Glendalough Swim?

cjt156

I thought I might be Mrs Take at 24 minutes. To be confirmed, though they're looking into it for me.

Kurt Godel

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Yah for €35 and as we registered on precision timing website I thought we'd have timing chips. I willingly paid the €35 I could have just not done the event but is this a fundraiser? Would definitely keep my eye on these for next year for cheaper entry, €35 is just too much tbh.

Early bird price this year was €25, way back when the water still had ice on it. TBH thats more than I'd pay next year though, doubt I'll do it again. Well worth paying at least once to swim in that magical setting, since its otherwise verbotten.

They're a company, so will charge market prices, and they sold out this year. I don't see any need for them to consider timing chips- a clipboard and (time at finish)minus(time at start) will give you your results, but they should really have been available sooner. Yellow hats and yellow bouys is just silly. A rusty old tea kettle which broke down anyway tells you about cutting costs, but the race is the main thing, and that went well. Good luck to them next year, but there's (as ever) a lot more club races that offer more for less money.

And since everyone is scratching their heads but haven't mentioned the elephant in the room... why was it an explicitly advertised 3.9k distance?;)

Oryx

I did notice the 3.9, but it didn't bother me. A short distance would have been more of a problem to me than 100m too long. By the looks of my gps I swam about 4.2 anyway chasing yellow hats. The hat thing showed a lack of forethought rather than cheapness.

I thought the goody bag was great, ditto the tee shirt. The lack of other frills didn't matter. I can't eat food laid on at races anyway and I made my own tea!

Anyone in bother got prompt attention and there were plenty of kayaks out there keeping tabs on us, that was all good. For the 25 I paid it was totally worth it.

hollingr

cjt156 wrote: »

I was late alright; I didn't care about the goodies (too much). Though when they knew they were heading towards a sellout it should be easy enough to cater for the numbers expected.

More important is the timing. At 35 euro a head they are generating a lot of cash, surely a more effective system could be provided. Even a time-stamped camera on a tri-pod recording everyone exiting would be easy to do?

Bit hacked off about this; would have liked to know if I met my target, purely for my own sake.

hey there is pictures up now on their facebook.. if you can find out who finished directly infront/behind you form the photos you might get your time figured out!

yeah it seemed very amateurish having one women shouting the numbers up to someone else, about 30 seconds to a minute after you actually crossed the finish line in some cases if you finished in a pod of people. they'd want to get the professionalism levels up for next year if they plan on continuing charging that much!

promethius

in the absence of chip timing if it's not justifiable for an event of this size, the race splitter app is great. have used it a few times as a race organiser and it means you can share the results (subject to one or two corrections) within a couple of hours. €30 well spent if you have an ipad or iphone.

cjt156

hollingr wrote: »

hey there is pictures up now on their facebook.. if you can find out who finished directly infront/behind you form the photos you might get your time figured out!

Yep, found a pic of me, the chap in front and the lady behind me, with the other chap's number visible. So now I know i finished in about 25.5 minutes, just as I expected.

Funny enough I wasn't any of the Mrs Takes listed. Bit of a mess up but I'll still be back next year, even if it isn't particularly good value for money. Its such a spectacular place and somewhere I've visited regularly since I was an infant, and still do now with my own kids.

My last OW of the year; back in the pool next week with a target of cracking bi-lateral breathing and tumble-turns over the winter.

Next year; Iron distance maybe?

peter kern

Many people forget that the real Im distance is 3.86 km so 3.9 is more accurate than 3.8 ')

Kurt Godel

Kurt Godel wrote: »

And since everyone is scratching their heads but haven't mentioned the elephant in the room... why was it an explicitly advertised 3.9k distance?;)

peter kern wrote: »

Many people forget that the real Im distance is 3.86 km so 3.9 is more accurate than 3.8 ')

I stand corrected! Thanks

hollingr

cjt156 wrote: »

Yep, found a pic of me, the chap in front and the lady behind me, with the other chap's number visible. So now I know i finished in about 25.5 minutes, just as I expected.

Funny enough I wasn't any of the Mrs Takes listed. Bit of a mess up but I'll still be back next year, even if it isn't particularly good value for money. Its such a spectacular place and somewhere I've visited regularly since I was an infant, and still do now with my own kids.

My last OW of the year; back in the pool next week with a target of cracking bi-lateral breathing and tumble-turns over the winter.

Next year; Iron distance maybe?

After a whole summer of pretty much exclusively sea swimming, I feel like a captive whale in the pool. I HATE the pool now.. it just cannot compare to open water swimming.

also, fair play! getting 25.5 without even being able to bilateral breathe is pretty nice, I'm guessing you're stroke is already pretty decent otherwise? I've been picking up a few tips from swimsmooth.com, and I think the technique changes shaved a few mins off already for me, but much yet to be done. You'll be able to work in bilat breathing pretty easily now, its far easier to practise it when you're moving faster in the water and less likely to sink to the bottom.

ciah

hollingr wrote: »

also, fair play! getting 25.5 without even being able to bilateral breathe is pretty nice.

Bilateral breathing in training is great.
But in a race with high oxygen demand does anyone do it?
The elites in ITU races seem to breath every 2 and not every 3.
Or does it work better with a high stroke rate?
In my opinion doing 4 strokes left then 4 right is one way to get oxygen and stroke balance.

hollingr

ciah wrote: »

Bilateral breathing in training is great.
But in a race with high oxygen demand does anyone do it?
The elites in ITU races seem to breath every 2 and not every 3.
Or does it work better with a high stroke rate?
In my opinion doing 4 strokes left then 4 right is one way to get oxygen and stroke balance.

I would tend to swap sides occasionally, although I'm not anywhere near being competitive so don't take my word for it.

My thought process would be: imagine in a race situation one side is going to be harder to breathe on because someone is there splashing up water or hitting your face.. your risk of chugging water on that side is way up while the other side is completely quiet, so you swap over by taking three strokes.

Yeah you might only breathe every second stroke but it's still useful to be able to do that on both sides efficiently, and especially do it in training so you don't end up with muscle imbalances.

pc11

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Yah for €35 and as we registered on precision timing website I thought we'd have timing chips. I willingly paid the €35 I could have just not done the event but is this a fundraiser? Would definitely keep my eye on these for next year for cheaper entry, €35 is just too much tbh.

Agreed. It's a nice event, but 35 is a little high and I was expecting chip timing. I suggest they should have discounts for multiple races too. AFAIK this is a commercial event.

Also, they make a big deal about the distance being accurately GPS measured, I'd like if they documented this in some fashion and showed us.

Did anyone get a GPS distance? I'm not suggesting it was short at all, I'd just love to know.

Also, change the yellow caps, and keep some hot water for the swimmers please!

Intended as friendly, constructive feedback, not having a go at all. I enjoyed the 3.9 event.

ciah

pc11 wrote: »

Did anyone get a GPS distance? I'm not suggesting it was short at all, I'd just love to know.

I did the 3.9k with a Garmin 910XT on my wrist. First time to try it in an open water swim. The track it picked up was very short on points, i.e. got just a few points connected by straight lines. For running and cycling the GPS is very accurate (much better than an Android phone). Next time I will try it under my swim cap. I think the lack of data points may be due to my wrist being submerged most of the time? I tend to swim almost catchup in smooth water which keeps the Garmin in the water a bit more. The Garmin GPS is set to per second logging so Garmin Connect should be displaying unconsolidated data. By the way the total distance given on Garmin Connect is 3.87km.

Anyone else tried a Garmin 910XT for open water swim tracking? Does it work better under swim cap than on wrist?

Oryx

My 910xt is usually pretty good at tracking, but it lost signal somewhere around the last turn (at the far end of the lake) during the 3.9 swim. It was vibrating which is how I knew signal was gone. It measured 3.34 and showed an inaccurate straight line on the map the final section. Initially the map shows me zig zagging all over the place, and I dont think I did that bad, so I put the poor tracking down to the high cliffs either side of the lake.