How to know how far I've swam

lilsis

I'm training for a triathlon and have to swim in a lake for it and as there are so many lakes around me I thought it would be a good idea to train in the lake but I've no idea how I'm supposed to tell how far I've swam and I'm dreadful at estimating so is there anything I can get to measure the distance? Any suggestions are welcome.

zico10

lilsis wrote: »

I'm training for a triathlon and have to swim in a lake for it and as there are so many lakes around me I thought it would be a good idea to train in the lake but I've no idea how I'm supposed to tell how far I've swam and I'm dreadful at estimating so is there anything I can get to measure the distance? Any suggestions are welcome.

To be honest distance, when swimming OW, is not something I ever worry about. It doesn't matter a huge deal if you swim 50m short or 50m over the distance in the race you've entered. Most swims are probably short anyway.
I'd just do OW swims for a certain length of time, the distance you cover in this time, should be similar enough to what you'd cover in the pool.
I think most if not all swim devices that have GPS tracking, lose the signal when your hand goes under the water, so the distance recorded is very dodgy.
You can make approximate guesses of distance from land, or if there's buoys in the lake and you know the distance that seperates them, then that would work. But like I said I don't think it's all that important, most of your preparation will be done in the pool.

catweazle

If you go to mapmyrun you can map it there as well providing you can see it in a decent satellite view, make sure and untick the follow roads option. It seems to be reasonably accurate. You need to have some landmark though, an example is I swim from a pier to a rock which both can be seen in the satellite view on mapmyrun so I can get some type of distance

Abhainn

Jackyback alerted me to this and so far it seem accurate for me so far

With GPS enabled I put my Garmin 405 into a small grip seal bag, press start and put in my swim cap and pop hat with watch onto my head.

I've tried it three times now on a particular lapped swim route and distance measured has been 1.93k, 1.94k and 1.91k
The top of my head would normally just above water line

sconhome

^ this idea works and is more than accurate enough.

mloc123

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/87023463

Here is the result of a 310xt in my swim hat, works pretty well IMO

aficionado

I use the measurement tool in Google maps, But you have to activate it
In top right hand corner of the page click on the spoke icon then maps labs,
The distance measure tool should be there, enable it
then the ruler icon should appear on the bottom left hand corner of the map,
not sure of the accuracy but can't be too far off hopefully

EMPM

mloc123 wrote: »

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/87023463

Here is the result of a 310xt in my swim hat, works pretty well IMO

That is excellent, but what is more interesting about this is it shows if you go off line and how often, which can be a problem for me.

mloc123

Yup, pretty easy to see where I got lost and also where I had to correct for a bad line to go around a bouy. I stick it into my hat now for all OW swims.

sconhome

mloc123 wrote: »

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/87023463

Here is the result of a 310xt in my swim hat, works pretty well IMO

7' elevation gain. Must have been an uphill course

lilsis

Hey thanks everybody. I'd be a bit worried about bringing a satnav with me incase the cap slipped off or something. But was looking there at the google maps measurement thing and it should work pretty well. I'm hoping there'll be bouys in the lake already as it's frequently used for swimming lessons. Thanks for the help.

anymore

aficionado wrote: »

I use the measurement tool in Google maps, But you have to activate it
In top right hand corner of the page click on the spoke icon then maps labs,
The distance measure tool should be there, enable it
then the ruler icon should appear on the bottom left hand corner of the map,
not sure of the accuracy but can't be too far off hopefully

I use Google Earth and the ruler for running and have been thinking of using it for swim training for my first Tri as well.