To wetsuit or not?

Great points, Kurt. I'm going without it tomorrow. I just checked the water temp on the web and it says 72. Plus, I just read the swimming world article about the RCP Tiburon mile with everyone doing that without wetsuits at 63. I've lost a little weight lately, but I still have a lot more body fat than the pros doing that race. I swam the Tiburon Mile last month. 63 degrees, no wetsuit. No problems. IMHO, 70 degrees is way too warm for a wetsuit. You might cook. I'll bet that many of the triathetes will forgo theirs.

71 degrees is not cold, just go and do it. Plus the looks from those with wetsuits at your non-wetsuit covered body is almost priceless. I agree with the Animal on this and my opinions on wetsuits are well documented on this site, However that being said. Based on your statement it sounds like your using this as test run for a later race, are you planning on wearing a wetsuit for that race? If so, by all means wear one for this race. Get used to it. If not then go without. Second, in this event are you competitive (a good shot at placing in your age group etc.) and do you want to place? Again if that is an affirmative, I'd lean towards wearing the wetsuit, and by the way, with practice I believe you can get out of it fairly fast. I've seen triathletes train for there run out of the water while simultaneously stripping off the wetsuit. Some were quite fast at it.

I swam without the wetsuit today, just in a pair of TYR jammers and a silicone cap. The race announcer said the water was in the high 60s, but the official website from the city of Tempe said 72. Either way, it was totally the right choice. I didn't feel at all cold and this was with a 7:30am start after a 6:45ish sunrise. Unless the water gets consistently below 68 over the next week, I'm going to wear my B70 pool suit in next week's 2.4m swim. That race goes off at 10:30am and the current forecast shows a high of 83 air temp for the day. I think, like Kurt said, I'll cook if I'm out there in a wetsuit. I'll have to keep an eye on the water temp, though, as it looks like nighttime lows over this coming week are about 8 to 10 degrees colder than they've been. Thanks for all the advice ... and now I'm seriously thinking about braving Tiburon next fall.

IMHO, 70 degrees is way too warm for a wetsuit. You might cook. I'll bet that many of the triathetes will forgo theirs. At 72? I'll take that bet. I've seen triathletes withdraw from a race when the water temp was above 78, rather than swim without a WS. Good luck, Patrick; let us know how you did.

"inflammations in genitals"?? Not sure what it is, but it sounds awesome!

My feeling is that whatever the norm is for race, that's what you should go for. In aquathlon, I wear a wetsuit because that's the race standard. In open water events that are exclusively swimming, I never wear a wetsuit, and I am not, ahem, genetically engineered for the cold water! It's very hard for me in cold water but I feel like in an open water event, I have to suck it up and deal. It's an expectation of the sport I've chosen. Of course, it also means I choose my races carefully since I know my temperature limits.

just received this e-mail..... this seems like the place to share it: Who needs to wait for 2009 to swim open water? The 2008 season isn't over yet. Here's a blog post I wrote this morning about swimming in Lake Awosting, near New Paltz NY, on Halloween with fellow ADMS'er Willie Miller. Enjoy, Terry Laughlin Crazy Men in Halloween Plunge Willie Miller and I swam at Lake Awosting in Minnewaska State Park last week – specifically on Oct 31, Halloween. It was appropriately "scary" to ride past patches of snow an inch or two deep alongside the trail and some snow and ice on the trail at points as we biked up to the lake. The higher we climbed the more snow we saw. We briefly questioned our own sanity, but our sense of excitement over doing something so “out there” was stronger than anything that might dissuade us. A little background: Willie, ADMS Chair Dave Barra and I have been taking “covert” swims at Awosting since Labor Day, when the three Shawangunk Mountain lakes – Minnewaska, Awosting and Mohonk – officially closed. In early September, the water temp was about 70F and we swam approximately an hour, three times a week. When the water dropped below 60, we shortened our swims to 25 or 30 minutes. We often saw other swimmers during September, but have seen only two other swimmers in October, the last one around mid-month, when the water temperature was 57F. With water temperature dropping an average of 2 to 3 degrees most weeks, we found the adjustment quite easy. There was a good deal more initial discomfort at 56-58F, but within five minutes, we’d feel just as comfortable in the core as we had at 70F. We were quite aware of the water’s coldness, on our skin, but it never penetrated. The complicating factor was less water temperature than the fact that, before and after swimming, we ride mountain bikes between parking lot and lake – 30 minutes uphill going and 20+ minutes downhill returning. The uphill ride is a good warmup, but the downhill ride – with the addition of wind chill and subtraction of warming exertion – usually left us quite chilled. By mid-October, with days growing colder and shorter, we would finish that ride near dark and with ambient temps in the mid-40s. On Oct 15, an overcast and blustery day with air temp in the high-40s, Dave and I swam 40 minutes in 56F water and felt quite chilled as we finished our swim. By the time we got back to the parking lot, both of us were pretty well frozen, with hands and feet so numb we could hardly feel the pedals and were fumbling as we tried to shift gears. After that we made sure to complete our swims before the cold could penetrate. Which brings us to Oct 31. For all the snow around the lake, the water, as always, looked inviting. Our first immersion was unquestionably painful. Standing ankle deep for a few moments, my feet hurt the way they do when first submerged in a bucket of ice water. But it actually was sort of okay as we waded further into the "shrinkage zone" and paused for a few moments there. When I crouched to submerge my torso - but not face - I began to gasp uncontrollably. I had to stand again to complete an inhale. When I crouched again, the gasp reflex was a bit milder. I stayed there until my breathing slowed, then immersed my face experimentally to see if the gasping would resume. When it didn't I pushed off into a glide and began stroking. What was surprising was the "ice cream headache" on the back of my neck, which I'd experienced 9 days earlier in 53F water seemed no worse than before. But my hands and feet quickly went numb, my skin burned everywhere else and even my teeth felt frozen. I decided I'd be happy to swim just a few minutes or, say, 200 yards. But as I went on and felt no more discomfort, I entertained the possibility I might hold out a bit longer - perhaps all the way around the near cove, which is maybe 200 yards of swimming, and then back, as the crow flies, to the rock where we entered. Willie stopped there and said he wanted to return the rock, just to be sure he could. I said I felt good enough to carry on and finished swimming around the cove. After doing so, I looked back and saw Willie swimming my way – a welcome sight because, without company, I probably would have swum back to the rock and climbed out. I swam to meet him, and we agreed to cross to the east side of the lake and continue to our usual destination - the tall rock face, we've named "the wall." As we did I began to feel some breathing difficulty again. Not gasping, but slight difficulty in filling my lungs. I concentrated on exhaling more emphatically and it passed after a couple of minutes. Then I started to feel my left calf cramping in and tried to stretch it by flexing my foot. This brought an odd sensation -- I had little sensation on my skin but could clearly sense my muscles which felt somewhat rigid and resistant to stretching. But we reached the wall uneventfully and made the short crossing back to the west side and began to swim back. Over the next five minutes, I felt progressively more at home – feet and hands still numb, skin burning slightly, but totally comfortable in the core. As we passed the last point and crossed the final 150 yards from the head of the cove to our rock, I had two thoughts: (1) This feels so manageable I think I could keep swimming another 10 to 15 minutes (we’d been swimming nearly 20 minutes at that point) and (2) How remarkable that my skin which felt so painful when I first got in, now feels unremarkable. When we got back and stood up, I wasn’t at all chilled, but was quite unsteady on my feet in the rocky shallows because I had so little sensation on the soles. I waded carefully to shore to retrieve the thermometer we’d brought to measure how “crazy” we were and threw it to Willie. When he read it at 45F (7C), we were both, in the words of Alan Greenspan, “irrationally exuberant.” Our goal of swimming at least once in sub-50 temps felt far more satisfying at 45 than, say, 49. Back on shore, we felt surprisingly comfortable, standing near-nekkid in a stiff breeze as we dried off and put our biking clothes back on, but that lasted only a couple of minutes before shivering set in. Which, for me, didn’t stop until an hour later after I’d soaked for 20 minutes in the hottest water I could stand at home. For Dave, Willie and I, cold-water swimming has become almost addictive, mainly because it’s so invigorating. After swimming for weeks in water 20 to 30 degrees colder than typical in pools, its stimulating effect has made normal swimming seem almost pallid by comparison. We also felt that something that stimulating must be healthful in some way, although we had little evidence to support our supposition. The day Dave and I had gotten chilled, I’d actually considered not swimming because I’d had a fairly severe sore throat – the kind that usually precedes a particularly nasty cold – since waking. Well the cold did come on the next day, and it was indeed a severe one. Still, I swam again two days later – because the cold symptoms had already peaked and begun receding. I came out of that cold faster than any time I can recall. After our Halloween swim, I finally did some web research on cold water swimming. Here’s some of what I found: - Cold water robs the body's heat 32 times faster than cold air. - Physical exercise -- like swimming -- causes the body to lose heat at a much faster rate than remaining still in the water. However, stimulus like cold-water immersion causes a general vasodilation – opening and expansion of blood vessels. Some of the possible effects of vasodilation include: - an improvement in blood circulation - increased resistance to infection frequency - faster and easier recovery from illness - reduced risk of heart attack Professor Bill Keatinge of the University of London, a pioneer in the study of hypothermia, brought Lynne Cox, the famed Antartic swimmer to London for experiments in his lab. “We were able to confirm that she can maintain stable body temperature with her head out of the water and in water temperatures as low as 44F” he said. “Anyone else would immediately feel pain like an electric shock, their muscles would flail and the heartbeat would go completely adrift. In technical terms, ventricular fibrillation. Then, you’re dead in a matter of minutes.” Keatinge thinks Cox has somehow trained her body to keep most of her blood at her body’s core and away from the skin where it’s exposed to the cold. The blood stays warmer. But there is something else — call it her natural insulation. “She’s got an extremely even fat layer going right down the limbs and it’s an ideal setup,” he says. Lynne always starts her cold-water swims at high speed, to counter the cold right away. I started mine at a very leisurely pace, but suffered no ill effects from doing so. And then, there’s Lewis Pugh, who swam 1000m – about 20 minutes – at the North Pole in 2007. An account of his swim read as follows: “Before he dives in, he spends around 15 minutes using mind power alone to superheat his body. His pulse rate shoots up from 70 to 160 a minute and his temperature rises from 37C to 38.4, causing him to sweat profusely. This is all without moving a muscle - and something which would take an ordinary person around 30 minutes of hard exercise to achieve. He also plays aggressive rap music - Eminem is a particular favourite. Describing the feeling of swimming in water more suited to seals, whales and polar bears, he said: ‘Before I get in, my body feels like a furnace. I become very aggressive, and my surroundings seem to slow down. Then I hurl myself in. ‘At first, you experience massive hyperventilation. Controlling this is extremely difficult.’ On leaving the water after his swim, his core body temperature had fallen to 36.5 degrees and it dropped further to 35 degrees (95F) 20 minutes later but a warm shower enabled him to return to normal.” And finally, there’s Vladimir Antonov who maintains a web site on “Winter Swimming as a Spiritual Practice.” Here are some choice excerpts: “Statistics holds that among those who practice winter swimming sickness rate decreases for cold-type diseases 60 (!) times, and for other diseases — 30 times. As a therapeutic method, winter swimming can heal many diseases, including radiculitis, both high and low blood-pressure, pulmonary tuberculosis, pancreatic diabetes, chronic gastrointestinal diseases, inflammations in genitals, menstrual cycle abnormalities, dermatoses and so on. “Although swimming in ice-cold water is undoubtedly the most effective tempering procedure, do not get too upset if there is no suitable water reservoir where you live. You may, for example, run barefooted in the snow and, if there is the possibility, lay in the snow for a while without clothes. “If you plan to pour cold water on your body it would be appropriate to submerge the wrists into it first and imagine streams of blissful freshness and joy rising up the hands. Then you may wash your face and feel the freshness and joy entering your body through your face.”

“Although swimming in ice-cold water is undoubtedly the most effective tempering procedure, do not get too upset if there is no suitable water reservoir where you live. You may, for example, run barefooted in the snow and, if there is the possibility, lay in the snow for a while without clothes. “If you plan to pour cold water on your body it would be appropriate to submerge the wrists into it first and imagine streams of blissful freshness and joy rising up the hands. Then you may wash your face and feel the freshness and joy entering your body through your face.” I need to invite this fellow to my next party. He sounds like a hoot.

At 72? I'll take that bet. I've seen triathletes withdraw from a race when the water temp was above 78, rather than swim without a WS. OMG!:shakeshead:

I need to invite this fellow to my next party. He sounds like a hoot. I discovered that website a few weeks ago when my co-workers were teasing me about swimming outside. I read choice bits of this aloud to the amusement of all. But it does feel awesome to swim on cold water without a wetsuit.