You mentioned it, the running is more impressive, consider she never ran for her lifetime until about 4 years ago. Only people with the same experience (running from 0 to "good") can actually understand how hard it is!

There are several male and female pros with similar swimming backgrounds. I think this is why it's not mentioned, it's not unique to LCB.

I have club mates with a similar background and they don’t swim close to LCB’s speed. Also, “just be born to swimmers and swim 50k a week from the age of 4” isn’t much help to adult learners…

Lucy's swim training before tri was 100k weeks.

​@@ScottWaltonDevanyone born at 4" is probably not in the discussion...😶

@@fittrad3r687I think you need to reread my comment and try again

You are so welcome

Thank you!

Good luck!!

Thank you!

Probably not great. Those women are very specialized in that distance, very different body composition than a triathlete. A triathlete would never be competitive at top level against a specialist in any of the 3 disciplines.

Lucy tried to qualify for the Olympics in 2012 over the 10km swim and just missed out. It would be really interesting to see if she has improved for that distance, but I assume not training specifically for it would make that unlikely.

As someone who used to help administer the sport, and is also WADA anti doping trained, it's kind of normal that top athletes get tested out of season, and are spot checked, she's also likely to be part of the testing pool and IM are no different in testing podium...it's not likely her swim is down to artificial help, her skills is that she's an excellent swimmer, a specialist, not that she's doping...

Lucy was less than a second from winning the 2021 selection trials at 1500m but was 42 seconds outside the British qualifying time. Regardless it's fantastic how fast she can swim with all the biking and running requirements as well.

Very good point. Its a similar action to paddling on a surfboard. Now thats given me an idea for a drill.......

​@@temolindorjan2038Tennis ball drill, I think.

Rotate less?

see my earlier answer, commit to doing it over the off / shoulder season months, once you're sure that the rest of your stroke is so good that it can benefit for a faster stroke rate...most importantly nearly all triathletes and many swimmers don't accelerate their hand under the water, you want to go faster then you have pull faster, and ensure that your hand doesn't slip water, the reality is most will run or bike faster because they're in control in the water, no matter how confident you are, getting out of breath, swallowing the odd mouthful of water can make you feel unwilling to push the envelope...

Common to a lot of swimmers who start young

She has very long straight clavicles, maybe this gives her more leverage especially with her wider shallower catch and pull.

Also, for high stroke rate check out Jodie Swallow from about ten years ago. Not as fast as LCB but beautiful form and high rate.

I think around 60-70 is a good strokerate for a competitive agegrouper.

Everyone has a 'natural' tempo, what's fast for some is slow for others. Ideally a stroke ramp test would do it, you measure SPM, starting at probably 45-50, not cycles, each arm is one stroke, time over a set distance, 25 or 50, perceived effort and every 'go again' you increase the stroke rate by 3. Faster times usually come at an exertion cost, but if you can do a faster length at 78 for the same exertion as you did at 71 then there's an argument to say if you can keep it up that's your stroke rate. If the next stroke rate is quicker still, but you're at a 9 say rather than a 7, that's probably your cross over point. There will come a time when the stroke rate trades off too much distance per stroke. You need someone to do this for you deck side, or get yourself a pair of pricey Form goggles, which are brilliant, and you can analyse yourself post workout as they offer turnover, distance per stroke, speed, you just need to note how you felt at each ramp stage. I would say that for a podium athlete, I would be expecting a time of between 52 and 58 minutes for the 3.8, work that back to give you a time per 100 then what that is for your per pool length, 25/50 that would get you that time. At that level I would be expecting a sub 19/18s cruising threshold time for 25, and probably 16-18 strokes. 1.3-1.4 m per stroke, each arm. 72 seconds and 72 strokes. Once you've got your regular count over 100 then you just experiment a few times , is stroking faster going to improve your time, is your preferred recovery suitable for open water, a straight arm is quicker and better for the bun fight. Hope you take something from this. Remember that a wetsuit cuts 6-10 seconds off most swimmers 100 times if they go straight, the better the swimmer, the lower seconds saved generally, going straight is also super important, not something that many can do

Depends on the water conditions. Look at the 10km open water swim olympic champions from Rio where it was it was a light swell with no chop and they were both from a pool swimming background with long slow strokes.

Kona is a non-wetsuit swim

Not wetsuit allowed in Kona. They use to swim with a swimskin. The more good you are in swimming and the less the wetsuit helps😉

Non wetsuit swims are an advantage to strong swimmers like LCB

I don't know about her arm length but she has exceptionally wide shoulders

Untrue, but even if it was it has nothing to do with technique, which is what the majority of the discussion was about.

Not sure what does technique have to do with what you're talking about... Also, not sure what's the point of your comment...

You're just making stuff up. That's not even remotely true.

Completed 4? 4 trips to the toilet?

Lol you could take double the drugs and still be nowhere near her level 😂 zero IQ humans make me laugh