Put on the first latex swim cap. Make sure it covers your temples and forehead.
Put on the Neoprene Swim cap over the first latex swim cap. Again and more importantly, make sure it covers your temples and forehead and that it sits just above your eyebrows as shown in the photo. This will eliminate “Brain Freeze”, or “Ice Cream Headache.”
Finally put on the last latex cap. Make sure it covers the front and back of the Neoprene Cap.
If done properly, your hair will most likely be dry when you exit the water, but more importantly, your head, and your body will stay warm…and your fingers will actually work!
I have done Alcatraz over a dozen times (twice without a wetsuit). I have raced in the Puget Sound, the English Bay in Vancouver, and in the Milford Sound on the New Zealand’s South Island. All are races where the water temperature was between 48 -54 degrees F (9 - 12 degrees C). Believe me it works!
Cool thanks for the tip, Emilio. As luck would have it, I just ordered your cap for Harriman, NY on 5/22. With temps normally in the mid 50’s I’ll use all the tricks in the book! I’ve never done the sandwich, just the required latex over the neoprene.
Good question. First of all, our Neoprene Swim Cap has no velcro on the chin strap. This reduces the chance of chafing. Also it is much lower profile, but as with all gear follow what I call:
Emilio’s 1st Law of Triathlon: Never use something in a race that you have not tested in training.
With that said, if you still worry about chafing try a little body glide on your chin and neck.
For my last swim in really cold water I wore a neoprene cap (forget what brand, blueseventy maybe) with velcro under the chin and it bothered me like crazy. If I had to do it again I would definitely go with one without velcro.
We offer $10.00 shipping no matter how much you buy…in fact if you order over $125.00 in product, shipping is free.
Ha, well that’s a good deal if you are ordering lots of stuff. Not so much when ordering something that weighs a few ounces.
Compare $10.00 with the time and gas you are saving having to drive to a store, you may find it to be worthwhile.
Fair enough. But compare it to 3 tubs (about 15 pounds) of nutritional products I just purchased online which shipped for $11 and it’s not so worthwile.
First of all, welcome to Slowtwitch. I hope that you have learned quite a bit from this forum in the past month. I gather from your 18 posts that you will be racing Wildflower. I have done that race 16 times. If you have any particular questions about it, let me know.
No disrespect taken at all on your comment, but your reply would be a bit more credible if you qualified it by it by stating your identity and your level of expertise in the subject, don’t you think?
Are you a doctor, scientist, or an engineer? I have a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara. I have spent quite a bit of time studying thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and Newton’s Law of cooling of warm bodies and warming of cool bodies, in the development of the products we make.
I think that others in this forum would love to learn your qualifications as well!
“It has been said that 80% of your body heat is lost through your head.”
No disrespect to Emilio but anyone who says you lose more heat through your head is wrong. You lose heat relatively equally over your entire surface area - head included. There is nothing special about the skin or blood vessel distribution over your head that makes it different from your arms or torso. I suppose if the rest of your body was covered with a wetsuit then, yes, your exposed head, hands and bootieless feet would be the primary sites of heat loss.
The 80% might be true if you include the heat lost through breathing.
Either way I might have to try the sandwich
Well put, very true, and yes that is implied given that it would be impossible not to breath! This is also the reason why one stays warmer in cold weather when breathing pure oxygen (such as high altitude) through a low liter flow oxygen mask.
This will all soon change as we bring our new website live in the next couple of months. In the mean time, if you want to buy just a swim cap, we will ship anywhere in the continental USA by US Postal for $5.00. It is not traceable, but your choice. US postal is safe most of the time.
The “80% of heat lost through the head” is approx correct if you are talking about a warmly dressed person in cool air (not water) without a hat, I doubt it would apply to a swimmer in the water. And your cap sandwich is generally a good idea, but you would actually maximize warmth if you applied some physics and put the two rubber swim caps under the neoprene cap. Because neoprene keeps you warm by using the trapped air in the foam to insulate. All other things being equal, the thicker the neoprene cap is, the warmer the swimmer will be. Putting a rubber cap over the neoprene cap compresses the neoprene slightly and actually reduces its insulating capability. That is why the neoprene cap should go on last, where it will stay thickest and warmest.
No really…no disrespect taken and I am genuine about that. I will review the websites and the references and research that supports their claims. I appreciate you sending them, and with all the respect do to you as well, we engineers are not easily persuaded, are we!!!
My offer still stands on tips for Wildflower. Ask away. My best finish there was a top 10 overall and sub 4:30.
