Swim Advice

StevieL

Hi all,

I'm new to all this and I'm looking for some advice....

I completed the London Duathlon recently which was my first ever organised 'event'. I really enjoyed myself and did better than I was hoping. That made me think about doing a (olympic distance) triathlon next year. Having not done any swimming at all, other than splashing about with the kids I thought I'd better get myself down the local pool to see if I can cope with the distance and what sort of time I could aim for. I managed to cover the 1500m in 42 minutes. Obviously I wasn't wearing a wetsuit and it wasn't an open water swim, but that seemed reasonable for a first effort to me, but I don't really know one way or the other. Question is does wearing a wetsuit make the swim faster or slower? Is doing the distance in a pool slower because of the need to keep changing direction? I'd aim to do the swim on the day in around 35 minutes so given 9 or so months to train is that a reasonable target?!



Thanks for your help all!



S

Tripyrenees

That is not bad at all for a first time after not swimming for so long. The wetsuit will give you a little more speed and confidence due to its bouyancy, maybe even a minute over that distance. The pool will in fact (in theory) be faster than a point to point swim as the turn actually gives you more speed from the push off, hence a 25m pool is faster than a 50m pool if proper turns are acheived. There are published conversion tables showing this and over 1500m it is 20 seconds slower in a 50m pool compared to a 25m pool so in open water with sighting, other people issues it could be alot more.



What will get you faster is the 9 months of training. Get in a couple of swims a week if you can and you will see the difference in a month and then start looking at your stroke and fine tuning your technique. If you can get in with a club swim or masters.



You will be fine in no time.

JohnH1971

OPEN WATER TRAINING...



Where?



I've got plenty of reservoirs around me that are strictly speaking off-limits... as kids (20+ years ago) we'd be down there, but what's the situation nowadays???



I've just got my wetsuit and intching to get out and give it a try... I've got an "off-limits" lake (again that was a major recreational facility with high dive and everything) less than 2 miles away from me - but it's filthy...



Would a surreptitious dip in the res be in order????