Triathletes

Boy! i hate to admit it but i'm a triathlete. :whiteflag: I was a runner first, bike commuter second, but i always loved swimming. The funny thing is that as much tri-bashing that is going on here, i actually agree with alot of what is being said. 1) To be good a good triathlete, you have to train like a runner, biker, and swimmer. This means that if you go to a masters workout, you should do the posted workout, learn all of the strokes, and do flip turns. I believe it's improved my swimming and helped with injury prevention since doing only freestyle only builds the freestyle muscles. I also get very bored with only freestyle so i'm really glad to have learned all of the strokes. 2) Wetsuits - should be banned except for water under 70. you may think lower water temps but the problem is that if you have to bike on a cool day after swimming, hypothermia can set in pretty quickly and that would be bad. I've never worn a wetsuit in a sprint distance tri (500-800m) where the water is in the upper 70s and the air temps can creep into the high 80s or better. i sweat alot and felt like i would overheat... but i recently learned that if everyone around is wearing a wetsuit, you are at a distinct disadvantage since everyone is riding higher in the water. so at a 1500m swim tri in the same lake, i donned a suspender style wetsuit and improved my swim place bigtime...so, until tris ban wetsuits except in cold conitions, the non-wetsuit holdouts will don a wetsuit! 3) Rationale for the all pulling workouts - when you wear a wetsuit, it's like having a pull buoy between your legs - you don't have to use your legs much cause they just float. so, alot of tri workouts tend to have alot of pulling in there. 4) My husband is a former college runner and ripped on me for doing tris for years based on the "mediocrity at 3 sports" principle...until he saw a tri on tv where all the guys were former D1 college runners. take a look at the swim times of the top tri-guys and gals before you judge this one. 5) the selfish training time - so true but only for longer distance events. 1/2s and full ironman's take a serious time committment. But, shorter distance events the most workout time needed is about as much as serious swimmers doing doubles every day. in short, i don't think it's fair for triathletes to expect masters workouts to accomodate them. nobody should be able to differentiate between the swimmers and triathletes (except most triathletes don't kick too well :drown:) i don't think they realize what an advantage it is to become serious about swimming as a sport in and of itself. but, what the competition knows won't hurt them :D

Boy! i hate to admit it but i'm a triathlete. :whiteflag: I was a runner first, bike commuter second, but i always loved swimming. The funny thing is that as much tri-bashing that is going on here, i actually agree with alot of what is being said. 1) To be good a good triathlete, you have to train like a runner, biker, and swimmer. This means that if you go to a masters workout, you should do the posted workout, learn all of the strokes, and do flip turns. I believe it's improved my swimming and helped with injury prevention since doing only freestyle only builds the freestyle muscles. I also get very bored with only freestyle so i'm really glad to have learned all of the strokes. 2) Wetsuits - should be banned except for water under 70. you may think lower water temps but the problem is that if you have to bike on a cool day after swimming, hypothermia can set in pretty quickly and that would be bad. I've never worn a wetsuit in a sprint distance tri (500-800m) where the water is in the upper 70s and the air temps can creep into the high 80s or better. i sweat alot and felt like i would overheat... but i recently learned that if everyone around is wearing a wetsuit, you are at a distinct disadvantage since everyone is riding higher in the water. so at a 1500m swim tri in the same lake, i donned a suspender style wetsuit and improved my swim place bigtime...so, until tris ban wetsuits except in cold conitions, the non-wetsuit holdouts will don a wetsuit! 3) Rationale for the all pulling workouts - when you wear a wetsuit, it's like having a pull buoy between your legs - you don't have to use your legs much cause they just float. so, alot of tri workouts tend to have alot of pulling in there. 4) My husband is a former college runner and ripped on me for doing tris for years based on the "mediocrity at 3 sports" principle...until he saw a tri on tv where all the guys were former D1 college runners. take a look at the swim times of the top tri-guys and gals before you judge this one. 5) the selfish training time - so true but only for longer distance events. 1/2s and full ironman's take a serious time committment. But, shorter distance events the most workout time needed is about as much as serious swimmers doing doubles every day. in short, i don't think it's fair for triathletes to expect masters workouts to accomodate them. nobody should be able to differentiate between the swimmers and triathletes (except most triathletes don't kick too well :drown:) i don't think they realize what an advantage it is to become serious about swimming as a sport in and of itself. but, what the competition knows won't hurt them :D