First tri

pauldoo

Hey

I’m doing my first triathlon at the triathy in May, doing the sprint distance. Have a couple of questions I’m hoping someone could help me with;
1. Open water swimming; I haven’t swam on open water yet (no significant distance anyway), im training in the pool and doing 1km in about 28-30 minutes, will have this up to 1.5 km before the race. Is this distance/pace enough to cope with the currents in the river?
2. Wetsuit etc; Do you need a full body wetsuit or will the shorter ones do? Have to go buy something over the next couple of weeks, reading a load of the threads on here about the wetsuits but not sure what to get
The swimming is the big issue for me, I’ve done duathlons/runs/cycles/advernture races, just nothing with swimming
Thanks in advance

MD1983

Paul -

1. if your swimming 1.5k in the pool then you should be fit enough as the wetsuit would add bouyancy. you should practice in the river if you can. athy triclub swim there some evenings during the week and have someone walking the bank. the sprint swim is 250m upstream and 500m down so currents will only hamper you on the upstream leg. during dry times there are actually shallow points in the river that you can stand up in and to me anyway its one of the safer spots to swim (except whens it very wet then the current would wash you down the river if you are not a good swimmer).

2. i would go for the full body suit if you plan to do a few, you should be able to pick one up cheap enough (little over €120 for a new one but not top of range).

pauldoo

MD1983 wrote: »

Paul -

1. if your swimming 1.5k in the pool then you should be fit enough as the wetsuit would add bouyancy. you should practice in the river if you can. athy triclub swim there some evenings during the week and have someone walking the bank. the sprint swim is 250m upstream and 500m down so currents will only hamper you on the upstream leg. during dry times there are actually shallow points in the river that you can stand up in and to me anyway its one of the safer spots to swim (except whens it very wet then the current would wash you down the river if you are not a good swimmer).

2. i would go for the full body suit if you plan to do a few, you should be able to pick one up cheap enough (little over €120 for a new one but not top of range).

Thanks for the reply-where is the best place to get a suit,i take it would be best to get fitted,rather than buy it straight off the internet