Intermediate Triathletes

Shedite27

I've been doing triathlons in Ireland for the past 4 years, and am a upper-middle type athlete (2:20 Olympic PB). I'm not involved in a club, but train fairly regularly. I keep good stats on myself and try to monitor my improvements each season.

Something I've noticed over the past few years is how much the average swimming level has improved. 4 years ago I'd be coming out of the water in Olympic in ~25mns and would be in the top 10%, whereas now I seem to be slipping down the rankings, despite my speed/times not slowing.

Are clubs spending more time training swimmers than other disciplines? Not really sure if there's any problem, just wondering if there's something that we can learn from it or if others are experiencing similar.

tunney

Shedite27 wrote: »

I've been doing triathlons in Ireland for the past 4 years, and am a upper-middle type athlete (2:20 Olympic PB). I'm not involved in a club, but train fairly regularly. I keep good stats on myself and try to monitor my improvements each season.

Something I've noticed over the past few years is how much the average swimming level has improved. 4 years ago I'd be coming out of the water in Olympic in ~25mns and would be in the top 10%, whereas now I seem to be slipping down the rankings, despite my speed/times not slowing.

Are clubs spending more time training swimmers than other disciplines? Not really sure if there's any problem, just wondering if there's something that we can learn from it or if others are experiencing similar.

People can easily make money doing squad/group swim coaching sessions - so they get done and focused on.

Group bike and run people are harder to do and make money from so less focus.

peter kern

Shedite27 wrote: »

I've been doing triathlons in Ireland for the past 4 years, and am a upper-middle type athlete (2:20 Olympic PB). I'm not involved in a club, but train fairly regularly. I keep good stats on myself and try to monitor my improvements each season.

Something I've noticed over the past few years is how much the average swimming level has improved. 4 years ago I'd be coming out of the water in Olympic in ~25mns and would be in the top 10%, whereas now I seem to be slipping down the rankings, despite my speed/times not slowing.

Are clubs spending more time training swimmers than other disciplines? Not really sure if there's any problem, just wondering if there's something that we can learn from it or if others are experiencing similar.

i guess on the whole you and tunney are right
at the same time i see very little improvement in cycling and running in ireland overall. So i guess this showes that if swiming is improvng its working better.

if we use a club that starts with a B their level of cycling was very high 10 years ago ( as they had a fairly good set up ) and swimming quite average as the swim set up was not great .
now the cycling has cone dowm and swiming come up.

overal the sport goes through phases too. there is times when the runers are up in ironman and then times when the cyclists are up.
same in itu
anne haug mentioned this not long ago that she finds it harder right now than 5 years ago. which is not a suprise and after the mclarty and haskins bennet aerea there was an era with out a super swimmer.
tranfering this to age group level it could well be that right now more athletes with a swimmer background are joining and cycling which is quite popular brings over less people to tri .

but what is clear is that while swiming is getting better average cycle training is very poor at beginner and intermediate level.

griffin100

Are we getting a crop of younger swimmers moving from club swimming into Tri driving down the swim times? I know a few of the older lads in my kids swim club are starting to race.

peter kern

griffin100 wrote: »

Are we getting a crop of younger swimmers moving from club swimming into Tri driving down the swim times? I know a few of the older lads in my kids swim club are starting to race.

this is a part

and will be enhanced in the next few years with more kids sections of clubs. ie kids that start to swim younger will be better swimmers.
another reason could be that Ireland has built quite a few pools since i arrived so this maybe start to have an impact now as more people have easeir access to pools.

68 lost souls

I think partially people also see the results that the top swimmers are getting at age group and national series level and doc using on it. Swim arguably requires the most work to gains ratio and people are spending more time in the pool than on a turbo.

I've been blown away by some of the swim levels the while, with people going sub 9 regularly it's been amazing to watch

Kurt_Godel

griffin100 wrote: »

Are we getting a crop of younger swimmers moving from club swimming into Tri driving down the swim times? I know a few of the older lads in my kids swim club are starting to race.

Some kids from our swim club are in the TI Junior development squad. To be honest, judging from the criteria the swim times at least are well within the capabilities of half the kids in the club. The good swimmers are usually good runners too.

There does seem to have been a general improvement in swimming abilities (both front-end and mid-pack) during the past 4 years I've been racing Tri's.