Quick tip – Wetsuit Dreams
Back in the winter months I bought a triathlon wetsuit. I have been swimming poorly and dabbling in triathlons since crushing my knee in 2002 in a car accident forced me out of running for a few months (long story).
Since I am not that serious about triathlon-ing I either swam with no wetsuit or in a wind surfing shorty that I bought at Ocean State Job Lot for $10. I only do sprint distances so far. I have done these short swims in either my bike shorts or the shorty.
I was considering doing longer triathlons and invested in a real triathlon wetsuit. I got a wetsuit from Xterra for around $200 bucks. Not the top of the line but still the real deal.
I put it on once for a couple laps in the pool in the winter. I immediately noticed a couple things. First it is incredibly hard to get in and out of. Second it was really warm. I had to get out of it in a hurry at the pool before I cooked like a boiled lobster.
After that one quick test I hung it up and forgot about it until last weekend because my plans had changed.
I have experience with wetsuits. I’ve been a SCUBA diver since I was 17 and have worn many diving wetsuits.
The Triathlon wetsuit is different.
A windsurfing wetsuit or SCUBA wetsuit is designed to keep you warm and help you float. The triathlon wetsuit is designed to make you fast in the open water.
I dusted it off and dragged it down to the lake last week for a test drive. The water is still cold here and the weather was not that great and it seemed like a good idea.
The way a triathlon wetsuit makes you fast is my giving you buoyancy and by making you streamlined. The buoyancy comes from the thickness of the neoprene and the streamlining comes from a very tight, body hugging fit.
This tight, streamlined fit is what makes these suits so hard to get in and out of. They fit like a glove, or more appropriately like a sausage casing.
A couple tips to putting the triathlon wetsuit on.
– Spread a bunch of baby powder around inside the wetsuit so it doesn’t stick to your skin and slides on more easily.
– Start with the wetsuit inside out and the sleeves and legs half-way inside out and roll it on like, well apologies, but like a condom, instead of trying to yank it on like a sock.
– Check YouTube for videos of how to get in and out of wetsuits.
– Snug it up to the crotch and the armpits so your arms and legs have full range of motion and don’t have to fight the suit.
– Don’t try to force the suit and be careful with sharp objects like fingernails because they tear quite easily.
– When you tear it you can patch it with “Seal Cement” and there are videos for this as well.
Why would you put yourself into this horrible neoprene torture device on purpose? Because they work amazingly well. I hadn’t swum in weeks when I tested out the suit down at the lake. They had the buoys out for the sprint triathlon course so I did a leisurely swim of the course. My stop and rest leisurely swim of the course was only 20 seconds slower than last year’s race pace in the shorty.
I think the triathlon wetsuit is probably worth 1-2 minutes over an 800M course. Of course you have to balance that with the time it takes to get out of it. I found the suit extremely buoyant. From my SCUBA days I would guess it was displacing about 30 pounds. You would be hard pressed to drown wearing this suit. You might be able to drown but you wouldn’t be able to sink. It’s also buoyant in the right places for swimming.
In conclusion the triathlon wetsuit is difficult to get in and out of, very warm and makes you look like a stuffed sausage but it makes you faster and saves energy for the rest of your race. Depending on how serious you are about the sport or if you’re afraid of drowning you may want to invest a couple hundred bucks in a wetsuit.