Posted by
genec
Well since I bike and swim... and do the latter competitively... frankly I think the TDF is a ball buster compared to a 100m swim...
I've done long rides (as much as 165 miles in one day... more typical... a century) and long swims, (2 miles in a day) and at a competitive level I think the long ride beats a long swim as far as endurance is considered.
I was really blown away a few years ago when some columnist compared the TDF to golf in Sports Illustrated... told me the guy did not have a clue as to the sort of effort required for a multiday bike race.
Now on the flip side, I don't recall Lance ever looking like this...
This is Dara Torres... 41 year old female Olympic medal winner (swimmer) :
And I can tell you that I get in shape faster when swim season comes around. Swimming really sculpts my body in a hurry.
However, comparing a 100m swim (even 8 of them) to a 23 day cycle racing event... that's just crazy talk.
If the issue is just doing it yes the TDF is much harder. But just finishing is not the goal. Winning (or at least improving personal records) is. Don't know what the conditions of your 2 miles in one day were, but competitive swimmers do much more on a regular basis. 5-6,000 yards were the norm decades ago for decent high school swimmers. And those were not swim 1000 yards, those were 50-200 yards usually pretty close to all out. Most I ever did was 13000 in one day. a 3 hour AAU workout in hte morning and then started to workout with my college team in the afternoon. Didn't finish the afternoon workout (with others who had not trained in the morning). The coach decided I was toasted (he was right).
It would be interesting to see how many people here could finish (legally) either a 200 fly or 400 IM in a 50 meter pool. I'm not at all sure I could at this point. Heck I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the people here could finish a 50 meter fly (long course) without getting DQ'd.