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Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim
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 2013-10-17 11:15 AM |
 111 |  Subject: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swimI coach a swim team that is comprised of mostly triathletes and we focus on getting better at distance freestyle and open water swimming. One of the things that I advocate to the athletes that I coach is to not use swim times in open water swimming as a primary metric to judge performance. I explain that the only way to normalize from race to race is to compare percent place in the field. The distances are never accurate from race to race and even if is on the same course, the course can be off by 100s of meters, which is a huge amount of time. The conditions are never the same. Wind can change, current can change or you might start in a later wave and have to swim through a lot of people. But if you compare to other people in the race and how they did, you can get a better metric for judging performance. If you follow the link below, you can see the results of an athlete that I coach and the comparison of his swim from his first trip to Kona to his second. He had plateaued in his swim from his first time and I started working with him about 2.5 months ago. He's a great athlete and will be taking his pro card for next year. He has a tremendous amount of potential and I expect to see some great racing from him over the next few years. He's definitely someone to follow. http://magnoliamasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/MHanson-Race-... If anyone has any questions, please let me know. Best regards, Tim Floyd |
| 2013-10-17 11:20 AM in reply to: snappingt |
Pro 15655   | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim So......if your first paragraph is true (and I'm on the same page), then how can you guage how much of his swim improvement, which was not THAT dramatic over 2 years, is from better swimming and how much of it was better "conditions"? You have to be able to use pool swim times as at least a major part of the metric, no? |
| 2013-10-17 11:34 AM in reply to: Left Brain |
Not a Coach 11473  Media, PA | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by Left Brain So......if your first paragraph is true (and I'm on the same page), then how can you guage how much of his swim improvement, which was not THAT dramatic over 2 years, is from better swimming and how much of it was better "conditions"? You have to be able to use pool swim times as at least a major part of the metric, no? The swimmer moved from mid-pack to top 15%. That's pretty good improvement against a fairly stable talent pool (Kona). It's less easy to tell if they are really "10 minutes faster"--could be more or less--from those results. Pool swim times are easier to judge 'absolute' swimming improvement. |
| 2013-10-17 11:35 AM in reply to: JohnnyKay |
Extreme Veteran 2261 Ridgeland, Mississippi | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by JohnnyKay Originally posted by Left Brain So......if your first paragraph is true (and I'm on the same page), then how can you guage how much of his swim improvement, which was not THAT dramatic over 2 years, is from better swimming and how much of it was better "conditions"? You have to be able to use pool swim times as at least a major part of the metric, no? The swimmer moved from mid-pack to top 15%. That's pretty good improvement against a fairly stable talent pool (Kona). It's less easy to tell if they are really "10 minutes faster"--could be more or less--from those results. Pool swim times are easier to judge 'absolute' swimming improvement. Exactly. Why not just use a pool for benchmarking? |
| 2013-10-17 11:39 AM in reply to: Left Brain |
| 1300 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim I think he's trying to say his guy went from 877/1918 overall to 307/2134 overall which demostrates a greater improvement then saying he picked up 10 or so mins on the swim. It's validated by his point that everyone in that race swam under the same conditions so placement over time is more relevant. Then again what do I know since I also think it's an advertisement. |
| 2013-10-17 11:42 AM in reply to: Goggles Pizzano |
Not a Coach 11473 Media, PA | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by Goggles Pizzano Then again what do I know since I also think it's an advertisement. It is. But from someone who has peviously offered their swimming advice freely on this site. And who has also offered up the workouts he uses in training his swimmers, as well. We'll cut him some slack. |
| 2013-10-17 11:43 AM in reply to: Left Brain |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim First, I haven't coached him for 2 years. I started working with him about 2.5 months ago. When we started working together he had plateaued from his 2011 performance. In terms of your reference to conditions, that's the point of the post and why I use metrics of percent place in the field and time behind the first place finisher as better metrics for judging performance. Then you can normalize from race to race for conditons, distance on that day, etc...compared to every one in the race that is experiencing the same conditions. And at the end of the day, at a race, the most important metric is place and not time. He went from coming out of the water 847th in 2011 to 307th in 2013. He was in the 45th percentile in 2011 to the 14th percentile in 2013. I would tend to disagree that that isn't dramatic improvement, even over a two year period. We train exclusively in the pool and I know exactly where his times are in the pool, but at the end of the day the race doesn't happen in the pool. I've seen a lot of athletes make big gains in the pool that don't immediately translate to improved performance in open water. Most times it's they need to develop a key open water skill set and depending on the deficiency we try to focus on it in the next open water race or in the pool. |
| 2013-10-17 11:45 AM in reply to: JohnnyKay |
| 1300 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by JohnnyKay Originally posted by Goggles Pizzano Then again what do I know since I also think it's an advertisement. It is. But from someone who has peviously offered their swimming advice freely on this site. And who has also offered up the workouts he uses in training his swimmers, as well. We'll cut him some slack. Agreed, I like reading TIm's stuff and he poses some good points. I like how he weaves in the subtle ads. |
| 2013-10-17 11:45 AM in reply to: msteiner |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Improvement in pool times don't always translate in a straight line to improvement in open water. And most races are in the open water and not the pool. |
| 2013-10-17 11:53 AM in reply to: snappingt |
| 631 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by snappingt Improvement in pool times don't always translate in a straight line to improvement in open water. And most races are in the open water and not the pool. Curious do you have stats on the subjects pool times? I am going to assume that going from 50% to 16% at Kona he also had improvements in the pool. You are saying that improvements in the pool do not transalate to straight line improvements in the open water. But using his pool improvements would you have expected more, less or the same Kona improvements? Since your arguement is that the pool is not a good indicator I would expect more or less but not same. |
| 2013-10-17 11:54 AM in reply to: JohnnyKay |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim What I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter what his time in open water is if you are improving against the competition. Pool swimming times are easy to judge whether you are improving or not. It is a known distance with controlled conditions. Although, some competition pools are faster than others depending on how they are designed. This is the point I'm trying to make with this post if you are trying to judge whether or not the training in the pool is helping you improve in the open water. If you analyze the swims like I suggested, you will get a much better metric for judging improvement than time alone or trying to figure out your pace per 100 and compare that to a pace per 100 in the pool. |
| 2013-10-17 11:57 AM in reply to: snappingt |
Member 1004 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Going by place may work for large, stable races but I'm guessing that many or even most triathletes do most of their races with competition that varies greatly. For many/most of us, place would not be a decent indicator. |
| 2013-10-17 12:01 PM in reply to: Sidney Porter |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim I do have his pool times. Over the last two months, he effectively went from about 1:20/100yards as his pace with no upper end speed (stand alone 100 for time was 1:15) to 1:10-1:11/100 yards with being able to go as fast 1:01-1:02 for a stand alone 100. He actually performed better than I though he would. With some athletes that I work with we'll pick up big gains in the pool and the open water swim metrics don't move with the improvement in the pool. I've seen that it is everything from psychological to tactical to stroke mechanics that is holding them back and not allowing them to apply their improvement from the pool to the open water. |
| 2013-10-17 12:02 PM in reply to: b2run |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim I agree. You have to have a big enough sample for this to have meaning. If you don't, then it is tough to get a good read on actual performance and whether the training you are doing is having an impact. |
| 2013-10-17 12:14 PM in reply to: snappingt |
| 80 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Looking at percentiles will only be useful if there is consistency from participant field to participant field. Enter an event where there is strong competition and you are more likely to place lower, relative to the field. Enter an event where there is weak competition and you are more likely to place higher, relative to the field. Even if you could somehow account for the variability in strength of field, I am not sure that placement in field provides enough granularity to really analyze beyond a "yeah, I placed well" or "no, I didn't place well". Matt |
| 2013-10-17 12:17 PM in reply to: snappingt |
Member 1748 Exton, PA | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim The metric for his swimming should be the pool times. However that is not his metric for his open water race times. Saying his place is the metric, I do not agree with. Unless you can gaurentee that all the swimmers in the event were the same ones as in the previous event and there pool metrics are exactly the same. In a fairly stable field such as kona you could break it down into segments(maybe every 5%) and say he jumped a segment. but that would not even work because you could possibly jump segments by improving your time by only seconds. In the end your only good metric is your pool times. |
| 2013-10-17 12:18 PM in reply to: mstimpson |
Pro 15655 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by mstimpson Looking at percentiles will only be useful if there is consistency from participant field to participant field. Enter an event where there is strong competition and you are more likely to place lower, relative to the field. Enter an event where there is weak competition and you are more likely to place higher, relative to the field. Even if you could somehow account for the variability in strength of field, I am not sure that placement in field provides enough granularity to really analyze beyond a "yeah, I placed well" or "no, I didn't place well". Matt This was my thought. Granted, I think you can use the field at Kona and pretty much call it consistent......most other races I don't think so, unless you are talking about Elite racing where the skill level is pretty consistent. |
| 2013-10-17 12:22 PM in reply to: 0 |
Veteran 2842 Austin, Texas | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim General question for y'all, and it's the converse of the original. You ever see someone make considerable gains in OWS (either time/pace or placement) but not in the pool? My pool times are pretty consistent (-ly poor), but my OWS has improved a ton over the last year (time/pace by the race numbers and garmin and also percentage/placement). Just curious... Matt ETA - same wetsuit as last year and across the season, and no other changes in the OWS. It could be that my OWS was horrid and is only now catching up with my pool pace, but it's not really that. OWS paces on my garmin have steadily improved (and I know Garmin is not 100% accurate, but it's a consistent trend across the whole season), while my pool times are only marginally better. Edited by mcmanusclan5 2013-10-17 12:24 PM |
| 2013-10-17 12:33 PM in reply to: mike761 |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim I don't disagree that pool times give you a lot more valuable information than open water swim times. And there are no doubts that this methodology has its limitations. The sample size has to be large enough. I typically use it for Half and Full Ironman races. There is usually about 2000 participants or I'll use it for local races with more than 1000 participants. I'm not suggesting it's perfect just better than comparing a 1.2 mile open water to another 1.2 mile open water swim based on time. Here is where your argument for pool times as the only metric breaks down. I have seen people that have dropped 10-15 seconds a 100 in the pool not improve their open water swim like what would be expected from their pool time improvement. And since open water swim times aren't reliable, you have to start to look to other metrics to judge performance. I started to look at these differing metrics in combination with time to see what was actually happening. Any way you look at open water swim times as a metric, they are not very accurate as a stand alone performance indicator. |
| 2013-10-17 12:34 PM in reply to: mcmanusclan5 |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Yes, I see it all the time. Although it tends to be someone that has plateaued in the pool and then they gradually develop a better skill set in the open water. |
| 2013-10-17 12:40 PM in reply to: mstimpson |
| 111 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim The field size has to be large enough and that's why percent place in the field is only one of the additional metrics I look at. I do look at time, pace per 100, gender place and time behind the fastest swimmer of the day. If the field size is large enough, then there are enough people to normalize most of it out, but I agree that it isn't perfect. But it is better than looking at time alone for an open water swim. You can look at the spreadsheet I posted to see all of the metrics used. |
| 2013-10-17 12:44 PM in reply to: snappingt |
| 80 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Size of participant field is arbitrary to this conversation, and you are assuming that two events with the same number of entrants are equal in terms of strength of entrants. That is a fairly large assumption. I do agree with the others that events like Kona are fairly stable from year to year, but I am not sure you should extrapolate out to other events based on that belief. But that has nothing to do with number of participants; it has to do with the fact that it draws the best athletes. I am also not sure I agree with your closing statement "Any way you look at open water swim times as a metric, they are not very accurate as a stand alone performance indicator." I think open water swim times are a fantastic metric of open water swim ability; in fact, I would wager that open water swim times are the best single measure of open water swim ability. However, what might be a better measure of overall improvement might be multiple measures of open water swim times, coupled with indoor swim times. I get what you are after: a stable measure of swim performance. But in my opinion all you are doing is trading one unstable measure for another unstable measure, which is why pool times are so important in this equation. They are more easily repeatable. Matt |
| 2013-10-17 12:47 PM in reply to: snappingt |
Pro 15655 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by snappingt The field size has to be large enough and that's why percent place in the field is only one of the additional metrics I look at. I do look at time, pace per 100, gender place and time behind the fastest swimmer of the day. If the field size is large enough, then there are enough people to normalize most of it out, but I agree that it isn't perfect. But it is better than looking at time alone for an open water swim. You can look at the spreadsheet I posted to see all of the metrics used. Why a large field for the best measure? It would seem to me you have many more variables to consider with 2000 people. I watch alot of races where the field is 75-100 people, most swim pretty well, and the fields are very consistent when broken up by % of finish/time....why wouldn't that be a better measure of improvement over a large field? |
| 2013-10-17 12:55 PM in reply to: Left Brain |
| 1660 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim I agree with the use of %AG race placement provided the field is large enough. In a field of 50+, you should be good to go. Pool time is a good gauge of fitness, but doesn't capture the elements required to swim well in open water, including current, sighting, waves, and drafting. In my races where I felt my fitness has been solid, my %placement has been remarkably stable, as has my performance against similar-speed competitors who swim pretty much my speed and enter the same races I do. It's not a perfect metric, but I'd say it's a lot better than using pool metric especially for people who aren't very good swimmers - the gap between pool performance and OWS is fairly big for these folks. If you're FFOP in the swim though, like top 5 AG, you probably can't use this method as your % placement completely depends on who shows up . For the other 90% of the field, it's probably the best measure you can get for OWS in race conditions. I've had races where my times in an Oly was 7 minutes slower in one race, yet my % placement was exactly the same compared to the year prior. (Waves, mobile buoys, etc.) |
| 2013-10-17 12:59 PM in reply to: mcmanusclan5 |
| 631 | Subject: RE: Swim time as a poor metric for an open water swim Originally posted by mcmanusclan5 General question for y'all, and it's the converse of the original. You ever see someone make considerable gains in OWS (either time/pace or placement) but not in the pool? My pool times are pretty consistent (-ly poor), but my OWS has improved a ton over the last year (time/pace by the race numbers and garmin and also percentage/placement). Just curious... Matt ETA - same wetsuit as last year and across the season, and no other changes in the OWS. It could be that my OWS was horrid and is only now catching up with my pool pace, but it's not really that. OWS paces on my garmin have steadily improved (and I know Garmin is not 100% accurate, but it's a consistent trend across the whole season), while my pool times are only marginally better. Better sighting Taking better lines and not making the course longer More comfortable swimming in a group |
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