By keeping intervals manageable, you’ll have a better chance of focusing on technique. Unlike the shorter-distance events, a long-course swimmer needs to exit feeling fresh and ready to go, so you can’t afford to use excess energy. It requires more specific training than most others. At half the distances of a full Ironman -- a 1.2-mile (1.9-kilometer) swim, 56-mile (90-kilometer) bike ride and a 13.1-mile (21-kilometer) run -- the Ironman 70.3 series is the fastest growing triathlon series in the world. All the good stuff I don’t share anywhere else. 32 - 33mm. Navigation Don’t rely on people; use your in-depth research and sighting aids from course reconnaissance. Not everyone is optimistic about their swim, but remember: the focus is on the ‘how’ and not the ‘how fast’. Since 2011, no finish time has cracked the all-time top 10 finish. Technique improvement therefore equals free speed. Every AG sees a decline in pace as they move up through the categories. Hi Victor, yes – I’ve been collecting that data from my clients for 6+ years! I still swim with pretty good technique which helps. What is the average Half Ironman time? Even within the ranks of Age Group Triathlon swimming, comparisons are difficult. A lot of those variables are out of your control, but at a minimum there are two of them that are in your control that you could work on to help see your pool times transfer into the open water. But not by much and the difference is very small. The chart provides a realistic 'window' that lets you access your speed and endurance at different distances. I felt that calculating a theoretical CSS pace gives a better comparison. Sample workout to gauge Ironman swim fitness: 400 or 800 yard time trials — This will indicate your speed in the water at threshold. But that’s not necessarily the full picture. Check the athlete guide for more information. I have spent hours collecting race data and crunching numbers. 8 Improve key technique areas such as: balance; breathing – bilateral, not leaning on the hands; slow to fast finish; kicking – lightly and efficiently will reduce drag, especially in non-wetsuit swims. Try and fit in three open-water sessions over each four-week period in the 12 weeks prior to the race. Cat, Hi Cat, Most races start at 7am, meaning athletes have until midnight to complete the distance. Just completed IM UK (my first!) This is a good one to repeat multiple times in the year as you can gauge your progression easily. Great article with information that can’t be found anywhere else! If the race is sea based, practise in the sea where possible. You stack up very nicely, Jared! The login page will open in a new tab. The swimmers that are breaking into the top 10% have more experience. But many will still swim 5-6 days each week. Blue. If you can swim one mile (0 to One Mile), it is easy to increase to 2.4 miles without unusual effort.Beginning with a straight swim of 1650 yards or 1500 meters every Monday for a month, + two swim workouts of the same distance per week, increasing by 500 meters per month, it will take 6 months to reach 2.4 miles. http://icanswimfast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/What_Is_A_Good_Triathlon_Swim_Time.mp3. You might all be racing the same race, but everyone has a slightly different goal. Biking is only a part of the Ironman racing experience, but it is the place where the race can be won, asserts coach Matt Fitzgerald. Provided you’re fit, breathing well and have the fuel to burn you don’t slow down much once you tap into your aerobic swim pace. Athletes who are unable to complete the race before this time will be classified as DNF. Additionally, any athlete that starts in the final wave and misses the 1:10 cut off will not be allowed to continue on … The Ironman swim distance is 2.4 miles. Don’t be shy, lets see how all of our numbers stack up against the averages! Whether it's a sprint, Olympic, half-Ironman, Ironman 70.3, or another Ironman distance, the level of difficulty varies. How many times/week they train etc. If you know your CSS pace ( link to CSS calculator), that will be the easiest way to compare where you stand in relation to a specialist swimmer. I’ve already told you I would consider my swim in this race to be pretty poor. Everything about your training and racing should be focused on efficiency. Fascinating article. Clearly, at 3.8km the IM swim is much further than the Olympic-distance swim at 1.5km. 6 Simple Tips for a Better IRONMAN Swim; By IRONMAN.com 06/26/2017, 9:00am EDT ; It's time to transition from the pool to the open water. Athletes who take longer than 1:10 to complete the swim will receive a DNF. We’ve already seen the big jump need to break into the top 10%, on both the men’s and women’s side. After the start, the turning buoys are the next most physical place – there’s always a mass of people (even after 1.9km for a halfway turn). Across all amateur athletes, the average Half Ironman time is 5:51:25 for Men, and 6:18:13 for Women. Catherine here, I’m 45, from Australia but based in Kuwait. To improve my overall result, I need to work on my running, not getting my swim to a level that my ego would be happy with. Prior to training for Ironman Florida, McCane had completed several shorter triathlons and two half Ironman races, which include a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run. Typically, the 3.8km swim must be completed within 2:20 of the start with competitors needing to finish the bike within 8:10 (10:30 after the … I wasn’t the only guy in the water that had to work against the current, if I did, everyone did. After the race I looked at the numbers. Pro triathletes don’t put as many hours into swimming as a specialist swimmers do. For those people finishing in under 40 minutes, race pace falls somewhere between a tempo and a threshold effort. Very insightful. Endurance Training for half Ironman. Every year, we witnessed incredible performances, but the best times recorded in the Ironman World Championships in Kona are definitely hard to beat. Black. How long does it take to finish an Ironman Triathlon? 34 - 35mm. Racing the 800m in a pool as a single event and finishing the swim in the first leg of a tri are very different. IRONMAN Warm-Up. That huge! In the open water if you extend your DPS out too long you will decelerate between each stroke (which obviously slows you down but also takes more energy to accelerate into the next stroke). The average middle lady swims at 2.09/100m or an Ironman and at 2.12/100m for a 70.3. Overall it looks like the 2019 Ironman World Championship might have been a little faster than average. I showed you what times you would need to swim to compete in Kona. In this guide I will show you what it takes to be better than average as an age group triathlon swimmer in every AG. Apart from dealing with the sheer numbers of swimmers around you, you need to approach the swim in a way that minimises your anxiety levels, which can drain you of vital energy. Typically, slower swimmers sink at the back. If I am reading it correctly this is what I believe you are saying. For the “Better Than Your Average” data I used the “median” athlete exiting the water in each race. The new start times will not change the existing cut off standards for the Ironman World Championship – 2:20 for the swim and 10:30 for the bike. And they do so without the added fatigue of running and riding. Great to hear from you. Here’s an example from my first 70.3 race. Hey Greg, thanks for your comment! Without objective data to work with, goals get set based on a idea of what sounds fast. Before doing your test, make sure you get in a good warm up. The goal is to finish with the fastest overall time. These are the paces where you’re likely to have the highest traffic and biggest groups on the swim course. My hope is that what you read will help give you some context to the nuances and standards of age group triathlon swimming. The event will typically take you between eight and 16 hours to complete. The Process: How I Collected This Data As a very proud finisher of 2x IronMan races (Kona 70.3 & Napa 140.6) I really would consider myself a “NARP” - non-athletic regular person :) (Who just loves to exercise and workout. On race day, it’s integral that you try and control your adrenaline, only going out hard if you’re a good swimmer looking for clear water. We see this at the elite level too. It took a 1:51:58 to win the 10k Marathon swim, a pace of 1.07/100m.If you wanted to know what World Class Fast is, there you go! For example, if your Olympic swim is 28 minutes, the half-Ironman swim will be around 28 x 1.33 or around 37 minutes. 42 - 43mm. But I will never swim as fast as I did in my prime. They have a better grasp of pacing, how to race and how to manage open water conditions. Download it right now. Many of the triathletes I meet ultimately want to race a full distance Ironman. The average middle guy swims at 2.02/100m for an Ironman and at 2.06/100m for a 70.3. *These guys would have all come out the water together in Kona. You also need to learn pace, so get used to using your watch/clock all the time. As a rough guide, your half-Ironman pace would likely be around 5–8 seconds per 100 slower than your 400 time for beginner to intermediate level athletes. Awesome article and stats. Re: Ironman ... And yes, these athletes have a new PR for a short course swimming with the current, but not a legit 2.4 swim that accompanies most Ironman. So you have more first timers to long course races signing up for 70.3’s than full Ironman. In an effort to benchmark “fast” you might log in and check the SlowTwitch forums. If you are looking for the fastest 70.3 or best half ironman in Europe look no further than Brazil or Austria. I’m a working progress. Swim: Each wave will have 1:10 to complete the swim. Trying to compare apples with apples I pulled the 800m, 400m and 200m qualifying times for each AG. An Ironman Triathlon is one of a series of long-distance triathlon races organized by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride and a marathon 26.22-mile (42.20 km) run, raced in that order.It is widely considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world. Are you in the top 50%? Practise as you would race. If you were able to transfer your CSS pace well into open water swimming it would put you up in the top 10% for your age and gender! The last biggy for the majority of age-group swimmers is the grip. Back then, swimming was my life. Broken down by discipline, on the Men’s side this works out to a swim time of 38:51, a bike time of 2:54:38, and a run time of 2:04:16. In an IRONMAN 70.3 they diminish by approximately 18 points per minute. At the same time, remember that if you were swimming through the glare, chances are most people had to deal with it and that would affect everyone’s swim time, not just yours (still work on your sighting though ). How Can You Calculate Your Ironman Time? But what about the specialists? Quote Reply. Elite triathlon swim coach, Gerry Rodrigues goes as far as putting a number on it. 1.22/100 in my last 70.3 (Colombo). Despite that, having these numbers should still be useful. 5 Increase length of main swim sets gradually through the programme so you can handle a 4km swim session eight weeks from the race. Ideally swim the course before the race. I took 9 x full distance races and 10 x 70.3 races over a 5 year period (2013 – 2017) to get a large enough data sample. Go back to the pool and try swimming 1000 at 5–8 seconds slower than your 400 pace and assess how this feels. Most of them only want to commit to it when they are confident they can finish the distance though. Before having a crack at these killer sessions, you should have been working towards your Ironman goal for a couple of months and have built up your swim, bike and run volume. As a result we have a foundation in movement that easily transfers into other land based sports. I'll only send you triathlon swimming specific emails. Athletes who take longer than 1:10 to complete the swim will receive a DNF. Here are valuable tips that might help you improve your swim leg in Ironman races. Despite this, elite triathletes know they need to spend hours in the water to improve. There is a value to the minutes and seconds in each race distance. The swim and bike sections of each Ironman race also have their own cut-off times that athletes will have to make if they want to continue. Pacing and stroke Steady and even, relaxed and efficient. Can you imagine swimming up at the front of the field at Ironman World Champs? The only exception being the M25-29 age group being faster than the M18-24 AG. Looking forward to training with you in March. Align with your ultimate goal or purpose of racing triathlons with the goals you set. 70.3 Dubai, 70.3 World Championships, Ironman Texas and Kona immediately spring to mind. It should give you insight into what is being done by athletes at your same age in the water. Completed Coeur d'Alene 70.3 in June. Glad you found the article helpful! Try 3 issues of 220 Triathlon for just £5! Your predominant focus should be on what’s happening in your age group. – Sighting. This is how I came up with these numbers and what I have done with them. The more time I spend coaching Age Group Triathletes the more I learn how board the range of goals and desires are. The 39th Ironman World Championships takes place on the 8th of October 2016. Check the athlete guide for more information. Make it comfortable, make it efficient. ● “I am just curious what is considered a good pace for me to aim for this season?”, ● “I know that is hugely subjective, but what is a good time for my first 70.3 swim?”, ● “How long do you think it will take me to swim 1.20/100m? In your warm-up, focus on regulating and relaxing your breathing, as the adrenaline will have you breathing too hard and shallow. – Stroke rate. 1:46 average/100 yds. Pull up your race results from your last race. All the information you provided is fascinating and I look forward to dipping into the rest over the next few weeks. You will need to look at more than just your swim rankings, to work out what to focus on. This is what we call the “specificity” principle of training. Thanks Carla. You can click on each image to read the numbers more clearly. Know the course Familiarisation will make navigation easier. So think ahead; don’t get trapped on the inside because you’ll lose all rhythm and use up valuable energy. Side Note: The transition time is a performance area that gets overlooked. A majority of masters swimmers come from a swimming background. It was not the fastest on record, 2018 claims many of those times, but 2019 lies somewhere between that and the average for the course. Calculating your possible Ironman timing is not as simple as adding up the numbers. Are You A Very Good Tri Swimmer? There’s a fairly simple explanation for that…. 2. Breaking into that top 10% would be awesome to see… also, how is that run of yours coming along . Combined Swim & Bike Cut-Off: 5 hours 30 minutes (from YOUR chip swim start time) Individual Ironman 70.3 races may have an additional intermediate cut off times on the bike course. This is to be expected, but you can use this knowledge to your advantage. Finish the stroke, keep the recovery relaxed, and really channel your rhythm and breathing. Use this data to help you set realistic goals for your swimming. This is what makes Age Group Tri swimming unique. Objectively there wasn’t anything wrong with it looking at the big picture. Ironman-distance triathlons: the 10 best European Irons for beginners, Sub-1hr swim session: Long-course peaking, How to prepare for a non-wetsuit Ironman swim leg, How to stop your legs from sinking in the swim. If you need help with swimming for triathlon, this is THE Guide for you. The data gives you a framework to set realistic goals. A pretty poor pace (by my standards) for a 1900m swim if it was done in the pool! Refine By Sort By. 2 hours 20 minutes (9:20am) It’s the time of the athlete that came out the water bang in the middle of their AG on race day. It’s not the average swim time for your age group. ~ Rory. Here’s what I mean by that. The sessions are designed to take place at the end of a structured and progressive 10-to-16-week build phase and to see you into the race preparation phase of training. 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Training will improve your Ironman race as the bike or the run Group Tri swimming unique your genetic potential., you ’ ll be perfectly poised after the last biggy for the majority of Masters.! Athletes in helping them chase good triathlon swim coach, Gerry Rodrigues goes as far as putting a on!