oh, slowman may have made the first "triathlon" wetsuits, but people were swimming in cold water long before that....

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

i had no intention of making a fast wetsuit. i just thought it odd that tinley and a couple of other guys were swimming in their surf wetsuits in cold water and they weren't swimming slower. if anything, very marginally faster. so i thought i'd see how you could optimize a surf or dive wetsuit for surface swimming.

the original intent was to speed up a tool for cold water. but when i swam my first 100 in the first "optimized" wetsuit i knew then that the "point" of the wetsuit for most of its users was not primarily protection from the cold.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Unfortunately, the point of a wetsuit for most triathlon participants is to ensure survival of the swim leg.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Ya, we get these in gulf coast triathlons sometimes, not pleasant at all:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Yeah, folks can race down to 10C (49F) who specialize in open water swimming, do a great deal of specialized, extensive acclimatization, and generally have body fat percentages not optimal for best triathlon performance. Without all that specialized training, most people, even highly competent triathlon open water swimmers, will pretty quickly get hypothermic at 10C.

A wetsuit may help "new" and "weak" swimmers, but NO ONE should depend on a wetsuit to keep them afloat to prevent drowning.

I know a lot of triathletes who are scared to go in the water without their wetsuit. We have a lake where triathletes train in the summer. It heats up early and it is an awesome swimming spot. Always calm as it's sheltered by trees, nice and clean, even the national team trains there! Anyways, every evening in the summer, when it's almost too hot to be wearing a wetsuit and one could easily swim without one, someone will show up and have forgotten theirs or something, and instead of swimming without, they go home. Or they find it's too hot to swim with the suit, and instead of just taking it off, they go home. They can't fathom swimming in a warm, calm lake without it for fear of getting a cramp, or getting tired, and not being able to simply float there.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Many factors contribute to swim anxiety in triathletes. Wearing a wetsuit may offset some of them. But as your example suggests, the psychological dependence factor can be extreme... if not, counterproductive.

I agree. I think a lot of adult onset swimmers never learn to swim OW without a suit. They don't develop that comfort factor in the water without the aid of floatation. When they aren't using a wetsuit, they get out in the middle of the lake and think "shit, I'm in the middle of a lake!" start to freak out, and that's when trouble starts.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

In a race, trouble often starts before the middle of the lake. Your point seems valid about those who begin triathlon without a background in competitive swimming. Also, too many new triathletes train mostly in pools.

I had a friend who swam in both high school and college as a fly-er. He was inexhaustible. He was absolutely frightened of swimming in OW the moment he realized that he couldn't see nor touch the bottom. It was weird and he couldn't explain it either. He, to the best of my knowledge, never did any tri's though so I have no idea how he'd respond in a wetsuit.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

How many triathletes as a % are genuinely scared of not having a wetsuit, plenty probably most like it as it gives most a faster time. Many probably go dam when they get ruled out.

The % who genuinely freak out about safety without one, I suspect very few.

How many triathletes are incapable of running their IM marathon? Based on times at least 80 % of the field

I know you were saying something else entirely, but I love that feeling and miss it

For a while all I Did was swim in a lake near my house in GA. I would get out there at sunrise and be the only one, not even boats out yet, just stop in the middle of my swim look around and think wow I"m in the middle* of a lake! smile for a bit and then continue on.

I fully understand that could freak some people out but, its really cool if it doesn't.






* ok a safe distance from the shore that I wasn't in danger of getting hit by a boat once they did get out for the day.

Not sure what that has to do with anything. You don't die if you stop running!

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Long Chile was a silly place.

I think he's equating people who don't swim well with those who don't run well. And, it would appear his definition of running is something like a 9:00 pace or better for the iron mary. Just guessing but prob only 20% of any given iron race can hold that pace for the iron mary.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

The problem with that comparison is that weak runners aren't allowed to use roller blades or some other crutch that makes them faster like swimmers can with wetsuits.

It would be more comparable if a lot of runners were wary or unsure if they could even complete with marathon without some kind of aid that made them faster.

As per your comments on pace, I know what you mean. I swam 1:02 in whistler then limped to an almost 6 hour walk-a-thon, despite all my long runs being comfortably in the 4:50/km range. Whoops! =)

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Great point, swimmers who swim w/o the wetsuit should get to use roller-blades on the run!!! What a concept!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

They were made to allow weak-azz swimmers like me to keep the fish within striking distance so I could then destroy them on the bike and run.

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Rick, "Retired" hobbyist athlete
Trying to come back slowly from acute A-Fib

It took me years to get over my childhood fear of sharks hiding behind the pool filters. Blame James Bond on that one. I still get a bit anxious if I can see a huge rock under me in the ocean, even though there's nothing there.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Man, you've been taking your movies way too seriously...:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

One of my favourite places to swim back home was, essentially, a salt water lake. It was open to the ocean only through a small inlet, maybe 40 feet wide. Occasionally sharks or other critters would get sucked through with the tidal flume.

Anyway, it was a few hundred feet deep at the deepest spot, so you couldn't see the bottom, ever, and you knew there were sharks in there...

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

A wetsuit is designed to make you look more like an injured seal to the sharks.

:D

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Thats why FINA allows bodysuits for men in OW.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

I've been reading the FINA rules on these bodysuits, very interesting. Have you worn one of these??? If so, was there any buoyancy effect whatsoever??? Also, I would assume that these bodysuits would aid in keeping a person warm to some degree, although obv not as much as a wetsuit.

Also, it's kind of odd that FINA allows these bodysuits but yet the "English Channel Rules" are still just grease and a swim cap. I guess the channel folks are just more tradition-bound.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

No but guys wore them in Montreal. No zippers allowed textile only. Did not seem any faster than a legskin or jammers/shaved legs.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)