It seems that the City of Tucson is undergoing some budget problems. They have closed all but 3 of the year round pools. And to further save money, the pools are closed today and Christmas day. Next week they are closed the 31st and 1st. So this testing is taking a bit longer to accomplish then I originally thought or planned.
But some thoughts on day 3. The wetsuits I swam in yesterday were completely different. One was all fancy (even the lifeguards noticed that it was the fanciest of the suits I’ve swam in) the other was plain, maybe the plainest wetsuit in the testing lineup. No fancy anything. But it was well constructed, thick rubber where it was needed, thin rubber where it wasn’t. No fancy this or that. In fact putting it on, it reminded me of my old, poor, self destructed wetsuit. So I had high hopes for it when I swam it. It swam well, in fact both suits swam fairly well, but fancy was :02 slower for each 400 then the plain Jane suit. There is still round two to go for both suits, so the jury is still out.
I think manufactures feel they need to have all the gizmo’s on their suits to compete for the high end dollar. Fancy doesn’t always = fast. This thought, that I need to compete with the Jones’s, is a sad statement for both the consumer and manufacter, when fancy stuff is more important the fast stuff. When manufacters feel they have to load their products with gizmos that don’t help you go faster and may actually make you slower just to compete for your dollar, especially at the top end of the retail cost structure. It’s a sad statement by the consumer when they blindly buy what they think is the fastest product, even though it may be slower then something less costly. More is more unless it’s less. Which in the case of many of the products we consume as triathletes, more is less and less is more.
I want the fastest wetsuit for me for when I race, not the coolest wetsuit.
Merry Christmas everyone.
So, you mean to tell us that companiies might stretch the truth to get our hard earned dollars and some people might believe everything they say! Say it isn’t so! :O
Oh yeah…and your cat IS fat! :)~