Monday 16 July 2007

Rubber Fetish, moi?

With the London Triathlon looming I decide that I needed to get myself a wetsuit this weekend. Ideally I should have had this ages ago and should have been practicing my open water swimming all through the summer (what summer?). But it's not an ideally world, so I haven't.

Anyway, on Sunday morning I headed down to Tri UK which is my local triathlon shop. As ever the guys there were very helpful and showed me a range of suits and found one my size in my price range. Then I had the joy of trying the wetsuit on. A triathlon wetsuit needs to fit properly so it really is a good idea to try a suit on before you buy it. The trouble is it isn't much fun. All the tugging, pulling, squeezing, sweating, and cursing is not something I find enjoyable. Rubber is just not my thing.

Happily I did manage to cram myself into the suit without any outside assistance. The wetsuit seemed very tight all over, especially around the neck. It wasn't at all comfortable walking across the shop to get to the test pool. Note to Tri Uk: having the changing cubicles and test pool at opposite corners of the shop is not the brightest idea, the cubicles are also miles away from all the clothes in the shop. This is my first swimming wetsuit so I wasn't quite sure what to expect and it certainly seemed far less comfortable than my much thicker diving wetsuit. However, once I got into the pool and let a bit of water into the suit it felt great. I haven't seen a wetsuit shop with a pool before but the endless pool at Tri Uk is a brilliant bit of kit. If I hadn't been able to try the suit in the water I would have been sure it was the wrong size but once in the water it felt great.

Now I just need to get some open water swims in before London. Time for some trips to Weymouth I think.

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