From a pure racing prospective, I felt like running races is harder than swimming races.
From a training prospective, swimming is vastly harder than running, both physically and mentally. Swimming is a full body workout and you can spend significantly more time in the pool than you can spend running.
Braving the 2°C waters, Chilean swimmer Barbara Hernandez has set a new record by becoming the first person to swim 2.5 kilometres in Antarctic Ocean waters....
Well if we define "pro runner" as anyone who derives a substantial portion of their income from their running, most pro runners at the moment are obese joggers who make their money by being "influencers." So the average pro swimmer is tougher than the average pro runner.
Swimmers, they do more volume and you can’t talk while swimming or listen to music or watch the sunrise or really do anything fun. That must be incredibly boring.
I've done both at a recreational level (high school cross country, summer swim team.) Obviously not what the pros do. But even with this limited experience, I'd say definitely swim.
The impact bearing nature of running means there's only so much running you can do daily - really not all that much, actually. You can spend a lot more time in the pool. You CAN listen to music in the pool, but still, swimming is absolutely mind-numbing. Some swim training involves breath deprivation - eg "gut busters" - and that is brutal. Jumping into a cold pool is just no fun. It's much worse than that first mile of a run when you feel chilly on a cold day. Wearing goggles and for women / men with longer hair swim caps all the time is just annoying. You constantly smell like chlorine - a shower doesn't really get it off. You're always indoors. In training, you're likely sharing lanes with people which is just annoying.
Running and racing in extreme weather conditions sucks. I feel bad for pros running a marathon in extreme heat as often happens with championship races. That's probably worse than swimming. Having to live / train at altitude or sleep in an altitude tent would be annoying. Not sure if swimmers do that.
Swimmers, they do more volume and you can’t talk while swimming or listen to music or watch the sunrise or really do anything fun. That must be incredibly boring.
open water swimming is a thing
There's no way your average pro swimmer spends any significant percentage of his training time in open water.
Yes. I’ve also run outdoors at 5am in the middle of a Midwest winter. It takes much more mental toughness to get out the door for a run when it’s 5 degrees outside than it is to jump into a “cold” pool.
He said they're both very tough but it's "harder"/more difficult to push to your limits in running.
In-race toughness: distance runners, hands down
Training toughness: swimmers no contest
Injury toughness: runners
I swam at a relatively high level, D2 nationals. I also ran a little high school track and am now an above average middle aged hobby jogger, sub-18 5k.
I could push myself to complete lactic acid muscle shutdown in a 200yd swim (takes from 1:50 to 2:10 depending on stroke) and it was nowhere near the discomfort and pain involved in trying to get everything out of myself in an 800m run or mile run or even the last bit of a 5k now.
In training, swimming was way tougher. There were very few easy days. You could do big lactic threshold sets probably 5 days a week without much injury risk during peak training periods. Afternoon practices regularly exceeded 2hrs with another 1.25 hr morning weight session/easy swim. It can be mind numbingly boring doing loops around a black line on the pool bottom. Runners have to be more careful to avoid injury, but that is also part of why on the balance, swimming training has to be tougher.
I've done both through high school and college. Swimming is definitely more mentally tough because of the relentless training routine (especially for distance swimmers).
Running is physically tougher because of the injury factor.
Running is a much more competitive sport than swimming, as there are far more people who run races than swim races. In many parts of the world, people don't even know how to swim, and even in a place like the US access to a pool for swim training can be difficult.
Since toughness is an attribute that helps one become the best, and it is much harder to be the best at running than swimming (due to the greater level of competition), then on average top runners should have more toughness than top swimmers.
Running is a much more competitive sport than swimming, as there are far more people who run races than swim races. In many parts of the world, people don't even know how to swim, and even in a place like the US access to a pool for swim training can be difficult.
Since toughness is an attribute that helps one become the best, and it is much harder to be the best at running than swimming (due to the greater level of competition), then on average top runners should have more toughness than top swimmers.
Dumb take. Far more people play video games than run. So according to your definition, pro e-sports video gamers are tougher than runners.
Running is a much more competitive sport than swimming, as there are far more people who run races than swim races. In many parts of the world, people don't even know how to swim, and even in a place like the US access to a pool for swim training can be difficult.
Since toughness is an attribute that helps one become the best, and it is much harder to be the best at running than swimming (due to the greater level of competition), then on average top runners should have more toughness than top swimmers.
Dumb take. Far more people play video games than run. So according to your definition, pro e-sports video gamers are tougher than runners.
Yeah all those hordes of videogamers from Africa .....
Runners are tougher... no doubt. To me swimming was always fun. I never did it on a competetive level but the activity itself is inherently fun, even when I was getting pounded by waves and swallowing water at the beaches. it's like playing in a bouncy arcade. Obviously anything becomes painful when pushed to compete against others, but thats just one level of toughness.
Running is inherently difficult. You're fighting gravity, air resistance, your own joints and bones, etc. Most 8 year olds dont just go outside and run for miles. Its inherently painful and everything in your body tells you not to do it.
Normal people go to the beach to swim. Normal people dont just say hey lets go running today. Only people who are training/trying to lose weight/ etc
I am a former collegiate runner and a pretty successful triathlete. The suffering aspect of running is definitely harder.
The training for high level swimmers is quite difficult. They are doing something hard almost every day, whereas elite runners are going hard two to three times per week. But the run workouts are slightly more painful. Same with racing. Swimming a hard 1500 free is pretty brutal, but it still does not compare to the pain at the end of a hard 5k. When you are swimming you are always thinking about technique, and sometimes going faster means pushing less hard so that you don't let your stroke fall apart. Overall they are different sports with different requirements but I would give running the nod for toughness.
Impossible to say. Both sets of athletes undergo extremely difficult training, probably more difficult than any sport outside of Boxing or mixed martial arts. Both have to be tough as nails to reach the top end of the sport. Unlike a lot of sports, no one gets there on mostly natural talent. It takes many years of hard work. I can’t say who’s tougher.
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