Do you wear a wristwatch in marathon swims?
gregoc
Charter Member
I just noticed that wristwatches are considered “nonstandard performance-enhancing equipment” in the newly released MSF definitions and rules for marathon swimming.
By definition in the MSF rules, the use of nonstandard equipment in a swim puts the swim in the “assisted” category.
I have worn a watch in all of my past marathon swims and would not consider the swims assisted swims.
I am just curious, do you / have you used a wristwatch during marathon swims?
5. Examples of nonstandard performance-enhancing equipment
Swims using nonstandard, performance-enhancing equipment cannot be considered unassisted. Examples include:
* Equipment that may retain or increase warmth – e.g., wetsuits, neoprene caps, booties, gloves.
* Equipment that may increase speed – e.g., flippers, paddles, shark cages.
* Equipment that may increase buoyancy – e.g., pull buoys, wetsuits.
* Auditory pacing aids – e.g., music players, metronomes.
* Electronic devices attached to the swimmer, which transmit information to the swimmer – e.g., wristwatches, navigation aids, biofeedback monitors
By definition in the MSF rules, the use of nonstandard equipment in a swim puts the swim in the “assisted” category.
I have worn a watch in all of my past marathon swims and would not consider the swims assisted swims.
I am just curious, do you / have you used a wristwatch during marathon swims?
5. Examples of nonstandard performance-enhancing equipment
Swims using nonstandard, performance-enhancing equipment cannot be considered unassisted. Examples include:
* Equipment that may retain or increase warmth – e.g., wetsuits, neoprene caps, booties, gloves.
* Equipment that may increase speed – e.g., flippers, paddles, shark cages.
* Equipment that may increase buoyancy – e.g., pull buoys, wetsuits.
* Auditory pacing aids – e.g., music players, metronomes.
* Electronic devices attached to the swimmer, which transmit information to the swimmer – e.g., wristwatches, navigation aids, biofeedback monitors
Comments
I see. That sounds like something I should check in to.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I also wear my Garmin under my cap, but mine is currently set to vibrate every mile. I'm thinking that's not allowed.
It may have been overzealously written, as I don't personally think a $10 Timex is performance-enhancing.
This document is intended to create consensus, not fights, so if people feel strongly that they want to wear their watches, what might be some language that would allow them, but at the same future-proof against super-watches?
I'd support something to the effect of "non-auditory chronograph with no additional functions, such as GPS positioning, stroke counting, bio-feedback, etc". After all, marathon swimming does have a history with the watch (see Rolex Oyster), so it doesn't feel right to eliminate them completely.
I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.
I agree the technology is advancing quickly and soon a swimmer will have all the info they want (if allowed) on their wrist, in their ear, or implanted in the eye. I agree that anything more than a timer should not be allowed and I can deal with it if my $10 Timex isn't allowed either.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I wear an Ironman with large numbers primarily for tracking feedings as well. I always ask Race Director/ Governing Body prior to swim for approval. I have never been told it is not allowed.
I respect these new/standard MSF rules and the effort put into making them but this was one of the first things I noticed.
If a Race Director says it is okay to wear one, I assume I am playing by the rules. If they say no, I wouldn't wear one.
I see response from @evmo and appreciate it.
I wouldn't say I feel strongly about wearing a watch but it is a preference to wear one if allowed. I have had inexperienced support kayakers in the past who really want to help as much as they can but had trouble managing the feedings.
To answer question about language, I think you would have to come up with definition of what is an acceptable watch.
I like the wording suggestion from @malinaka.
If I have an escort I always rely on them to keep track of time. I haven't had the issues Franco has had with support kayakers.
When I'm doing "a swim" I find it useful to hand it off to those who are responsible for keeping time and tracking feeds.
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
I'm with you! For Swim the Suck, I told my kayaker under no circumstances tell me how far I've gone. If I use a "safe word" (armadillo) AND I'm more than halfway, then he could tell me. I did NOT want to know how far (or how little) I'd swum up to any feeding!
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I wore a wristwatch in the EC against all advice. "You'll always be looking at it, it will make your swim longer" etc. (@evmo even mentioned it once when he saw a pic as it looks & is, big & heavy).
It was a standard analog chronometer (i.e. timekeeping function only, min/sec/hour/date) not even a stop watch. I only looked at it once and that was inadvertently, at 7pm when I was stuck in the tide outside Calais (yes, folks, Calais).
However, my reason for wearing it weren't functional reason in any way, not even for time, but for sentimental reasons, to remember my Dad while I was swimming.
Personally I do not consider a chronometer or chronograph (extra but basic functions such as stopwatch) as performance enhancing. I agree that this is an item for review of our language.
We could specify chronometers or chronographs, digital or analog as acceptable. excluding What about watches with GPS, medical, entertainment or other features? (It's a bit wordy). Many if not most see GPS as acceptable. Some watches have barometers, tide graphs, heart rate, temperature inbuilt as we know.
My question: Should we specify individual functions to be excluded or acceptable?
When we were writing, our concern, as we approached the end, was to future proof the rules, to avoid some Frankenstein watch of the future and to have to avoid having an emergency meeting to address some digital item we haven't previously considered, (as arose when waterproof MP3 players became available in the 00s).
loneswimmer.com
What really did it for me was his pointing, at the next feed (30 min later), at the finish buoy. I then put my head down and swam like the wind.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I've worn watches on a lot of my swims, and to be honest never really looked at them - it was often more a convenience thing for keeping track of time at the start. Subject to the same inability to count (I really suck at leading sets at Masters because I often end up swimming an extra lap due to losing count), I generally know how much time has passed anyway based on the number of feeds.
I know that the idea here is to keep things simple, but it seems a bit silly to deny a swimmer a device that tells them directly the same sort of information that could be (and has been) written on a whiteboard.
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
"I never met a shark I didn't like"
Does music help? Does it keep your mind off the drudgery and hardship? Does it help pass the time, does it motivate you? Well, someone believes so, and it is accepted as a performance enhancing aid.
I believe a watch can perform a similar function. "Swim to the next feed" , a glance at the watch says its only 6 minutes. It helps.
Do Ned Dennisons Torture swim and you have to remove your watch for the few hours.
Try an experiment: remove your watch for your next two or four hour swim, (or other duration which would be a rough swim for you), and see if you mentally struggle to get through it. Then ask whether your watch might have helped you?
For me, I think it is an assistance even without fancy functions and certainly a great training aid. If it were banned, i would happily support the decision, but would not otherwise stop wearing one.
With a purpose of adopting stricter rules, I believe banning a watch would be a useful direction to go. (One thing that has always seemed pointless to me, is why the CFPF allow jammers while the CSA insist on Speedos). Why have such a discrepancy? Why not simply take the purest position?
Certainly there will be many new accessories that will aid training and swims. Wearable technology will become huge business in the coming year or two.
I would accept any governing body in their rulings to bring in the purest rule changes and for me, removing my watch will remove one comfort blanket.
For me, i love the tech and use every swim it to enable and enhance my enjoyment and love of marathon swimming. Does it make me a better swimming during the actual race...I don't think so! However, what it does do is make me a more situationally aware swimmer which, results in a safer swimmer.
In my opinion tech is making a great sport even greater. Embrace it early, become leaders in governing the 'analysis' functions, because tech is coming to our wonderful sport like-it-or-not!!!
27, 33, 35, and 40-something
Not sayin' who is who.
There is no limit to the information that ones crew may dispense to a swimmer... Give them any devices necessary to keep you (over)informed. My experience is less is better during a swim. A good crew and observer will compile enough data to keep you busy for weeks.
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
So, what if my kayaker pumps music for me? Is that still assistance?
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
If we ban things that provide marginal utility (wristwatch) then it puts the other things that are banned (wetsuit) in question in the mind of the non swimming community.
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
For example, the jammer/speedo issue. I can't see how the jammer can have any significant advantage over a speedo. I do understand that there might be a sentimental/traditional argument but that should be a personal choice.
Technology is increasing at such a rate that I think it is impossible to hold it back completely. If we are too petty on something this minor, it has the potential to cast a bad light on the rules as an entirety.
@sharkbaitza
While you might not want them to, a crew with a chalkboard can easily tell you the time, how many miles, time to next feed, stroke rate etc. With a 5 khz receiver and right strap they can tell you your heart rate.
So then what's the difference between having the crew tell you or the watch tell you?
As others noted, in other sports your current pace, hr, power output, time etc are all available to marathon runners and long distance cyclists and it isn't even a question of whether they should be allowed.
<))><
In the spirit of Matthew Webb's swim, we should be in wool suits and probably not have a latex cap nor plastic goggles. A kayak is also pretty modern and goes against the spirit of a marathon swim.
@Niek, I know you're being pithy, but a white board with temp, distance and time can be shown to the swimmer from the boat, and that's not considered assistance.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
- Verbal communication between crew and swimmer is part of the standard operating procedure of a marathon swim. There is no possible information, when communicated in this fashion, which would violate the spirit of the sport.
- However, there are potentially numerous forms of information, when communicated via electronic device attached to the swimmer, which would violate the spirit. For instance, high-resolution navigation information (streamer on a wrist), or second-by-second pacing information.
I categorically reject the notion that marathon swimming should be obliged to take guidance from running, cycling, or triathlon in defining the norms of the sport.
Reliance on technical data can be a serious drawback - anyone who's been stuck in a negative tide a mile off the coast and finish of a long swim knows that! You are much better off following Freeda's advice - " Head down, first one arm, then the other!" - than trying to figure out how much longer you'll be out there.
And the fact that other endurance sports are using increasingly sophisticated technology really has little relevance to me during a marathon swim - runners & bikers do not have to deal with the realities of tides & currents...which can negate or enhance your past performance, making it largely irrelevant. Conditions rule in Marathon Swimming, and addiction to data ultimately seems like a drawback.
I use a timer for training swims, but I don't wear it in the water ...I turn on the stopwatch function on my phone, lock it in my car & go do my swim. When I come out I check it - mainly as a reference to how the conditions affected my swim. The most important thing to me is to cultivate the mental (& of course physical) toughness to stay in it no matter how rough the day turns out - and over reliance on data works against t his in my view.
It's your crews job to work these details, and to communicate the relevant data as you & they see fit. Two thirds of the way through my Cape Cod swim last year, during a rough patch, I asked Dave Barra how far I had to go - he knew I was struggling a bit so he told me 'About five miles" I knew he knew I was struggling, so I added back in about 50%, and came up with about 7-8 miles.
Not only was that about right, and it actually cheered me up, but it reminded me of Dave's real underlying response - "Why the f*ck are you asking me how far it is - just keep swimming!"
That's the difference between our sport & most others - the right answer to the data hungry swimmer is usually - "you're not there yet - keep swimming!"
Not by CSA... Which raises an interesting point... If someone swam a WR Channel crossing with CS & PF in jammers, would CSA recognize the time or would there be 2 WR's? I'm guessing that's a whole other can of worms thread
@sharkbaitza
The CSA as an organisation don't recognise any CS&PF records or Channel swims regardless. Most individual CSA swimmers and members are different but I don't want to go down that avenue on this thread as you note.
loneswimmer.com
Since I wear my Garmin on my goggle straps if I want to see it I would have to remove my goggles and I assure you that has never happened during a swim, only in training when I am trying to figure out how much longer I have to swim to reach 6 hours...
This statement really got me thinking though...
"And the fact that other endurance sports are using increasingly sophisticated technology really has little relevance to me during a marathon swim - runners & bikers do not have to deal with the realities of tides & currents...which can negate or enhance your past performance, making it largely irrelevant. "
Sure they don't have currents, but they do have hills (tides), wind (currents), and other weather (consider rain to cyclists) which are also performance inhibiting. Even adventure racers can't use GPS for obvious reasons, but they can use altimeters, watches, pacers, etc. I think it's time for the sport to start thinking about the future of where technology is and where it's going. You shouldn't stay back in last century's technology, whether it's electronic or within the improvements in suits/goggles etc.
The question is, do these products really assist or do they enhance the experience? There's a difference in the terminology.
KK
I think what draws so many of us to this sport is that it is relatively unchanged over the last 100 years. As a community, we have a respect for what others have done before us, and this list of rules is an attempt to preserve that spirit and the sense of adventure our predecessors had. When you start adding “stuff” to a swim, you lose some of that challenge and adventure. You lose the ability to say, “I faced the same elements as Captain Webb and Gertrude Ederle and conquered just the same.”
I have a huge amount of respect for the minds that created these rules, not because someone finally got their act together and told us all what was up, but because a group of people came together to try and preserve the spirit of marathon swimming, and then opened it up for everyone. This is a set of rules called “Marathon Swimming Rules”, not just “English Channel Rules” or “MIMS Rules” or “Cook Strait Rules.” This is finding common ground, making it easy for new swimmers, old swimmers, observers, reporters- and still allowing for reasonable, local exceptions. Our community needs this. And what’s even better is that these rules aren’t hard and fast- they are open for discussion. This community’s ability to discuss and argue and share and encourage is part of what makes it great. Most of what was published, we do all agree upon, and those pieces won’t change. But, of course there are questions, clarifications, discussions. All of that adds value to this really fantastic group of people who swim through oceans, across lakes, and down (or up!) rivers.
Does wearing a watch that keeps time go against that spirit- probably not.
Does wearing a GPS device that helps navigate and pace go against the spirit- yeah, probably.
Wow…that got long. Clearly, I don’t have enough to do at work today. And it’s January in Colorado, and all I can really do right now is dream of a large body of water that isn’t frozen… :-)
As I see it there are roughly four "audiences" who might care what set of rules you operate under:
1. Yourself (and/or your immediate friends)
2. An event organizer or local governing body
3. The larger community of marathon swimmers
4. The public
The rules you choose for your swim will be impacted by the audience you anticipate for your swim.
By audience then
1. You are free to choose whatever you want.
2. You need to do whatever is proscribed.
3. You can operate under the standards of the community who are perhaps a little more sophisticated and better able to determine if something is in the spirit of marathon swimming or not.
4. You can do whatever you want at the moment if you have a decent PR machine because the public doesn't understand what marathon swimming is.
It seems to me that the effort here is to influence the rules that swimmers choose for this fourth audience (i.e. the public) by setting a standard that where no clear standard existed before and sufficiently publicizing and circulating it so that when a swimmer chooses not to follow them, the appropriate questions are asked. (There is of course a secondary benefit to codifying the tribal knowledge for the second and third audiences and perhaps removing the some of the odder disparities between local rule sets)
As such I think that it is kind of important that the rules make sense to the public, and I think the public are somewhat influenced by their previous experience with endurance sports (running, cycling, triathlons etcetera).
We already have a hard time convincing people that wetsuits/stinger suits/neoprene caps/streamers are indeed cheating, but I think we will have a hard(er) time convincing the public that wristwatches are in that category as well and risk losing the acceptance of the public of the rules as a standard.
my 2c
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
The question is, do these products really assist or do they enhance the experience? There's a difference in the terminology."
--- My point was not necessarily about "the rules" or about the uses of technology as about being effective as a Marathon Swimmer.
I guess it's not surprising that almost every discussion on MSF lately turns into a discussion of rules, but this one started simply as Greg O'C asking if people wore watches. My comment was directed towards that, not towards whether devices should / should not be allowed for recognized, non-assisted swims.
As to whether tech gadgets, suits, goggles assist or enhance - that seems to me to be an individual preference as far as TRAINING goes, but once you enter the water on an "official" marathon swim attempt, I sit squarely in the "less is more" camp and frankly don't give a shit what technologies runners, bikers, sky divers or astronauts use. Most tri athletes I know are data obsessed, and that's the nature of their sport. It doesn't make them bad people, but the factors mentioned - hills, wind, rain - don't really compare to a 3- or 4-knot counter current. No amount of data or technology is going to help you stay in the water on a tough day - it's just old fashioned guts that count then.
And one last point - why "shouldn't" we stay back in the last century's (& more to the point - the one before!) technology when it comes to how we, as a community, decide how to stage and gauge our events? I agree with Sarah - once you've "walked the walk" you understand that this sport is about stripping yourself down to the most basic aspects of your nature - at 4 am in the cold, in the dark, over 3000 feet of water, without any shore in sight, you find out if you've got it, and no amount of technology can tell you that.
If the technology enhances your training & your experience that's fine with me, but my point is / was that to me, more often than not, the gadgets, the gear, the data gets in the way of finding & growing this most primal and essential aspect of our sport - and if you ain't got it, no amount of tech or gear us going to grow it for you.
OPTION 1: Any digital wristwatch should be considered performance-enhancing equipment, and disqualifies a swim from being considered "unassisted." Technically, analogue mechanical chronometers (e.g., Donal's vintage Omega Seamaster) are still allowed. (This is the current version of MSF Rules).
OPTION 2: Simple wristwatches with a timekeeping function only (no advanced features such as GPS, biofeedback, etc.) should be excluded from the list of performance-enhancing equipment. Swimmers can wear a simple wristwatch (chronometer) on unassisted swims.
OPTION 3: Any wristwatch - no matter how detailed the information it transmits to the swimmer - should be allowed on unassisted swims. This includes GPS & biofeedback monitors. This includes future wristwatches with features not yet available.
While I don't think receiving information electronically is necessarily performance enhancing, this is an area that will be developing rapidly, and I'd hate to have to rehash this debate every few months.
BTW, there is a receiver device available that swimmers can wear for one way verbal communication it works via bone conduction behind the ear.... Another debate?
...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.