How much do triathlete need to learn about swimming?
Former Member
I do not mean this as a heartless criticism of triathletes. I actually enjoy the sport. But many of them start doing triathlons with almost no knowledge or experience in swimming. Here are a couple of choice comments to the thread I linked below. Thank goodness I knew how to ride a bike and run before I started doing tris - but not well. Give them credit for taking it on, but I do think they should learn to swim before entering one.
"The swim is short ( 150 yards ), and I can make it..not without stopping a couple of times at the end of the pool."
"A lot of pool sprints are so newbie friendly that they let you get through the water any way you can. I have seen people water walk the 300 meters in a pool swim in my area."
"My wife did an indoor tri a few months ago and I think 1/4 of the people walked the swim."
I recommended that the person do breaststroke.
www.beginnertriathlete.com/.../thread-view.asp
Former Member
I just think when 1/4 of the field walks the swim, then we enter into a whole different discussion.
Another issue to consider in apportioning training time is that running & cycling tend to respond more to volume (compared to swimming), and swimming tends to respond more to technique work (compared to running & biking).
Sure, to be a FOP swimmer you'll need to do some volume... but for the average age-grouper it's probably a rational choice to spend relatively little time on swimming. At the same time, I'd imagine the average age-grouper would benefit by spending what little time they do spend swimming primarily on technique work.
The reason most triathletes are sh**ty swimmers is because most triathletes have sh**ty technique, not that they don't do enough laps.
I would offer ANYONE to not start out with an Ironman tri !!!!!
Enter shorter races to get a feel for you & the distances!
I had my most fun when I did sprints. You can have a great time racing even if your training time is limited by work, family or injury. I found one with a long swim to play on my strength.
ChrisM is one of the good swimers to post on beginnertriathlete.com. Most of the swim advice on that forum is horrifying. However, use of the term "competent " is entirely dependent in the forum.
Triathletes should learn to survive the swim, but you can't blame them for regarding that leg as being trivial. Most triathlons are completely biased against swimming. Far more time is spent on the other two legs.
Take a look at last years' IM splits. The rough average for the top ten finishers was 52 minutes for the swim, 4:30 for the bike, 2:45 for the run = around 8:07 (ignoring the transitions)
That means 55.4% of their time was on the bike, 33.9% was the run, but the swim was only 10.7%.
ironman.com/.../2011.htm
Per Wikipedia an IM is 2.4-mi swim, 112-mi bike, 26.2-mi run in that order. Start at 7am, cut-off for swim at 9:20am, cut-off for bike at 5:50pm, cut-off for run at midnight.
if the swim + T1 takes 1.5 hours, then that leaves about 9.5 hours for the bike, which requires at least a 12 mph bike speed.
Triathletes should learn to survive the swim, but you can't blame them for regarding that leg as being trivial. Most triathlons are completely biased against swimming. Far more time is spent on the other two legs.
Take a look at last years' IM splits. The rough average for the top ten finishers was 52 minutes for the swim, 4:30 for the bike, 2:45 for the run = around 8:07 (ignoring the transitions)
That means 55.4% of their time was on the bike, 33.9% was the run, but the swim was only 10.7%.
ironman.com/.../2011.htm
However on the other hand, they (should) spend more than 11% of their training time to swimming.
From these comments I believe the triathletes in my area are smarter than most. Any I have come in contact with take a year to prepare for an Ironman length Tri. Many work with a coach.
On the other hand, I have been the starter at a triathlon (with a swim of 't try it the day before or the morning of.
