A cold, rainy, grey and windy day here in Tucson today. Too bad all those other suckers at the pool didn’t have wetsuits. They looked real cold running from the locker room to the starting block area, in the rain. Too bad the lifeguards didn’t make them sit under the lifeguard stand for 5 minutes for running on the pool deck. I see standards have fallen since I’ve last life guarded.
So how did day 4 go? It was bad and good. Bad because even though the sizing charts on one suit said one size, that size is way to big on me. On this suit, sizing down should be recommended, and I’ll tell you which one it is after all is said and done. It was so big on me that I removed it from testing. It’s just not fair when every suit has been pretty spot on for fit to have something that is way to big in the testing. Based on the only 400 I swam in it, that this suit could be really fast if it fit correctly. It split out 4:34 but filled with water on every turn, you could feel the ocean of water in this suit rolling from side to side just a fraction behind you. Not to mention the extra 1.5inches of rubber I could grab at the shoulders. I’m going to see what I can do about getting the proper size then re-testing this suit. Like I said it has all the makings of a good wetsuit with thick rubber where it’s needed and flexible rubber where it’s needed. Coming off the turns I popped to the surface like a cork and was able to get right into swimming.
After removing the previous suit, I got to swim in one of the suits that really intrigued me. It went on easy but needed some fine tuning to get it to fit correctly. What really matters is how did I swim in the suit. Fast. Real fast actually for a more precise answer. If we were ranking the suits on one round only, this suit would move into the leader board position. It has a mere :01 lead on the next fastest suit. This suit swam different then the other fast suit. The previous fastest suit felt fast, like you were motoring through the water and the splits on the clock showed that. it almost encouraged you to take it out fast and go for the swim of your life right off the bat. This suit felt good, but not fast. It felt like you were swimming well but not swimming like you were shot out of a cannon. I couldn’t see the clock going into the turns because my right goggle filled with water. So I was swimming blind on how fast I was going. But when I finished and looked at the clock, it had tied for the fastest 400 I’ve swam in the testing. That includes having one crappy turn where my push-off was next to nothing. The second swim was only :01 slower. So it’s neck and neck between these two suits.
Round two, as a reminder is the same as round one, 2×400 on the 6:00. The only difference is the suits get reversed for round two. If it was swam as the first suit of the day in round 1 it goes last for that day in round 2. Only one suit so far on tap for tomorrow and we’ll see how that goes, unless the delivery guy reaches into his truck and drops off a box for me this evening. Then it’s onto round two!
