UKC

Doing a triathlon in September. It's a sprint one and the swim is 300m in a pool. Currently I'm managing this in 5 mins 40 seconds. Is this a respectable time for this distance? I've got a couple of months to continue training and am aiming for 5 mins

In reply to doz generale:

Thats not bad, could be better with trainning.

In reply to doz generale:

It's probably an ok time for a triathlon, slow for a swimmer.

5 minutes works out at 1 min 40 per 100m which is probably a good aim.

In reply to Indy:

Ta, I'm trying to get my head round kick turns, Do you think it's worth getting these sorted? would it improve my time enough to bother?

In reply to doz generale:

Effort is probably better spent elsewhere. You'll be sharing a lane and some triathlons make you do weird things like moving lanes every 100m

In reply to doz generale:

It's an ok time and will probably get you out of the water ahead of many, but there is a lot of time for improvement until september.
Kick turns make a huge difference, but so does an efficient stroke. My advice would be to get some lessons.

For a triathlon you have to decide how much you want to invest in swimming. In a 300m swim you might be able to gain a minute with a lot of training, but depending on where you are now, this time investment could also gian you 5 minutes on the bike. I am good swimmer and tend to leave the water early, only to be overtaken by almost the whole field on the bike. Unfortunately, swimming is relatively unimportant in triathlon.

In reply to doz generale:

Time spent training on the bike and running will yeald bigger time improvements.

In reply to StefanB:




Thanks, I'm also training hard on my bike. I'm looking for little things for the swimming which may reduce my time i suppose.

In reply to doz generale:

I found minimal gains on my swim meant the expenditure of much more effort, i could shave a minute off my swim but it left me goosed for the first part of the bike ride where i could have gained way more than a minute had i felt fresh.
Don't waste too much time on tumble turns as a lot of pool based tri's don't allow them!!

In reply to doz generale:


Often pool based triathlon's favour touch turns & ban kick turns so worth checking with the organiser

In reply to quirky:

snap!

In reply to doz generale:

I don't do triathlon but was a (bad) county level swimmer as a teenager.

Tumble-turns will make you faster but are fairly low down the order of things I'd try to improve given what you describe.

As others have pointed out swimming requires a lot of investment to improve because most of the improvements are about refining technique. By way of example I coached a guy who came in the top 10 in the london triathlon a few years ago. I got his 1500m swim time down to 25:30 mins from about 27:30 with a lot of training over two months. But that was still the slowest swim of the top ten overall. Despite him being WAY WAY fitter than me and me having done no swimming in ten years I was still almost three minutes faster than him at that time - just because my technique was a lot more efficient.

In reply to doz generale:

Did my first Triathlon a few weeks ago. Since that I have had four lots of 1 hour swimming lessons with a triathlon coach in a group of four.

It has made a massive difference in terms of efficiency, still not any faster, but less tired at end of sessions.

Have an standard distant open water in two weeks....so that will put it to the test

In reply to doz generale:

My advice would be to nail your transitions rather than worry too much about improving your swimming at this stage. You can easily make up those 40 seconds and more by being really slick in transition. I've only done a few, but after each one, I curse at how much time i lose in transition relative to everyone else. Some of that is down to the right kit, and after each one i've done, I've bought something else to improve things. Too much faffing doesn't help either. Good luck.

In reply to Scomuir:


Good point! Myself, I might as well set up a picnic table next time

In reply to jonfun21:


Just out of interest? What's standard distance? 1.500m?

In reply to doz generale:

Have a read of Brett Sutton's stuff on this.

Aside from being one of (the?) the best triathlon coaches on the planet he is also very good at make average swimmers good (i.e. bikers or runners competitive on the swim.)

As a very brief synopsis he supports lots of work with paddles, pull buoys and keeping distances swum short so what technique you do have doesn't fall apart.
(i.e. in his IM programme until the last 4 weeks you never swim more than 400m in one go)
Worked for me.

In reply to StefanB:

Yep 1,500

In reply to doz generale:

In races I'd do 5:30-6min for 400 which put me in the last group to go for most races (fastest). One time another club member who seriously swam was in my lane, she was halfway back down the lane as I got to that point, caught her after about 500m to a k on the bike. I think the swim is the least important and your time sounds good (to another non swimmer), running makes the biggest difference.

Remember, the more fun you're having, the faster you'll go!

Cheers

Toby