I was never a die hard swimmer but doing it more and more since my knees are getting worn down from running.
Today in the pool I did 2 miles in about an hour and fifteen minutes give or take two minutes. I'm not a pro by any means. Is this quick, or average or? I really have nothing to compare to.
How long might it take a pro? tks
Or you could go to the "Competition" tab,click on "Long Distance Championships",click on 2011 results,go to postal swims,go to 3000 results,multiply the times by 1.173 and you have a good comparison.(For some reason my computer is not letting me cut and paste today,someone else can just cut and paste the results for this thread if they will.)
I was never a die hard swimmer but doing it more and more since my knees are getting worn down from running.
Today in the pool I did 2 miles in about an hour and fifteen minutes give or take two minutes. I'm not a pro by any means. Is this quick, or average or? I really have nothing to compare to.
How long might it take a pro? tks
Back in the mid 1990's the University of Michigan's Men swim team used to do a T-30 swim every 3 or 4 weeks as a measure of aerobic fitness. This was done to build and improve the aerobic base. It was also designed to teach the swimmer how to push the pace throughout this endurance swim. A cruise interval (CI) can be calculated by taking the total 30 minutes and dividing the time by the total number of yards swam and then calculating your average time per 100 yards. Then add 10 to 15 seconds per 100 and that would be your cruise interval for a distance set.
Most of the distance swimmers could easily do 3000 yards and some did as many as 3300 yards and if I recall Chris Thompson and Tom Dolan were at those levels. This would make sense because both swimmers could go under 14:30 for the 1650 Free and both of these swimmers had the American Record in that event. Almost all of the College and Pro distance swimmers could easily average 1:00 per 100 yards for the T-30 and I am confident that most could do the T-60 swim in a minimum distance of 6000 yards and the best could do upwards of 6600 or more.
In masters swimming, two swimmers have been over 6000 yards for the 1 Hour swim and they were both USA Swimming National Team members as non masters swimmers. Dan Veatch swam 6115 in 1984 in the 25-29 age group and Robert Margalis swam 6135 in 2007 in the 18-24 age group. Granted this is about double the distance that you are swimming at the moment and more like 4 miles, but a real good distance PRO, who is a USA Swimming National Team member or and NCAA finalist could easily swim two 1650 swims in 30 minutes. I realize that is about twice as fast as you swam but you are talking about the best in the world in this swim.
Former Member
In a 25-yard pool, the 1650 yard freestyle event is almost a mile. In 25-meter and 50-meter pools, the 1500 meter freestyle event is almost a mile.
You can look at our event rankings for those events, and for your age group, to see how fast it can be swum.
From usms.org, move your mouse over the blue "Competition" tab across the top and select "Event results and rankings" from the pop-up menu. Then click on "Look up event rankings." I assume that you're probably swimming in a short course yards (25-yard) pool, so under that heading select:
Short Course Yards
Season: 2011-2012 (that was our last full season)
Gender: M or F, whichever you are
Stroke: Free
Distance: 1650
Ages: 50 through: 54 (or whatever age group you are in)
Display Top: 300
This will give you an idea of everyone's speed for one mile.
I just ran the above query for the Men's 50-54 age group. The times range from 17:07 minutes to 34:02 minutes.
