Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Rykno — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 03:11:15 GMT

Licenses! I was going to write something about how the two sports advertise their races. A swim meet usually post something at the pool, a forum or through the local and national level, but it's really only members that get the information, but a 5/10km race there are fliers, ads in the paper and people see there is something going on and sign up. the number of swimmers vs runners in the average work place also dictates what is talked about during lunch or other coffee breaks. I was also going to say that it's much easier for a runner to decide march 1st that they want to run a 5km on april 1st and do well compared to a swimmer. but I started thinking about what it is that causes problems for me to get my swimmers to race. a competition license or membership! anyone can sign up for a road race. whether you are a member of a running club or run on your own. you pay the fee, get your number and or shirt, show up and race. some races even allow last minute registrations but a pool meet, you need to be a member of USMS (or country equivelent), pay a dues, sign up for the meet usaully 1-2 weeks before and you have to know about the meet in order to sign up for it. other ideas (just throwing them out there) it could also have to do with the amount of time it takes for them. most running races are sat or sunday morning, you come 30-60 minutes before, you run 20-30 minutes, then you go home. there are not too many pool or even OW races I have been to that one could say that. There are also rules to swimming. a motion swimmer might not swim properly and might feel intimidated about being disqualified. it's pretty hard to run a 5km and not have your time count. I also agree with everyone that has compared track meets to swim meets and 5km runs to OW events. the stockholm marathon this past weekend had 14,715 people finish the race. but the 3km cold water river race next month only has 5,358 people signed up so far with nearly 3,300 people sign up for the shorter 1km and 1500m races. Just by comparing times one could venture to guess that most of the people who run the marathon run alot. but with the swimming anyone who can keep their head above water can complete the 3km swim. the winner of the mens race 2:12 the last place man 6:09 nearly 2.7 slower. but the results a progessively slower from 1 to 11407 women 2:31 6:08 similar pattern in times but in the 2009 3km race the times are much farther apart. Men winner 29:52 --> last place time 2.23:37 nearly 4.7 times slower. women 31:18 --> 2:38 for both men and women the times increase evenly until about 1:40. after that you have to wonder what the person was doing for nearly 2 hrs. just as a reference a swim 1-2 times a week breaststroke swimmer can finish the race in :55-1:05. I had a swimmer that picked up swimming only 9 months before, and he was able to swim in in 45:34

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:41:39 GMT

At first blush, I'd venture to say that swimming probably gets a higher percentage of active participants at meets. The primary reason I can see is that 90% of swimming is done in a pool. The people have to go past a place to pay, deal with a coach, see a locker room bulletin board, or something, and they usually would have contact with someone to prompt them about an event (swim meet, open water, whatever). In my limited contacts with swimmers over the years, I'd say 50% or more know about swimming events (meets, open water, etc), and about half those compete. Running can be done most anywhere. I'd venture to say it is one of the most visible sports, since in many cases runners are on the side of the road. But it is tough to get a message to someone who runs solo all the time on roads or trails near their home. This doesn't even include the countless numbers of people who use treadmills at gyms...some may just run/jog for a warm-up, while others may do an hour run then leave. In my limited contacts with runners, most do this just to keep in shape, and I'd say less than 5% ever compete in anything. This has not been my observation of swimmers at all. In the pools I've swam at, there are like one or two others that compete in Masters and we are all doing it on our own. Running - I don't know because like you say there are so many and most are doing it for their own fitness desires without regard for competition. But there are 5ks all the time and I think many of them would have at least done one at some point. They wouldn't be afraid of it. I hate running yet I've done a couple myself because it was my company's event. But - I suppose the two really aren't that comparable anyway. A swim meet would be more like a track meet and a track meet would be very intimidating. At the same time, pools are the venue we use. In Masters, no one really cares if you use an in-water start or if it takes you two minutes to finish the 100 free. You might even get as much applause as someone swimming it in 46 seconds. I don't know if it is a goal for Masters to get people competing anyway or just swimming fitness?

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:25:09 GMT

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:45:36 GMT

Stats Canada did an adult sports participation survey a few years back. In Canada there were about 750,000 people who swim at least twice a week and list swimming as their main form of exercise. Masters Swimming Canada has about 10,000 members and 25-30% of those participate in meets. I don't have the numbers for running. I think that road races are a lot more like open water races, with track races being more the equivalent of pool competition. Probably the percentage of runners doing 100m sprints etc, or even doing 5k or 10k races on a track is also pretty small. I strongly suspect that if you took the participants of a typical 5k or 10k road race and tried to get them to run the same distance in heats of eight on a track the participation rate would drop drastically. A big part of sports like running and triathlon is an emphasis on endurance rather than sprint speed, and I think that provides a different sort of challenge that swimming competition.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:58:39 GMT

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:07:06 GMT

Having been a swimmer from the age of 8, and having picked up running in my mid 30s (and maintained it only for about 5 years, until my knees and ankles gave up), I would venture to say that you may be way, way off. With a decent coach, a commitment to some reasonable training, and enough time (i.e. a year), you will almost certainly break 1:00 for 100y free. But unless you have the build of a runner (which may be a contra-indication for swimming, i.e. strong legs and very little upper body mass (or strength)), it will take quite some time to get yourself in a position to knock out 26 consecutive miles at a pace of less than 7:40 per mile. Running two miles on the local track is most definitely not the same as running 26 miles on undulating pavement. Also, don't forget that the first 5-10k is walked/run in a crowd, at a pace slower than your target - so you have to make up for that from then on... Unless you want to try both - and maybe set some test milestones for yourself halfway into the training (say, a 100y under 1:06 and a 10k under 45 minutes) - I'd stick with the swimming goal. :2cents: The two-miler I'm referring to was a road race, and yeah, I had to leap a couple of potholes and dodge a lot of people - and one Lhaso Apso - early on. I'm not going to argue against my own potential, but I note from the USMS database that 218 men 50-54 swam 100 yards freestyle under a minute anywhere anytime at a USMS meet in the past year. This year, 1,870 men 50-54 ran the Boston Marathon, meaning all of them ran a 3:35 marathon in the previous year. Put another way, I know people who have run the Boston Marathon. They weren't jocks in high school, they haven't been running competitively since they were kids. They set it as a goal and they did it. Of the 218 fast swimmers, how many did something similar? How many weren't swimmers in their youth but at middle age just up and decided to swim 100 yards under a minute, then trained toward that goal and hit it? It has happened, but I really don't know how frequently. I think some people who swim competitively underestimate how difficult it is to swim really fast. It's quite difficult, and those who can do it should be quite proud of their accomplishment and not assume that anyone with a little drive could do the same thing. As for my case, it's purely hypothetical. I used to run, but I find it boring, frankly, so have no interest in running a marathon. I'd rather swim.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:36:13 GMT

To bring this idea into the real world: I'm in pretty good shape. At the next Boston Marathon, I would be 50 years old, so I would have to run a 3 hour, 35 minute marathon - that's 7.3 miles per hour. Today, on a lark with no training, I ran two miles faster than that and didn't really push hard. Now I know it's a lot harder to run 26 miles than two, but the Boston goal seems within reach, if not in 2011, maybe in 2012. But I don't run. Instead, I swim 3-5 times a week. To qualify for, say, the 100 free SCY this year at Nationals, I would have to post 58.19. My personal best is 1:20 from a push, which probably translates to 1:17 from a dive. The chance of me ever posting an NQT is, I think, remote. So, although I'm a swimmer, it looks like I have a better chance of running the Boston Marathon than swimming Nationals. There are some big differences in the events. Nationals can't have as many qualifiers as the Boston Marathon. There would be no place to put everyone. Even so, were I a runner, I could reasonably try to qualify for Boston. In swimming, my goal is to be fast enough so that I could enter a meet anywhere and not be embarrassed by the result, and I'm not close to that. I think this goes a long way to explaining why more people run road races than swim in meets. Having been a swimmer from the age of 8, and having picked up running in my mid 30s (and maintained it only for about 5 years, until my knees and ankles gave up), I would venture to say that you may be way, way off. With a decent coach, a commitment to some reasonable training, and enough time (i.e. a year), you will almost certainly break 1:00 for 100y free. But unless you have the build of a runner (which may be a contra-indication for swimming, i.e. strong legs and very little upper body mass (or strength)), it will take quite some time to get yourself in a position to knock out 26 consecutive miles at a pace of less than 7:40 per mile. Running two miles on the local track is most definitely not the same as running 26 miles on undulating pavement. Also, don't forget that the first 5-10k is walked/run in a crowd, at a pace slower than your target - so you have to make up for that from then on... Unless you want to try both - and maybe set some test milestones for yourself halfway into the training (say, a 100y under 1:06 and a 10k under 45 minutes) - I'd stick with the swimming goal. :2cents:

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Rykno — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:28:38 GMT

maybe it's because running is a "free" sport compared to the cost of swim training. for running you only need shoes and time, but with swimming you need suits, time and pool time. anyone can run/jog, not everyone can swim

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:12:15 GMT

I suspect that the time (months, years) that it would take that individual to make a NQT in the 100 I.M. would be LONGER than it would take to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Neither is easy, but I do think people underestimate sometimes just how technical and difficult swimming can be. To bring this idea into the real world: I'm in pretty good shape. At the next Boston Marathon, I would be 50 years old, so I would have to run a 3 hour, 35 minute marathon - that's 7.3 miles per hour. Today, on a lark with no training, I ran two miles faster than that and didn't really push hard. Now I know it's a lot harder to run 26 miles than two, but the Boston goal seems within reach, if not in 2011, maybe in 2012. But I don't run. Instead, I swim 3-5 times a week. To qualify for, say, the 100 free SCY this year at Nationals, I would have to post 58.19. My personal best is 1:20 from a push, which probably translates to 1:17 from a dive. The chance of me ever posting an NQT is, I think, remote. So, although I'm a swimmer, it looks like I have a better chance of running the Boston Marathon than swimming Nationals. There are some big differences in the events. Nationals can't have as many qualifiers as the Boston Marathon. There would be no place to put everyone. Even so, were I a runner, I could reasonably try to qualify for Boston. In swimming, my goal is to be fast enough so that I could enter a meet anywhere and not be embarrassed by the result, and I'm not close to that. I think this goes a long way to explaining why more people run road races than swim in meets.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:04:43 GMT

Point, but I still think there are fewer "occasional" athletes (or whatever you want to call them) in OW swim races compared to road races or triathlons. OW swimming can be intimidating to some, even experienced pool swimmers. Drilling down further there appear to be different kinds of OW races. My favorite local open water race is very similar to a road race crowd. The majority of swimmers are not age group or masters swimmers. I don't know how many of them are triathletes but there seem to be a good number families swimming it, and a fair number of people who swim this particular event every year but don't participate in any other organized events. I think this is their 30th year running this event. It's a two mile swim across a bay in a small town hours from any major urban centers. They also have an 8k and a short race for kids.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Former Member — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 05:10:28 GMT

It can be very lonely and scary on the blocks. You are on display. Now lets add false starts. Hiding in the crowd of a mass start can ease the discomfort.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

aztimm — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:09:09 GMT

I was going to answer this yesterday, but I was just too exhausted to. Before answering your questions, I think we'd need to first define what a, "Swimmer," or, "Runner," is. Do you mean a person who does their activity 3 or more times a week? Do they do their activity solo, with a group, do they subscribe to magazines about their activity, do they participate in online forums about their activity? Do you want to qualify it with amount of money spent on their sport, their performance levels, or in some other ways? At first blush, I'd venture to say that swimming probably gets a higher percentage of active participants at meets. The primary reason I can see is that 90% of swimming is done in a pool. The people have to go past a place to pay, deal with a coach, see a locker room bulletin board, or something, and they usually would have contact with someone to prompt them about an event (swim meet, open water, whatever). In my limited contacts with swimmers over the years, I'd say 50% or more know about swimming events (meets, open water, etc), and about half those compete. Running can be done most anywhere. I'd venture to say it is one of the most visible sports, since in many cases runners are on the side of the road. But it is tough to get a message to someone who runs solo all the time on roads or trails near their home. This doesn't even include the countless numbers of people who use treadmills at gyms...some may just run/jog for a warm-up, while others may do an hour run then leave. In my limited contacts with runners, most do this just to keep in shape, and I'd say less than 5% ever compete in anything.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

elise526 — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:32:48 GMT

I meant to ask in terms of X% of fitness swimmers (those that are already swimming) compete in meets vs. Y% of joggers compete in races. I suppose such stats likely don't exist. But I'm really more concerned with my observation that Masters swim meets do not attract many slower swimmers. If I look at the 100 free times for 40-44 men, the vast majority of times are under one minute. If you go over 1:10 that puts you in the bottom 50 out of 476 swimmers. From the few 5ks I've ran, it seems you have a lot more people just happy to do their best and complete the race. Its commonplace to have walkers that take 45 minutes or more. The intimidation factor is what I think keeps beginners from competing in swimming. If I hadn't been on the blocks 30 years ago in age group I doubt I could have done it. But I've also observed that in reality Masters swimmers are very friendly to all levels of swimmers. If people are happy just doing workouts then fine we don't want to force you to compete. I know for myself I like to compete against my times and that what keeps me going. Having taught a swim class made up mostly of triathletes and fitness swimmers, I would say that the intimidation factor is huge. It is interesting that beginner triathletes would prefer their first swim competition to be the swim leg on an open water swim on a triathlon. Open water competition, whether alone or the first leg on a tri, is far more dangerous than pool competition, so the preference does not seem logical. Many triathletes, however, view masters swimming as "professional swimming." To some extent, I suppose I can understand the view of masters swimming as professional swimming. Take an individual who is a good all-around athlete who has never competed in running or swimming, only knows how to do freestyle, but is equally decent in running and swimming moderate distances. I suspect that the time (months, years) that it would take that individual to make a NQT in the 100 I.M. would be LONGER than it would take to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Neither is easy, but I do think that those of us that compete forget sometimes just how technical and difficult swimming can be to somebody that has not done it. I've had success in getting triathletes to do the 1650 and 500 at winter meets. Perhaps masters meets just offering these types of things might attract triathletes and lap swimmers to compete. Isn't such a meet offered by the Maryland Terrapins masters team? Seems like a really good idea.

RE: Participation rates for competition in Running vs. Swimming

Chris Stevenson — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:04:24 GMT

From the few 5ks I've ran, it seems you have a lot more people just happy to do their best and complete the race. Based on conversations I've had with runners and triathletes, that seems to be a pretty accurate observation. I think that road races are a lot more like open water races Point, but I still think there are fewer "occasional" athletes (or whatever you want to call them) in OW swim races compared to road races or triathlons. OW swimming can be intimidating to some, even experienced pool swimmers.