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August 16, 2008
Never Doubt the Wetsuit
Recently I bought one of these as I was predicting that of my remaining 3 races I have this season, several of them won't be wetsuit legal. Now, after making my purchase, I'm not so sure that is the case, but oh well. I bought it and now I'm stuck with it. Anyway, if I should ever turn pro I'll get plenty of use out of it as pros never seem to get to wear wetsuits! (one reason to stay amateur FOREVER! :)
Regardless, the suit arrived in the mail the other day and when it did I had a hard time believing I was going to fit in it. I had hemmed and hawed over what size to get as weight wise the small made most sense but height wise the medium-small would fit best. My wetsuit is a medium-small and I do have big quads that could potentially make a small not fit so well. But then again you want it as small as possible right? So I went with the small.
And, like I said, when it arrived, I feared I had made the wrong choice. But amazingly enough it fit just fine last night when I tried it on! (that material really does stretch quite well!)
Anyway, I decided I needed to take it to the pool today for my swim workout to see how it felt and also to see if it really does make you faster.
Now I've never swam in the pool with my wetsuit because I would probably die of heat exhaustion! I mostly swim at YMCAs where the water is at least 80 degrees, if not more and so you can imagine that wetsuits just aren't a great idea. So the only place I've worn my wetsuit is in open water where it's really hard to tell if it really does make you faster. Of course I believe that they do as everyone SAYS that they do but I really had no cold, hard evidence.
Fast forward to today when I jumped into the pool with my swim skin and VIOLA! - all of a sudden swimming 1:15 pace for 300s doesn't feel so bad! Holy cats! I immediately declared to O that I would be wearing this suit for ALL my pool workouts, regardless of how odd I looked doing so! :)
So I guess I learned that neoprene really does make one faster and that science doesn't lie. Just imagine how many seconds/100 the wetsuit takes off! I will never grumble again about getting hot in my wetsuit as it's a small price to pay for a much improved swim time!
Anyway, before all this swimming experimentation was occuring I did a 3:30 brick. I set off on my bike this morning and was instantly loving life. Absolutely beautiful day, sunny and cool (I started with arm warmers!) and just plain awesome.
And then things got a little hairy.
First, I ran over a dead, nasty, smelly thing. It was one of those situations where I didn't see the dead thing until I was almost upon it and at the very same time a large truck was passing so it was impossible to swerve around dead thing. Slamming on the brakes wasn't going to be a viable solution either as that would probably result in me somersaulting over my handlebars right ONTO the dead thing. So over it I went. YUCK!!!!
It wasn't long after that (I was still recovering in fact) when I realized that my aerobars were definitely not right. As in they were pointing directly downward and hovering just above my front tire. WHAT. THE. HECK?!?!
Obviously after being in the shop, Scotty's headset wasn't tightened entirely and now I had loose aerobars on my hands. And of course I didn't have any tools! UGH!!!
So I stood along the side of the road and quickly brainstormed my options all the while making a mental note to never ride without tools again.
1) ride back home and tighten the headset up myself
2) pull the bars up and hope they just stayed for the rest of the ride
3) close my eyes and when I open them everything will magically be okay
None of them good options.
But that's when it dawned on me that I was riding in the middle of nowhere which means that there are no shops or resturants or houses for that matter BUT that there are PLENTY of little mechanic garages every couple of miles that HAVE to have allen wrenches!
So I rode on with the plan to stop at the first garage I saw.
But of course in the mean time I hit another (unavoidable) HUGE hole and my aerobars went straight down AGAIN AND I lost a water bottle that had about 300 calories of nutrition in it! I cursed the evil roads of Pennsylvania and all their awful potholes. And then I laughed. And then I went searching for my bottle (which I found intact). I pulled up my bars again and rode on.
And luckily within 5 minutes found a perfect little garage to stop at.
I caused quite a scene. In these parts a "bike" is a Harley and people don't wear spandex. But of course the guys at the shop were SOOO nice and within seconds produced just the right size allen torque wrench to fix my bike!
He had me put the bars right where I wanted them and then proceeding to tighten that screw up so tight I cringed with fear. I'm extremely glad that he wasn't tightening onto carbon or he surely would have crushed it! But I was about 110% sure that my headset wouldn't be coming loose again that ride. Or ever. :)
So off I rode! And the rest of the ride I had not one other problem! Off the bike and onto the run and I just couldn't believe how beautiful it was outside! Great training weather for sure...unless you are training for Kona or some other hot and humid race (Dallas)...but what can you do? :)
Off to watch more of the Olympics including the women's marathon!
Posted by beth at August 16, 2008 6:35 PM
Comments
The weather in Dallas is hot but not humid like it us up here. So it does not feel quite as hot.
I need to get one of those suits!
Posted by: maija at August 16, 2008 10:43 PM
I love my pz3 blue seventy - I want to wear it to all my pool workouts too! Glad you like yours.. me trying to fit into the small was hilarious, my friend Amy and I were on the floor in tears laughing.. I'm a MS girl myself.
Posted by: rachel at August 17, 2008 4:35 PM
I LOVE my speedy blue seventy fast skin too... so much... BUT I would never wear it in the pool! Our chlorine is so high I am scared to kill the expensive thing! I just got one of their wetsuits, I should post it, I love it just as much! I am with you though, sizing the things is hard when the legs are big but the height/weight thing is weird. I almost dropped my jaw knowing ELF is wearing hers as a small medium, no way! Does she put 2 of her in there? Glad you like it... hope it brings you a million fast swims!
Posted by: breewee at August 17, 2008 6:21 PM