Okay, I have the Duke Blue Devil coming up and after reading how hot Wisconsin was… What water temp do you think is to warm for a full wetsuit for an IM? Of course all I own is a full suit.
All I have is a full suit as well, and I have overheated in it before. Last summer at a 1/2, the race director said she wanted us to wear them, so she told us the temp was “77.5 degrees”. It was my first 1/2, so I stupidly wore the full suit. Overheated terribly, felt bad for the rest of the day (as evidenced by my 2:48 run split).
However, this season I lost ~13 pounds, and now I’m cold in the pool almost every time I go swimming. I wore my fullsuit at IMWIS last weekend, and I felt great the whole time.
So it seems that the real question is, do you get cold a lot while swimming? Are you a big guy with a lot of stored body heat? Or a skinny guy who loses it all in the water?
Good luck in the Devil!
-Colin
I am a skinny guy so I guess that helps. I am not going to be setting any speed records either so maybe by going a little easier I won’t overheat:)
Last week the water temp at IMWI was 75. I wore a full suit and was comfy the entire swim.
Thanks That makes me feel better. Efernando on this forum got me scared a little when he posted about being to warm at Wisconsin. Of course he was probably swimming in the 55 minute area so maybe that got him a little hot.
I swam a 51…
Nice Swim!
Thanks. I wasn’t saying it in a bragging way, just that i swam a pretty fast swim spilt and didn’t feel over heated at all.
YMMV
Regardless of what IMNA said, the water at IMWI was very near 78 degrees. I swam in a sleeveless and felt on the verge of too warm. I’m not a big guy (5’11", 150lbs) but I am used to swimming in cold water. I train outdoors in northern Minnesota in both pools and lakes, so my preception of aquatic comfort is probably skewed.
My advice is to know your own body. Investing in a sleeveless suit might not be a bad idea if you race in warmish water very often.
I did GFT in a full suit one year. I was worried about being too warm (I think the water was awfully close to the cutoff of 78F) but my effort was low and I had no problems. But I’ve also done some short course races (~1/2 mile swim) that were wetsuit legal and I cooked on the swim.
Ironman fullsuits have the blue back, supposedly to keep you cooler. Does this work anybody, or is it just their marketing gimmick?