Open Water Swimming

[Jono]

Hi Everyone

I was wandering if anyone knew what standard the 5k Open Water swimming is....ie times, qualifying times etc....

I had a letter from British Swimming trying to tempt me!?!!

Tanks a Million

[Spidey]

Hi Everyone

I was wandering if anyone knew what standard the 5k Open Water swimming is....ie times, qualifying times etc....

I had a letter from British Swimming trying to tempt me!?!!

Tanks a Million

I'd suggest by looking at the following link, and seeing the results of last years event may help http://www.sportcentric.com/vmgmt/vfilemgmt/page/filedownload/1,8202,5026-49221-94970-0-file,00.pdf

This was taken from a link on this site http://www.britishswimming.org/vsite/vnavsite/page/directory/0,10853,5026-142799-160015-nav-list,00.html

[NotVeryFast]

I'm never sure how to interpret the results, though. Sub 60 minutes for 5km is pretty good, even in a 25m pool, at 18 mins per 1500m. Then if you account for not having any turns at all in open water, you'd probably need to be sustaining 17 mins per 1500m in a 25m pool to be able to do 5km open water in under 60 minutes. Then if you add in significant choppiness in the water and so on, making it impossible to use the same technique as you would use in a pool, it starts to look like an incredible achievement. So I was wondering what happens in terms of currents / tides - might some open water swims be easier than others with currents / tides helping?

[Speedy Gonzalez]

I'm never sure how to interpret the results, though. Sub 60 minutes for 5km is pretty good, even in a 25m pool, at 18 mins per 1500m. Then if you account for not having any turns at all in open water, you'd probably need to be sustaining 17 mins per 1500m in a 25m pool to be able to do 5km open water in under 60 minutes. Then if you add in significant choppiness in the water and so on, making it impossible to use the same technique as you would use in a pool, it starts to look like an incredible achievement. So I was wondering what happens in terms of currents / tides - might some open water swims be easier than others with currents / tides helping?

Definitely. I did a 5k last year in sub 60 minutes when my time for a 1000m in a pool is around 14m. Do the maths. The tide was in our favour, but the year before, David Meca (who's the world champ at open water) did the same swim in 65 mins - the tide was against him.

[Roderick]

Hi,

There is no standard time as the conditions vary too much. Water temperature, wind, currents etc. Here in Belgium open water is mainly swum in canals. Last year the Belgian champ swam it (5k) in 1.00.06 - I calculated that at 1.10 per 100m. That is fast sustained over 5k. Davies swims the 1500 around 59s per 100.

But the same guy swam 10k in 1.46.xx and all of them finished within 1min of each other somewhere around Paris. I assume the tide was fast enough to carry them all at around the same speed.

The best way to check is the previous year's results.

r/R

[Jono]

Easy as.....cheers everyone!