Dear fellow swimmers
Do you swim more like Bobby Finke or Pan Zhanle?
Bobby Finke is the 1500m world record holder and Olympic gold medallist. We looked at his pacing strategy and what we might learn from it a couple of weeks ago.
He's also surprisingly slow.
In fact, his best sprint times, as listed by World Aquatics, are so slow that I wonder if they are correct.
Apparently, Finke's 100m freestyle personal
best is only 54.33.
Now, that's much faster than I can swim but there are plenty of club swimmers who can do that, and the women’s world record (Sarah Sjöström) is 51.71. Meanwhile, Pan Zhanle's world record for the 100m sprint is 46.40 - a staggering 7.93 seconds faster.
But here's what's interesting. Finke's 1500m time of 14:30.67 equates to an average pace of 58.04. In other words, he can hold a pace that's only 3.71 seconds per 100m slower than his best time.
In contrast, Pan's 1500m best time is 15:33.48. That's an average pace of 1:02.23 per
100m, or 15.83s slower than his 100m world record. It’s also slower than Katie Ledecky’s 15:20.48 for the distance.
While it's unlikely that anyone reading this will be troubling Finke's or Pan's world records or their times over any distance, we can still look at our swimming through this same lens. Is your long-distance pace similar to your sprint
pace, like Finke, or wildly different, like Pan?
Understanding this can help you decide how you train, what races to choose and what race tactics to use. It also shows that you don’t have to be fast over 100m to be fast at long distances. There are many ways to be an awesome swimmer.
Head over to our website to see how to apply this to your swimming and to find out at what distance Finke would overtake Pan.
Are you more of a Finke or a Pan? Is this a helpful way for you to look at your own swimming? Reply to this email and let us know if it has prompted you to try anything new.
Simon Griffiths
Founder and publisher, Outdoor Swimmer
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