having just recently competed in the 2nd annual lake quassapaug open water festival, i can honestly say that stage racing has become my favorite way to kill a day (or a week).
i will be heading out to austin in october to participate in the highland lakes monster challenge....5 lakes in 5 days.
not to limit the pleasure of such a format to open water, i think there are tremendous possibilities for adding such challenges to the standard pool racing format.
here are a few suggestions:
50 of each stroke and the 100 im
100 of each stroke and the 200 im
200 of each stroke and the 400 im
1000, 1650 and 400 im
etc.
to clarify, each participant would be scored by their combined time.
Parents
Former Member
A swimming stage race is an interesting idea, although it's probably difficult to get the variety that characterizes cycling stage races. You can vary the distance, but it's tough to get variety in the actual courses and terrain. (Not a lot of mountains or even hills on lakes.)
If you were in the right area, you might be able to do an ocean swim, a lake swim, a river swim, a pool swim. You could even do a lake swim where the course was difficult to navigate, I suppose: lots of buoys and turns, placing an emphasis on landmarking and tactics. Maybe an ocean swim could have frequent returns to the beach to test bodysurfing and dolphin diving, etc.
If you really want to make it interesting, take another page from cycling and have intermediate sprints worth cash or time bonuses.
I'm not sure its worth doing group swims vs. individual time trials, and the team time trial from cycling is right out.
I guess if you wanted to really put some effort into it, you could get a really interesting event, but I'm not sure how many people it would attract. I'd do it for fun if it worked with my schedule. Maybe instead of a stage race, doing it as a "series" of races, with something each weekend, might work better, since most people can't race 4-6 days in a row due to work.
A swimming stage race is an interesting idea, although it's probably difficult to get the variety that characterizes cycling stage races. You can vary the distance, but it's tough to get variety in the actual courses and terrain. (Not a lot of mountains or even hills on lakes.)
If you were in the right area, you might be able to do an ocean swim, a lake swim, a river swim, a pool swim. You could even do a lake swim where the course was difficult to navigate, I suppose: lots of buoys and turns, placing an emphasis on landmarking and tactics. Maybe an ocean swim could have frequent returns to the beach to test bodysurfing and dolphin diving, etc.
If you really want to make it interesting, take another page from cycling and have intermediate sprints worth cash or time bonuses.
I'm not sure its worth doing group swims vs. individual time trials, and the team time trial from cycling is right out.
I guess if you wanted to really put some effort into it, you could get a really interesting event, but I'm not sure how many people it would attract. I'd do it for fun if it worked with my schedule. Maybe instead of a stage race, doing it as a "series" of races, with something each weekend, might work better, since most people can't race 4-6 days in a row due to work.
