Beach to Battleship Tri on Oct 25th will be my first full distance IM and as I was going through my gear and last years race reviews, I thought about buying swim socks and gloves in case of another extra cold event. The socks I am looking at seem fine as they are just like plain neoprene socks, but all the gloves I see have at least “some” webbing" between the fingers and I would think that those would be frowned upon in an event…yet in all the descriptions they claim to be for triathlons and training in cold water…
What are the normal guidelines for gloves and boots, specifically?
Rick Loving
Newbie age grouper…
Ok, so i found this while searching…
4.9 Illegal Equipment. Any swimmer wearing any **artificial **propulsion device, including but not limited to fins, gloves, paddles, or floating devices of any kind shall be disqualified.
So that confirms my thoughts on the webbed gloves, but what about gloves without any webbing? And socks or booties are fine?..
Hmmm…now this ones says socks too…
b.) Illegal Equipment:
(i) Athletes must not use: • Artificial propulsion devices; • Flotation devices; • Gloves or socks (including but not limited to compression socks); • Wetsuits with thickness exceeding 5mm; • Wetsuit bottoms only; • Wetsuits when they are forbidden because of the water temperature; • Non certified swimsuits and wetsuits. • Clothing covering arms from shoulders to hands and clothing covering legs from knees to toes in a non-wetsuit swim. • A second swimsuit, unless worn for the entire race.
Caps and socks are allowed if the water temp is below 65 degrees per Ironman rules.
You can wear neoprene booties if you want, but your hands must be completely uncovered. 2 thoughts as this applies to B2B: 1) You’re not in the water long enough to need either one and 2) neoprene booties slow you down quite a bit.
I’m definitely a novice triathlete but I wore the neoprene booties the last few years at B2B just to help with the run to T1. I can’t comment on how they slowed me down kicking but I was comfortably running faster past barefooted people to transition.
I raced last year- one of my regrets was not having something on my hands and feet- but only before the swim. I should have brought along some throw-away gloves and socks, but instead just wound up getting cold feet.
It seemed like race morning air temps were around 40s-50s, so chilly enough- but the sound water felt great when I finally got in. Once my feet warmed back up in the water I didn’t find myself wishing I wore swim socks in the water.
Swim socks would be more useful for the long run to transition than the actual swimming. The water’s not that cold but that pavement can be a little rough on bare feet.