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Projected Swim Times

Hope someone out there can help.................having plucked up the courage to enter my first sprint tri......The Warwickshire Tri at Stratford upon Avon on 5th October 2008, I naturally thought the hard bit was going to be the training.



How wrong I was..........the on-line application form has already proved the first hurdle! I am being asked to predict my swim time........presumeable to make sure I don't get in the way of the rest of you who will be going that much faster! But with swimming being my weakest discipline and not having done any timed 400m sessions yet I am struggling to even guess this information[sm=rolleyes.gif].



Can someone give me an idea of what would be expected of a 44 year old club cyclist whose fine on the bike but decidedly dodgy in the water.......so much so I am virtually having to re-learn front crawl for the event.



I'm sure I have probably asked how long is a peice of string..........but can anyone provide me with a ball park figure to get my application form in.



Cheers[8|]

Comments

  • notmilknotmilk Posts: 35
    I too had this problem when i entered my first tri! Cymmer Triathlon August 2008.

    So I bought a stop watch and timed myself.

    600m in just under 20 minutes - hope I'm a bit faster come race day.

    I would say it's important to get it right as you will be in group of like-timed swimmers and like you said you don't want to be getting in everyone's way or trying to overtake people (i'm guessing it's a pool based event?)

  • MGMG Posts: 470
    Swimming is pretty much 75% technique, so you could be the fastest 10km runner on the planet but if your swimming technique is flawed your swim times wont be fast. It is almost impossible to estimate someones swim times on fitness alone. If your 400m is not great at the mo, I suggest you swim 4 sets of 100m with 30 sec rest in between each set, tot up the time then minus the rest time and youl have a ball park figure to work with. [8D]



    Good luck, and welcome to the forum!![:D]
  • mike_trimike_tri Posts: 60
    livestrong you should definatly go down to a pool and time yourself, you never know you might be faster than you think, but don't forget you should be much faster come raceday so take some seconds, maybe even a minute or 2, off your time so that us slower swimmers don't slow you down.



    I'm also thinking of doing warwickshire, did staffordshire??, might not be right name, supposed to be on same course and it was great, laps are pretty confusing, especially in the pool, were i got a bit lost but it was a 'beautiful day' and the bike and run flew by.



    mike
  • TommiTriTommiTri Posts: 879
    I think the best thing you can do mate is, like the others have said, go down the pool and measure your time.

    Then enter that time, as the tri may fill up.



    Then spend the next few months working on technique, and every so often, maybe once a week or every 2 weeks do a timed 400m.



    when it gets to about mid-september do a really serious timed 400m, at what you really think is going to be your race pace, see what time it is. If its the same as the one you entered (which I very much doubt) its ok, you will have hopefully become more efficient as a result of technique work rather than faster, but that will stand you in good stead for the bike/run.

    If the time is significantly different then ring or email the race organisers, I reckon you can do this up to about 2 weeks before an event, then they can change your time and put you in the appropriate wave.



    so dont worry too much now! the time you quote on the form is not set in stone!
  • Cheers for the advice.................and yes it's a pool event.



    Sorry for noy replying sooner but my internet connection has been down.



    Thanks.
  • transittransit Posts: 163
    If your swim time is a little bit out I wouldn't worry too much as whenever I do sprint tri's there is always (ALWAYS!) a real variety of paces in every heat. You could spend all the time in the world getting yours right and the others around you will have put in a ridiculously slow time cos they don't want to be 'last'?!? I think it was at Driffield that someone put in 35mins for a 400m swim, that's over 2mins for 25metres - you could float faster than that!



    Follow the advise of everyone else and do a bit of timing then submit it sharpish to guarantee entry. If you can retest and change it great, if not, not probs. When it does come to doing the event if you are faster or slower just touch people's feet to overtake at the end of the lane and vice versa if they wanna overtake you.
  • Livestrong - Transit has got a good point. There's always a bit of a mixed bag in every group. I'll also point out that the last two sprints that I've been at, they have numbered 1 the slowest down to whatever number being fastest. Yet some of the higher numbers are still in the pool early on. (Just so they dont have to wait!!!!!) I'd get a rough time and then if you are slower or faster come race day, move yourself accordingly in the start field.
  • paulfitzpaulfitz Posts: 67
    Hey Livestrong, I did the Stratford Tri, which is in the same pool. As a former swimmer I was one of the faster ones and entered a time of 6 mins for the swim, ultimately doing 5.40. The quickest guys did it (you go twice up and back across each of 3 lanes of the pool) in about 5 mins.



    They start the swim in 15 sec intervals, fastest first. One guy could barely string two lengths together and had obviously guessed at 5 mins and then came seriously unstuck



    I would def time yourself, but otherwise go for 10 mins at least, so you dont get yourself caught up with faster swimmers



    Cheers
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