I personally wouldn't wear it on my wrist with the QR. Too risky for my tastes. I know people who have lost them and others who've had no problem.

Not sure about the drag part. I'm surprised WTC hasn't banned them for being too similar to a paddle. /sorta pink

If you want to track laps don't make the mistake I did. I had it in standard multi-sport mode and hit the lap button part way through my swim. I wasn't thinking clearly because the second part of my swim was recorded as my transition. By the time I got to the bike I had hit it again twice. Really screwed up my tracking.

---

------------------------
Loud pawls save lives

Drag penalty....really??? How would it even be measured since your arms never stay still? Hope it doe not cost you a kona spot.......

At this point you are overthinking it. This is right up there with whether exposing your earlobes increases your drag in the water and if you should duct tape them down. Which goggle strap is stealthier etc.

I have a 310 with quick release and have never had a problem with it coming off but I do know of people who have gotten out of the swim and their 910s are no longer on their wrists as they somehow came out of the quick release and are somewhere along the bottom. This would be all I'd be concerned about.

---

BC Don
Pain is temporary, not giving it your all lasts all Winter.

I don't think it creates a "significant" amount of drag, but I don't use mine in a race on the swim anyway. I don't look at my watch during an IM swim, as I go strictly by perceived effort. I analyze my results after the race by seeing how fast (or slowly) I swam the 2.4. It's not like on the bike where you can look power. At best you can look at stroke rate and 100 yd/m splits (or some other metric).

Simply my personal opinion, but basing the start of a 10-15 hour day on a specific time goal for the swim (i.e., at 1.2 miles you're "X" behind, so you swim harder, even though your RPE is right for the race) is not, for me, a good approach.

I leave it on the bike and take it off for the run.

I've petitioned Garmin to make the multisport have a confirmation screen prior to changing sports (maybe hit lap button two or three times). As it is now, I don't use it. Every time I've tried, I hit the lap button and messed it all up. The lock screens is an option but with wet or sweaty hands it can be an issue. So now I just change sports as I go. I just don't track transition time.

Garmin said they would consider it if enough people asked for it. I posted a thread here but appears nobody contacted Garmin.

---

_________________________________
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

I think it might cause a eecent amount of drag. I shave my arms and chest and I am a second per 100 faster. Legs are another second. I am doing a set of 100s in a LCM this afternoon, I'll do a little experimenting.

For me (and no qr) it was about 2s/100m (at ~1.40/100lcm). I did not manage to correctly hit the lap button in any of the 3-4 races I used it for, so I replaced it with a FR220 and an Edge510 and decided that tracking swimming in triathlon-races is completely useless anyway (with courses never being the correct distance, and the wrestling messing up the stroke etc).

Yes...you could have it wripped off your wrist. However, this is not a phenomena exclusive to the garmin Quick Release watches. I had a regular watch ripped off my arm during the swim at Eagleman years ago. You could cover it with your sleeve (assuming full sleeve wetsuit), if you are that worried about losing it. But then your GPS might not pick-up. You can still hit the start button if you do that.

I wouldn't worry about the time "penalty". It won't make a hill of beans difference. The benefit is, you can see what you did after the race as far as pacing and course. You can also set the display to show only 1 or 2 fields that you can glance at (and still read) while swimming. Time and Distance, or Time and Average Pace/100yd is what I use during my OWS'. Just take a longer than average glide on a stroke to glance at it.

Why does every ST thread receive 1-2 waste of space dumb shit rude responses like this? There are dozens of threads talking about subjects such as which latex tube (not just latex vs butyl), or will dropping my PSI down by 5 make me faster etc...

Why not try to maximize speed? Do you value aero helmets, wheels, frames? Why should we value drag reduction on the bike but not in the water?

Ok. Give a resonable way to test. How do you know the amount of gain on the pull with the extra surface. How do you test to make sure your big toe is not slightly bent more when taking the test.....it would cause more drag.
This is nothing like an aero helmet

Interesting to see the results. I don't race with it so it's not an issue for me

Other issues will also come into play in OP's race. There may be a drag factor, but if you get a good draft it's negated. And I usually find there is a huge draft factor in most IM swims. But then he has to subtract the second it's going to cost him to change his stroke to look at his time (assuming e only does it once).

Use a quick release, leave the strap on your wrist and throw the unit in your cap. Been doing it that way for years without issue. As you get out of the swim, throw it on your wrist. Besides you get real GPS data instead of some cheesy algorithm. I don't trust a 910 on the wrist for a second. Hell, I've even thrown the whole watch in my cap without a quick release and had no problem strapping it to my wrist on the way to T1.

---

Head Coach Grn Mchn Multisports Coaching, LLC
http://www.grnmchnmultisports.com

Won't solve his issue, he wants to look at it during the swim

Willing to sacrifice swim form to look at a watch but worried about the drag of a watch on the wrist? Let's get real here.

---

Head Coach Grn Mchn Multisports Coaching, LLC
http://www.grnmchnmultisports.com

Sort of my point to him.....

I doubt there is any significant drag penalty based on the nature of the freestyle stroke. If you are swimming correctly, your hand/wrist is actually not moving through the water very much. Once you catch, ideally your hand and wrist will remain nearly stationary as your body moves over it. So, whatever is on the your wrist (and the back side of it to boot) does not have the opportunity to produce drag since it is not really moving. And, to the extent you can not execute a proper catch, the extra "drag" on your wrist might actually be helpful in a very small way. (Think about it, if you widened the watch into a paddle, it would be illegal). On the other hand, you are dragging your body, its hair and your swim suit through the water as you stroke and that is why those things get drag reducing attention.

If you were racing in a pool, the extra drag during your glides after your start dive and coming off turns would be an issue but you are not experiencing those conditions in an open water swim.

1 stroke over a 2.4 mile swim is hardly a sacrifice.

Thanks for all of the other serious responses. I'm leaning towards leaving it on the bike.

They are being serious, and you are over thinking this. You will lose more time due to the form break and looking at the watch than you ever would due to drag in in the swim. If anything, the watch would help. The only time it's going to be a negative drag is during hand entry, and that is an extremely minimal time (Unless you subscribe to the TI mailslot theory). The rest of the time it's making a larger profile for the pull. I would wager that the entire amount of negative drag for the entire swim would cumulatively be less than a second or two.

John

---

---

Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

One vote for LEAVE IT ON YOUR BIKE!!!

swimming is about feeling of the water, a big clunky 910xt isnt the best tool to become a better swimmer...

and the data are a bit useless as you wont be really looking at it and the data it provide wont be helpful during the swim.

---

Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

So, you want to know how much time you'd lose for wearing the 910, but don't care how much time you'd lose looking at it.

got it.

And my response was dead serious, sorry if you think otherwise.

I am in a masters class geared towards triathletes. One set had a :15 RI, i turned to my lane mate, pointed to the big fat digital pace clock and said on the top? He said "i've got my watch," pointing to the 910.

I swam 24 x 100s on 1:32

I did 12 with the watch and was coming in on 1:21. I took off the watch and was going 1:20 and 1:21. I put the 910 back on for the last 4 and was more like 1:22. It was an easy set for me. I didn't have a digital pace clock, had to use the an old analog dial. The efforts felt the same.

I wouldn't call the result conclusive but they weren't insignificant. I didn't pay enough attention to stroke count, but I think it was the same for the entire set except the first one of the 24. 38 down / 39 back.

The reason I care is because I am (probably) doing a 10k ow swim in November as part of a swim/run double marathon (certainly not back to back). I'd love to have the data on the swim but I don't think I will.

If I was ever given that set and I only had a clock with an analog dial, I'd be leaving on the 1:30 or the 1:35 and yelling at my coach.

"1:32? I CAN SWIM OR DO MATH... YOU GET TO CHOOSE 1."