In this week, the air is 16°C and the pool is 20°C at my location, and it is the perfect temperature for me to swim in without any wetsuit. (I feels heat neutral in around 21°C, when the water is 24°C I begin to feel a bit warm after doing high-intensity swimming)
However, the weather forecast is predicting low air temperature - around 12°C next week. The pool I'm using is a 25 m outdoor pool with water depth 1.2 m - 3.0 m end to end. I don't know how fast the pool cools down, so I have a few questions:
How is the feeling different between 12°C air and 18°C air, when the water stays constant at 18°C? In particular, is "the average of air and water temperatures" a good indicator?
I have never swum seriously in my wetsuit before - I primarily use it for sailing in cold weather. I think it may be very bulky and uncomfortable to swim in, is it true or not?
I've heard that the speed will be faster when swimming in a wetsuit - especially when doing triathlon - is it true? Although in my area we don't have triathlons in wetsuit legal season so this is temporary a non-issue for me.
My endurance target is to swim for 2 hours in 15°C water this year - and for 6 hours next year without wetsuit (I'm talking about normal conditions - not something like 3°C air and 15°C water as happened 3 years ago! That would be crazy!). However, I also have to build up my speed as well. I'm trying to use various toys to see if there is a particular dead spot, but I tried using fins, snorkels, paddles and pull buoy one by one, and they all provided no difference in my speed and efficiency with or without them when I tried. So the next thing I may try is putting my wetsuit on - but only when it is cold enough!
When doing technique sets or speed sets in cold weather, in order for the training to be more effective, should I put on my wetsuit or not? (an extreme case will be 6°C air and 13°C water - is it foolish to do a standard 45 minutes training, consisting of drills and intervals, on bare skin?)
Hi Michael! I don't know what kind of response you'll get here, but you also might want to try this same conversation on the Marathon Swimmer's Forum. Those folks are from all over the world and tend to lean more towards cold water swimming. Do a search on the topic of cold water swimming or with wetsuits to see if there's already some info there. marathonswimmers.org/.../
Hi Michael! I don't know what kind of response you'll get here, but you also might want to try this same conversation on the Marathon Swimmer's Forum. Those folks are from all over the world and tend to lean more towards cold water swimming. Do a search on the topic of cold water swimming or with wetsuits to see if there's already some info there. marathonswimmers.org/.../
