Are Triathletes worth the dues they pay toward Masters Swimming?
I say we force all Triathletes to spend one day a week in the sprint lane, one day a week doing stroke (i.e. IM) work, and then make them focus on their starts and turns.
This invasion needs to be controlled.... :-)
John Smith
:)
.
Sadly in the triathlon that leg has very little impact in the success of the race
Not in the UTI races that allow drafting...If you aren't out of the water with the top dogs, you are left behind on the bike and it's all over.
My observation from racing tris and road running races is that there is a big difference between racers and participants of these events. Some people are just out to finish and can hold on a converstation though the whole event and some are working their butts off and racing.
Cross country races - no fun-runners here...even the last place person who could be 70+ is running so hard they could puke their guts out. you don't show up to these races to jog.
Bike racing - there are no "fun riders" at bike races either. The "fun-riders" go out and do centruies.
Swim meets- i'm doing my first one here pretty soon and i supsect there are no fun-swimmers here just slogging through. but i'll work my ass off in hopes of just being 2nd to last instead of dead last!
I've been off these forums for the last few months while I focused on triathlons...by continuing to train fly and medley in a pool!
There's nothing wrong with entering an event just to finish it. Back in February I saw one of the top triathletes in my area do the 50 and 100 meter fly in a Masters meet. She was a novice at fly (according to this web site, she had never raced fly before) but she completed both races with no DQ. I thought that was pretty cool.
Also remember that our nation has an obesity epidemic. Getting some exercise - any exercise - is a good thing. (With that in mind, this is good for a chuckle: www.slate.com/.../)
I do poke at the triathletes who debate tangential stuff like how well their practice times in the pool convert to open water times (subtopics: effects of flip turns, hard pushoffs, breathing on open turns, "fast" open turns versus slow ones, wetsuit.... SDK doesn't come up - until I bring it up :)) but then I steer the discussion into constructive territory like using pool swimming to improve conditioning and ingrain technique improvements that can be applied anywhere. Then I poke some more: "But training medley is a better all-around aerobic workout than just crawlstroke!" BTW the only toy at the end of my lane is a kickboard.
One of these days I'll do butterfly for the swim leg of a sprint tri just for the shock and awe factor :)
