I don’t think it’s that bad an idea, if a swim is wetsuit legal any poor swimmer is almost certainly going to use one for the benefit it provides. If wetties are banned then I doubt they’re going to cause significant overheating or dehydration? There were quite a few worried people at Cotswold last year.
For an average swimmer like me I get 5-10 seconds per 100 in the pool advantage, but that’s not going to turn a poor swimmer into KB, they’re likely middle or back of pack.
For a fish like Chris and others I suspect there’ll be less benefit.
Hammerer, they do bring the hips up, I also wonder if the resistance on them reduces leg scissoring
Im assuming they are a similar material to the tech suits in swimming, and also very compressive (providing you get one that fits properly) , so probably worth a couple seconds per hundred if swimming is anything to go by. Never really much of an issue in the UK when I raced as I’ve only ever done one non wetsuit tri in the UK
depends on what “a lot” means. Not as much as you may believe, particularly when you add turbulence. There is a drag effect on the swimmer in front also caused by the one behind. Its certainly easier, but unlikely much faster.
yer you’d definitely sit on hips/feet if you have the chance, its a good skill to have.
I guess again, if you can barely swim that you need floaty pants then I doubt you are practicing skills like sighting, turning and drafting
I’m so elitest
When I took up tri I was rubbish at everything, but I wanted to get better and be the best “me” so i trained, practiced skills, I joined a club, I wanted to get faster, but its very different now and for a growing number is like a marathon in that its very much a completion challenge before moving on. How many are in their garden practicing transitions for instance. I used to do a mount / dismount on every commute ride, practice wetsuit removal at the lake after every lake swim, we’d do a morning at the lido before it was taken over by Better and became heated as it was an ideal place to do practice a hard swim rep, jump out remove wetsuit and put it back on to try again.
I could avoid drowning but not swimming and struggled to get under 40 minutes for a 70.3 so put some effort in at the pool, got better at sighting etc and got down to 32 minutes, still not going to be FOP but not chasing through everyone.
yes, and if you can do all those after developing them with floaty pants, you don’t need them for safety on race day.
I don’t know maybe someone should invent a sport without swimming, could call it something like Biathlon; what about Duathlon, has a nice ring to it
that was because the rule then was that if you wore a swimskin for a sprint or standard then you had to keep it on for the whole event - you must now take them off in T1 for all distances
assuming they have access to a pool!
