So where do open water swimmers and triathletes hang out? What beaches and lakes do they frequent? How often are they in communication with other open water swimmers and triathletes? How much communication intermingling exists between open water swimmers and triathletes? Who do swimmers and triathletes call just before or just after they swim or compete? Do they call more on race day…or less? Do they use Facebook any differently than other athletes?

How could the community realistically and accurately answer these questions?

Theoretically, analysts could collect and analyze information from mobile phones owned by open water swimmers and triathletes to provide insights into where they move about and behave. It is a little Big Brotherish, but a data-gathering infrastructure exists in the form of mobile devices now that location tracking, search history, and links to social networks exist on most people’s cell phones.

Other areas, from commercial activities to epidemiology, use various datamining techniques to find answers to myriad questions from anonymized records made by millions of people in selected areas. It would be fascinating to find out more about how open water swimmers spend their day and if their whereabouts and communication patterns are any different from land-based endurance athletes.

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