This is very kind of you Andrew. Thanks for doing this.

My issue:

I’m slower when doing flip-turns (FT) than I am when doing open-turns (OT). Yes. Slower. :)

I’m actually quite decent at the FT itself. But the lack of breathing at the wall KILLS me, and I’m always gasping at harder paces.

Distance – OT PR – FT PR:

50m – 35.0 – 35.0 (Just one turn, of course!)
100m – 1:16 – 1:18
200m – 2:52 – 2:57
400m – 6:11 – 6:32
800m – 12:50 – 13:40
1500m – 24:58 – 26:18

So you can see that the longer the distance, the greater the discrepancy – percentagewise.

I’m nearly 60. I’ve been swimming nearly 3 years. I’ve been trying to do FT for 9 months.

I breathe right before turning. And after push-off I’m quite eager to get a breath. But the time it takes to FT just kills me, cardio-wise.

I dunno – is it possible that SOS (Senior Onset Swimmers) like me might never be able to rewire the cardio system so that FT really is faster, as it should be?

Thanks for any insight you might have.

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I only swim.
I used to run. (31:09 10k.)
I never did Triathlon. (Sue me.)