The men's world record for swimming 1500.0 m in a long course pool (as of 2007) is 14 min 34.56 s. At this rate, how many seconds would it take to swim 0.250 miles (1 mi = 1609 m)?

Answer 1

Hi Kyrah!

We could start by converting 14 min 34.56 s to seconds.

14 min * 60 seconds/min = 840 seconds

840 + 34.56 = 874.56 seconds

As the question states, the record pace was 1500.0 meters in 874.56 seconds, or 1500.0 m / 874.56 s, which is about 1.72 m/s.

Given this pace, you can then determine how many seconds it would take to swim 0.250 miles. (Hint: Start by converting 0.250 miles to meters.)