The swim is an indoor 325 yard "serpentine swim." It falls someplace between the "every swimmer in his or her own lane" of the indoor tri's and the "me and 50 of my closest friends swarming in a lake" of the wave format of an outdoor tri.
It's called a "serpentine swim" because the swimmers start start in lane one and then "snake" their way down one lane, under the lane line, up and down lane two, snake under the lane line again, swim up and down lane three, etc. The pattern, when seen from above, is a series of "s" shaped curves, or - serpentine.
When they register for the event, the swimmers are asked how quickly they can swim the 325 yards, and based on the answers, are seeded. The fastest swimmer starts first, and the remaining swimmers start about 10 seconds behind each each other, from faster to slower. In that way, the swimmers should form a single uniformly spaced line, start to finish.
That's the theory, anyway. In reality someone always overestimates his speed, or is having a bad day, leading to some swimmers catching up to others. The protocol is for the faster swimmer to tap the ankle of the slower, overtaken swimmer and for the slower swimmer to slide over to the side of the lane nearest the lane line and let the faster swimmer go by. In reality, there are often a number of rookies in the field who don't have a clue, leading to the inevitable bumping and collisions. I don't recall, however, seeing anyone swim over top of another swimmer, as I have seen in open water events.
For something new to me and this blog, I have included a picture of the serpentine swim at last year's Southern Saratoga Indoor/Outdoor Y, so you can get an idea of what it looks like. If you put your mouse on the picture and click, it will expand, and you can see more of the pool. Look for the swimmer in the yellow cap in the lower right side of the picture to see an example of the "standing turn" described above. (I am in the picture, standing near the lifeguard tower.)
The link below will give you some really good advice about how to swim one of these, and how to avoid some common problems. Since the author does a much better job in this area than I could, I will just talk a little about some of the things I experienced which he doesn't talk about.
First, you wear a chip for this race, and it starts when you step on the mat at the edge of the pool, at the direction of the starter. I jumped into the pool feet first to begin my swim, as did most of the participants. However, as we started at the deep end, some of the more experienced racers dove in and got off to a much quicker start.
Since the race is 325 yards and there are 8 lanes, you do not swim up and down each lane - that would be 400 yards. Instead you swim down lane one, up and down lanes 2-6, up lane 7 and down lane 8, ending up at the shallow end of the pool. There you can go up the steps to exit the pool and immediately out the door to your left, over the timing mat, and into the parking lot where the bikes are racked. There are cones on the pool deck at each end of lanes 2-6, reminding you that you need to swim up and down those lanes.
The article below also gives you some excellent tips on how to approach each lane transition, to help you shave time off your swim without shaving skin off your arm, wrist, fingers or head by coming up under the hardware which attaches the lane line to the end of the pool. They are great tips, and I did practice them a few times in the weeks leading up to the race. However, I forgot all about them in the race, and did whatever I could to get under the lines to the other side. Often this consisted of stopping at the end of the pool, standing up, turning my body around, and then ducking under the line and giving a one legged push off the wall. Not too elegant - but it worked.
A final note - the swim is actually a little longer than 325 yards because in addition to swimming up and down the lanes, you are also swimming side to side in the pool, starting on one side and ending across the width of the pool on the other.
I kind of like this event - it was novel, and didn't take too long. The worst part was coming out of the pool, soaked, wearing just my biking shorts, and dashing into the 40* air on the way to my clothes and bike.
I am looking forward to trying it again, and improving my technique and my time.
Here's the link:
How to Race a Pool Sprint Triathlon
See you out there.
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