What is a good swimming pace? Coach shares the key swim benchmarks for triathletes

A lot of athletes want to know what’s an appropriate pace when swimming. Unfortunately, there’s not one answer for every person in every situation, but there are certain guidelines you can follow.

Swimming pace will depend a lot on your experience, the distance you’re trying to cover, and the environment you’re trying to cover it in. It’s also important to invest in the right gear if you want to improve your swimming speed. For example, invest in a pair of the best swimming goggles that won’t cause you to stop every few lengths to evacuate water.

This article will try to provide insight by providing different paces in different contexts, information you can use to determine what’s appropriate for you. In almost every situation, the best approach is to find out where you’re at right now and aim to get better over time. Before you know it, your swim will have improved drastically!

What’s a good swimming pace in the pool?

A good swimming pace in the pool will be determined by your ability levels as well as the distance that you’re swimming over. The first step in determining an appropriate pace for you is to start paying attention.

Note what pace you use over various distances. You can also perform several time trials over several distances and note your speed. You can use these results as a baseline to evaluate progress and for comparison.

What’s a good swimming pace in open water?

Swimming speed in open water will often be dramatically slower than in a pool. This effect can be even more dramatic depending on weather conditions, and it affects different individuals differently. You can expect to swim 5-20 seconds slower per 100m depending on the circumstances and the individual.

As a frame of reference, elite 6mi/10km open-water swimmers can finish their race well under two hours, which equates to a pace of 1:12/100m. These are elite athletes focusing exclusively on swimming, so adjust your expectations accordingly!

What’s a good time for a 100m swim?

The world record over 100m freestyle for men is currently 46.40 seconds (Pan Zhanle, 31 July 2024) and the world record for women is 51.71 seconds (Sarah Sjöström, 2017). For someone without a competitive swimming background, swimming 100m under 60 seconds is exceptional and swimming under 1:10 is very good as well.

How do swimming strokes affect pace?

Different strokes will have a different impact on swimming speed and pace. Far and away, freestyle swimming is the fastest and most sustainable stroke. For those comfortable with it, backstroke is also sustainable if you have good technique, although not as fast as freestyle.

Butterfly swimming can be fast over very short distance, but most individuals find it incredibly difficult to sustain speed with butterfly. While breaststroke is the slowest stroke, many find it so be sustainable due to the ease of breathing, espeically in colder water during a triathlon.

What is a good s…