How in the world do pool swim races work?

It's not a mass start, you come with a seed time and they send the swimmers off one at a time, usually like 15 seconds apart. You do one out and back in a lane, duck under the rope, and then onto the next lane, so by the end you've done a serpentine route back and forth progressing through each of the lanes.

I'm guessing that these don't happen in 25 metre pools. In a 50 m pool, you'd have to do 16 lengths which means you'd need eight lanes to complete the 800 m swim for a sprint. If you have 300 participants, then it would be well over an hour before everyone started. Is that right? What do they do for Olympic distance? Is it difficult to pass?

I have only seen Sprint races in pool swims. 300 - 400 meter swims.

Goes by quick.

There is this great local sprint in Stowe that has heats and goes off 8 or 9 at a time. Then we do a pursuit start on the bike according to your pool time, and finish the run off normally. It's a great local event that many people do for their first taste of triathlon.

Doesn't that give the people who finished earliest longer to rest?

It does. When we register, we submit a seed time and the heats are slowest to fastest. It absolutely gives an advantage to the earlier heats, but like I said, it is a really laid back local event that draws about 100 people. In the 5 years I have been doing the race, I have not seen anyone submit any egregious seed times.

I've done both serpentine swims as have been described, and wave starts where there are as many as 5 in a lane that do a circle swim. The wave starts have a volunteer at each lane who counts the laps of each person. Passing is generally only allowed at the walls. You tap the swimmer in front on the feet and they let you pass at the next wall.

The only Olympic event I've done in a pool was a 50 meter pool, serpentine swim, after going through all lanes, get out and go back to lane 1 and do a second set.

I've done pool events with as many as 1000 people. Because of the time trial start of a serpentine swim it's not possible to be racing head to head with anyone. The wave starts allow head to head racing with everyone in a wave. It can take a few hours after finishing for results to be known.

All pool swims are based on seeded times, but some people seed themselves incorrectly.

I did one that I called a hilly swim because it involved starting in an inside pool, doing a serpentine swim of 300, then going outside, running up a hill and doing 200 more in an outside pool.

I did one that split the race over 2 days.
Basically, you swam to seed yourself for the duathlon the next day. The funniest part was the bike start. After the countdown, the gun goes off, and everyone stands around till the red clock shows their swim time.

I have done several pool tris (I did sprint distance, but they also had Olympic). Sprint distance had a 700 or 800m swim (very few sprint tris have distances less than 700m here).

They are all time trial start with people entering the pool every 15s. You seed yourself by time, and there are waves of 20-30 swimmers every 15 minutes. When you get to the end of the lane at the other end you go under the rope, so up and down each lane once and you make your way across the pool serpentine-style. The pool had 8 lanes, so for the Olympic distance, participants would get out of the pool and start again.

Edited by jennifer_runs 2014-11-08 4:32 PM

And yes, it sometimes is difficult to pass. Ideally if everyone seeded themselves properly this wouldn't be an issue, but many people don't swim at a consistent pace. There are usually rules about waiting to pass until you get to the end of a length. I have been stuck in a mass of people a few times, but other times I was slowing people down (lots of people seem to go out too fast or seed themselves too slowly). You just deal with it- to me it's a lot better than getting worried about getting kicked in the face or worrying about wearing a wetsuit outside.

Our local race has an indoor swim but it's a reverse order tri. You run a 5k, bike 12.5 and then finish with a 300 swim. The run and the bike spread the field out enough that there is plenty of space in the water.Works very well!

Edited by tedjohn 2014-11-08 10:18 PM

My son did a pool swim where it was 800y circle swim they had about 5 kids in each lane. There was a lap counter / timer for each lane.

The sprint tri I do every spring begins in the pool. I believe there are 5 or 6 lanes in the YMCA pool. They start two people in each lane. You stay on your side of the lane and swim back and forth for 16 pool lengths (400 yards). They have a volunteer assigned to each swimmer that stands on the end of the lane with a lane-counter flip book. Last page of the flip book is a red page signifying you are done. It is all run in multiple heats of 10 or 12 racers per heat. There are only a few hundred racers registered for the race and heats start every 15 minutes. It is a fun race and it is well organized. Seems to work out pretty well and it is a nice race for beginners (due to the short swim) and the fact that it is in the spring so it kicks starts you for the rest of the season. 400 yards swim, 15 mile bike, 4.2 mile run.

I have done sprint distances in the pool before. In my experience its usually done by time seeding fastest to slowest in multiple heats. Then depending on the # of participants its 2-3 per lane circle swimming. One or two counters per each lane depending on the race and # of volunteers available.

I have done one that was a serpentine swim, but that was only once when it was to cold (was in the 30's) so the swim was done last. Serpentine was used to ease congestion since there was no way easily do lane swimming with the counters available.

-S