Anyone going to start practicing in a in the big rubberband?

As to ridicule, ignore it. You know what you're doing. As to fins, I'll give you my usual :thhbbb: and just say that I recently found out a teammate of mine did competitive monofin swimming in Korea after a RC tear. Now, she has the finest underwaters of any woman I know and wear fins a lot in practice. Oh, she also just won the 50 and 100 back at Austin. :cheerleader: Fort, I know better than to knock the finners! I've learned my lesson. I really need to learn to swim with them. One woman that I swim with is a perpetual user of fins; however, she is an ex NCAA Div I All American and mother of four! She kicks my butt (even with her back problems) and still has time to run her own business AND do missionary work in Tanzania! I am SOOO not kidding! Those finners are a hearty bunch.

Woa! George, that is really amazing. I wish you had some footage of your avoiding ice and logs and who knows what else! Guess if you were in the Hudson, it would be bodies. The odd bear out of hibernation but they were not intersted in me. In La Bostanais River, Quebec they would pile logs on the ice and when the ice melted they would come down the river to the paper mill in La Tuque. La Tuque is where we had a 24 hour team race. Two guys taking turns relay style. My share of the race worked out to be half or more of the race depending wether my partner was able to continue. I sometimes had to swim a little extra milage. In 24 hours we covered about 66 miles.

And, if you show up to a pool practice in one you should have your pool and USMS membership permanently revoked. Or at the very least everyone should point and laugh.

I will admit that if Stevenson is a proponent that is a farily decent argument in favor of them, hard as it is to say that.

After reading the article on wetsuits in the new SWIMMER I was struck that it said the Tri Assn had twice as many members as USMS.This seems amazing to me.I wonder how they got those figures.That means they must have nearly 100,000 members.I can see why USMS wants their participation.

Slightly off subject: the fire-fighters in Brasilia (fire-fighters are a military outfit in Brazil and do all sorts of search and rescue missions) have a race of 3,000 meters called "the outfitted race". They cover the 3,000 using masks, snorkels and fins! Only legs are allowed, the arms are held close to the body. Besides the burning legs, the biggest problem is keeping a true course in the dark lake. They have to lift their faces and check the bearings every now and then. They go from point to point and move fast. At this particular O.W. event, the triathlon type suits are allowed, this in July, supposedly Winter. A couple of friends borrow the suits and usually do the 1,000 meters two minutes faster. But the winners are always swimmers without any special suits. The outside temperatures are in the 70s so no one is worried about the cold. No prize money is given, so there are no separate rosters. I hate wearing those damn things, even the smaller ones when scuba diving. But most scuba diving outfits have a rule of wearing the f.....ng rubbers, even in warm waters. I guess you might go hypothermic without perceiving. On the other hand, swimming naked isn't comfortable either! ooops, wrong forum....billy fanstone

Naked swimmers have a wee problem.

If you wear a wetsuit you are no longer considered a swimmer. And, if you show up to a pool practice in one you should have your pool and USMS membership permanently revoked. I usually do this once before swimming across the bay so I can get used to the feel. Last year, I took it to the outdoor pool and the county lifeguards totally made fun of me. I usually overheat and bail on the rubber ~800m in and swim the rest of my workout in my speedo. As you can see by my avatar, I've got no qualms swimming OW naked.

If they don't practice in a wetsuit, the water is warm enough and the distance is short, what's the need? Isn't this a little contradictory coming from you geek? The "need" is that this is a technology that can make them swim faster, just like the Speedo LZR is.

I suffer panic attacks when running, I should be allowed to use a moped. Geek, if you have the connections and finances to do it, why not? This is America, after all. :) abc, I don't like the feel either: the constriction, the chafing. But unlike the LZR, there is a lot of documentation about the advantages of wetsuits. Dave Holland did a quick search of the literature when we were discussing this in the fall; I've attached what he found. I'm sure there is more out there. In the article in USMS Swimmer, Rob Jones -- who is a fast swimmer with lots of OW experience both with and without wetsuits -- guestimated about 1 minute advantage per mile, an advantage of about 5% for him. Given his experience and the studies Dave found, it seems reasonable to me.