Categories: >Swimming

To wear a wetsuit or not…that is the question!

Update Aug 6, 2007:? The wetsuit I bought was awesome!? It felt like it had much more buoyancy than my old Xterra suit. ? It’s a Quinta Roo Ultrafull.? Not sure if it’s thicker neoprene, or because of the arms…?? Anyway, it really did make a difference in my swimming speed and efficiency.? I swam the Lake Logan (1500m) in 25 minutes!

The answer is NO YES!

Update Aug 2, 2007: I’ve been thinking about this for a week, and then I talked to a friend who has done Lake Logan before. She said you really do want a wetsuit – it’s really cold water. I found a used wetsuit on craigslist and went and bought it today. It’s a guy’s QR suit, not as nice as my Xterra suit, but fits me okay. The guy a bought it from said he’s given up the sport of triathlon because it started to consume his life. He would go out training rather than working at his bike shop. I can definitely see how that can happen! Need to find a good balance somehow.
I am ~~not~~ going to wear a wetsuit at Lake Logan. I tried to squeeze into my Women’s medium Xterra wetsuit, and it just isn’t happening! I’ve lost a couple pounds, but I need to lose about 10 lbs to fit into that darn suit. Sometimes I wonder if I should just gain 5 pounds and race as an Athena!

I considered renting a wetsuit for the race, but decided against it. The water temperature will be 75 degrees. That will be chilly, but I think I can stand it. And, cold water makes me want to swim faster, so that may actually help!

I googled “triathlon wetsuit swim times” and found a really great article about wetsuits and triathlon swimming speed. Here’s what I learned:

wetsuits don’t help that much in longer swims, such as a 1500 meter olympic distance event.
wetsuits don’t help that much if the swimmer has sufficient body fat (obviously, I have plenty of that right now, or else I wouldn’t even be researching this!).
wetsuits don’t help that much if a swimmer has good balance in the water to begin with. That’s one thing I have worked constantly on for two years, and have succeeded at: good balance in the water!

There is an energy savings by wearing a wetsuit, but I’ll just have to muddle thru the race the best I can without the benefit of a suit. I don’t want to spend $30 to rent one, or drive out to Cary to get it.

carolyahoo

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Glynn says:

August 1, 2007 at 8:37 am

Thanks for racing in an Xterra Wetsuit. I think you'll appreciate a wetsuit for any swim over 1,000 meters, so consider getting an inexpensive wetsuit (with any wetsuit company) in a larger size, and then using your older one when you size down. XTERRA Wetsuits has a lot of promotions going on right now. Write me or the company and we'll help you out.

Great blog.