Just had to share: Last nite went to a local lake that I swim in occassionally. Smaller lake, 730 yards from one end to the other (GPS is great). As I was getting ready to go, a local Tri-guy was finishing his swim. I noticed that he was wearing a wet suit. Water temperature was about 81 degrees! I say," isn't it a little warm for a wet suit?" (I would be smothering), he says "Well, there are a couple of cold patches out there!" (probably gets down all the way to 80 degrees for 30 seconds) LOL.
Outside of the normal (if misguided) human tribal reaction of saying "my side is better," I can't ignore that my experience with tri-athletes seems to have beem much more negative than my experiences with OWSs. I've shown up at OWS events to have wet-suited triathletes (who are using an OWS to get prepare for a longer event) elbow and push unnecessarily to start at the front only to be completely in my way within seconds while I watch OWSs seem to naturally sort themselves in speed order to avoid too much jostling. I've also been at mixed events where the OWS event is on a Sat, and the Tri on a Sun, only to have the Tri's show up on Sat. and bogart around the course, attempting to swim warm-ups nearby with an OWS race going on, etc.
But then when I think about it some more, there are tri-athletes who train at the same pool as me who are completely pleasant, and we share lanes without incident. Ironic to this conversation, one tri-athlete who I see at the pool was recently trying to get used to a wet-suit for the first time and found it annoying.
And I've certainly encountered some jerks at OWS events loudly assessing their competition and showing little sportsmanship. I think some of this perception may have to do with sheer numbers. If 10% of TRIs and OWSs are jerks, by averages, one will encounter more jerks who are TRIs when Tri entries are in the thousands and OWS entries rarely reach over 100.
Outside of the normal (if misguided) human tribal reaction of saying "my side is better," I can't ignore that my experience with tri-athletes seems to have beem much more negative than my experiences with OWSs. I've shown up at OWS events to have wet-suited triathletes (who are using an OWS to get prepare for a longer event) elbow and push unnecessarily to start at the front only to be completely in my way within seconds while I watch OWSs seem to naturally sort themselves in speed order to avoid too much jostling. I've also been at mixed events where the OWS event is on a Sat, and the Tri on a Sun, only to have the Tri's show up on Sat. and bogart around the course, attempting to swim warm-ups nearby with an OWS race going on, etc.
But then when I think about it some more, there are tri-athletes who train at the same pool as me who are completely pleasant, and we share lanes without incident. Ironic to this conversation, one tri-athlete who I see at the pool was recently trying to get used to a wet-suit for the first time and found it annoying.
And I've certainly encountered some jerks at OWS events loudly assessing their competition and showing little sportsmanship. I think some of this perception may have to do with sheer numbers. If 10% of TRIs and OWSs are jerks, by averages, one will encounter more jerks who are TRIs when Tri entries are in the thousands and OWS entries rarely reach over 100.
