Walking the swim portion?
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RV posted 1 year ago.
I've seen that at a Tri with an OWS. Water was deep enough to swim in, but probably half were walking. Very difficult to swim through walkers. :mad:
RV
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UFTriGator posted 1 year ago.
I don't think it's allowed. You're allowed to stand or grab onto stuff, but you're not allowed forward motion. Either way, the people walking aren't exactly in contention for the race, so there's no real reason to dq them or anything. I've done a couple pool swim races and they've always seeded people by swim time. They should probably do something to put the walkers in the back so that people aren't running into each other.
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Tikal Dog posted 1 year ago.
That just doesn´t make sense to me!
That´s another sport completly! Definitly not a triathlon!
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stewarba posted 1 year ago.
That does seem to defeat the purpose, but there certainly is no competitive advantage in walking through waist deep water. It may even be harder from a muscular endurance perspective with the bike and run to follow. You swim to be more hydrodynamic in the water, walking through it is counter productive.
Technically, is there any difference in this than walking during the run or coasting on the bike?
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RV posted 1 year ago.
tri-ac;77206 wrote:
definitely odd in a pool, but this is little different than crawling on the run...let em walk
If they are at the back - fine - but the race I was in there were walkers in the waves ahead of me - and it definitely is a hindrance - if they were swimming you know that you are coming up on them, bubbles etc - but if they are walking you pretty much run into them - or trying to do a life guard swim (head up) to try and maneuver around. The real problem was that they were walking in groups 3 - 4 across. If they were single file on the side then that would be fine. Just not right to impede others progress.
RV
It takes a long time to get good. - Scott Molina
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast. - Rich Strauss
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Star posted 1 year ago.
The swim always kills me because there are always people back-stroking, treading water, holding on to bouys...and apparently walking too. My husband told me that there were even people at IMA walking in the canal at the end of the swim! Now, I've done a run-swim-run-swim race where the water was too shallow at one point and it was nearly impossible to swim, so pretty much everyone walked it. I say, save your legs for the bike and the run.
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catwood posted 1 year ago.
Don't care as long as they don't get in my way... I'm generally pretty good about avoiding people when I pass waves in front of me, but you come up on walkers REALLY fast and thats when collisions happen. Walkers and water-treaders/near stationary swimmers are the ones in the most danger of getting rammed hard by people from behind. Better off putting in the effort and learning how to swim... or at least going off to the side.
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tri-ac posted 1 year ago.
RV;77209 wrote:
If they are at the back - fine - but the race I was in there were walkers in the waves ahead of me - and it definitely is a hindrance - if they were swimming you know that you are coming up on them, bubbles etc - but if they are walking you pretty much run into them - or trying to do a life guard swim (head up) to try and maneuver around. The real problem was that they were walking in groups 3 - 4 across. If they were single file on the side then that would be fine. Just not right to impede others progress.
yeah, I can see that...that does blow!
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qb ant posted 1 year ago.
There are a couple of beginner races here where the swim is an ows, but along the shoreline so if you can't make it/panic/whatever you can stop and stand up and recompose yourself - you cannot, however, move foward unless you are swimming. I haven't been at any races myself where people walked the swim, but isn't that why there are duathlons? : D
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biketm posted 1 year ago.
LOL, I thought maybe we were going to here another "Jesus walking on the water" story:) . I don't know about the walking through the swim portion...I don't think I would feel much like a triathlete...but I don't want to take away anyones glory moment either.
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kylie posted 1 year ago.
I believe it is perfectly ok by the rules... I can't find it right now because I'm not going to look ;) but I think it says something about no forward motion from a kayaker, etc but from the bottom of the swimming area it is ok.
Vineman has it happen since the water is pretty shallow. I prefer to just swim (it was a faster for me) and save my legs for the rest of the day.
In a pool I can see it with a lot of people doing those tris when they are new to the sport, and since many people are very nervous about the swim it makes sense. Honestly, if they only feel comfortable signing up because they know the swim can be walked and they will be ok, let them -- with time they might get hooked and learn to swim :)
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Ultrarunner posted 1 year ago.
UFTriGator;77142 wrote:
I don't think it's allowed. You're allowed to stand or grab onto stuff, but you're not allowed forward motion. Either way, the people walking aren't exactly in contention for the race, so there's no real reason to dq them or anything. I've done a couple pool swim races and they've always seeded people by swim time. They should probably do something to put the walkers in the back so that people aren't running into each other.
I think a few people stretched the truth on their swim time. My wife was conservative with her time, so she wouldn't impede any of the faster swimmers, she was number 191 out of 250. She was swimming faster than the folks that were starting in the 30's and 40's. I think some people need to be a little more honest about their projected times. Matter of fact, the number 5 guy into the pool was the first one out by about 50 meters and that is with 10 second interval start times.
My wife completed her first tri a couple of weekends ago. It was a sprint tri with a pool swim. This was my first experience watching or even being at a sprint triathlon. A question...do some participants normally walk in the pool during the swim portion? It was only a 400m swim! Some were literally wading through the water! This was amazing to me. When my wife and her sister started the swim part they were the only ones in the pool at the time that actually swam the whole thing.