I haven’t done a sprint tri in a few years, but have one coming up this weekend with a 400 yd. swim and wanted to determine what to use for the swim.
Options:
TYR Jammer swimsuit.
TYR Jammer swimsuit with tight fitting singlet.
Shorty wetsuit: I’ve got an old “Performance” brand sleeveless/shorty wetsuit from ~1993 lying around.
Full wetsuit: ~5 yr old long sleeve/full length QR suit.
So yesterday morning I headed to the pool (25 scy) for a few tests. Bit of background: No previous swim coaching, swim split usually ~ top 20%. I typically do a 1100yd (~1000m) TT (scy) in 16:45.
Did 2 X 200 warmup in the fullsuit, then 2X200 in the following order (avg. time listed):
Fullsuit: 2:55
TYR jammer with singlet: 3:11
TYR jammer only: 3:08
Performance shorty: 2:59
Summary: compared to just the swimsuit, the added drag of the singlet costs me ~1sec/50yd. The shorty suit saves me ~2sec/50yd (5%), and the fullsuit saves me ~3sec/50yd (7.4%). Some tests I did in 2004 showed the fullsuit savings at 9-10% so my balance has definitely gotten a little better negating some of the benefits. I was a little surprised how well the cheap old Peformance shorty did…only 1 sec/50yd slower than the full suit. Seeing that the fullsuit takes ~30 sec to peel off, and the shorty comes off REALLY easily (~10 sec), looks like I’ll use the shorty.