Great Wetsuit Tips

Found this on a forum. Wearing wetsuits and open water swims.

1) In the short distance race it may not be worth wearing the wetsuit depending on water temp and distance
2) Let the wetsuit work for you, don’t fight it.
3) It will take time to adjust to swimming in the wetsuit
4) Pool to lake can create a little anxiety, noticed or not, and can add to the over exertion
5) Adjust your swimming as well as comfort level feeling “restricted” by wetsuit
6) Take all the slack out of the wetsuit, pull it waaaaayyy up into the crotch

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Nice Running/Triathlon Logging site which allows you to log from twitter. Going to implement this functionality into http://www.26m.com as an activity tracker. Check it out , it is pretty cool.
Nice Running/Triathlon Logging site which allows you to log from twitter. Going to implement this functionality into http://www.26m.com as an activity tracker. Check it out , it is pretty cool.
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Webster Triathlon Sprint 2009 (Part 3 - Run)

T2 (1:46) was much quicker as I parked the bike, slipped on my shoes, hat and switched shirts. Ran out of the transition area, took a drink and went running. This of course was my most comfortable sport as I have run many races in my life. I have done a bunch of duathlons (both in training and a few races) so the transition from bike to run wasn’t a big deal. I felt it in my legs but wanted to push it harder than normal.

I ran strong, up the hills and began passing people. A nice change of pace from people passing me all day :).

I hit the first mile in 7:45. Yikes, need to slow down a bit and I did. I felt strong the whole way and coming around the corner and down the end of the race, I heard my daughter and her cowbell and saw the family cheering and waving. I did my goofy wave and pushed it to the finish line. I crossed in 1:40:33 and it felt good. I was tired, but feeling very accomplished.

I’ve signed up for my second sprint and hopefully the swim will be much more manageable and I’ll be more comfortable.

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Finishing my first triathlon.
Finishing my first triathlon.
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Webster Triathlon Sprint 2009 (Part 2 - Bike)

My swim time : 23:17 (darn slow)

After my experience in the water, I knew once I hit the beach and feel of the sand through my toes, that it was all downhill from there. I ran up the beach and through the tunnel of spectators, until finally seeing my family. I heard my daughters cowbell ringing and looked to see them and it gave me an extra kick in the pants.

Funny, I wasn’t tired but mentally I had been battling that inner voice through the swim so it pumped me up to hear and see the family cheering me on.

T1 - Out of the water there was a 1/4 mile run (on the pavement) to the transition area. I, being the amateur that I was, wanted to try and get my wetsuite off as I was running. Well, even though I practiced this many of times, the heat of the moment certainly caused me to fumble. I couldn’t get the velcro off the back and once I did, I couldn’t unzip my suit while running. So , I stopped and walked fast all the while fumbling to get the zipper down my back. How do women do this with their dresses, I don’t know.

After a minute or so I did get the zipper down and trying to mimic what I’ve read, seen pull the top off and run to transition. Worked fine in theory. I pulled my arms out and pull it down to my waist and began to run harder. For some reason the top half of my suit kept slipping and slipping and I had to hold it up as I ran into transition. Darn, I felt foolish.

Once in transition, of course, it took me quite a bit of time to get off the wetsuit. It felt like I was on America’s Funniest Videos.

Once the suit was off I was ready. I was lucky as getting to the race early I was able to put my bike on the end of the transition bar so I had plenty of room and it did help.

I got my stuff on and off I went. Once on the road I had the hardest time getting into my clipless pedals. Now, I’ve been riding clipless pedals since they first came out so this was not the case of being a rookie to triathlon. It had to be nerves. Once in the pedals I knew that my comfort level would sky rocket. In familiar territory I pushed off.

The course itself was rolling hills and rather desolate which turned out to be a good thing on a misty morning. There were a couple of hills that were pretty darn steep. A ton of people were walking up the hills but living on the top of a pretty steep hill, I just pushed up them. The nice thing about going uphill of course is that there has to be some downhill somewhere. And the downhills were nice. I flew down the hills, topping out at 38mph and averaging 25mph for the downhills and the flats afterwards.

The bike seemed to fly by but checking my time I was behind what I thought I would do. I felt good but didn’t seem to get any faster. I rode pretty steady and once I pulled up the final hill I was extremely happy. I pulled into the parking lot , unbuckled my shoes and rode up to the dismount area.

Getting off the bike, I was extremely confident even though looking at my watch I was shocked that I went slower than I expected.

45:17 (12 miles).

Next up : Run

Tagged as: race, triathlon,

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Winners make goals, losers make excuses unknown
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I needed my daughters cowbell as I depended on hearing and knowing she and my family were cheering me on. How could I stop.
I needed my daughters cowbell as I depended on hearing and knowing she and my family were cheering me on. How could I stop.
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