A Suit Score!

Claire asked me if most of the tris around here are pool swims. There are actually quite a few races with lake swims, but being so far north I'm pretty sure the water temperature is never warm enough to race without a wetsuit. If I hope to expand my race repertoir next year I'm going to need a suit for sure. I heard about a few end of season deals on wetsuits - one was 20% off all remaining wetsuits in stock at a local tri store. The other was the sell off of a few rental wetsuits at another store. I figured I'd try my luck for a new suit first, so this afternoon I headed off to try on wetsuits. I prepared myself for a horrifying experience. After all, trying to stuff yourself into neoprene sausage casing can't really be all fun and good times, can it? I walked in the store and talked to the fellow working there about the Blue Seventy suits. We looked at the sizing chart and I was pretty sure I was going to need an XL. He encouraged me to try the size down Athena version first and after struggling to pull it on for about 10 minutes the final verdict was that it was way too big. Way too much room in the hips and calves. Sizing down again...I like that! So I trotted back to the changing room with the smaller wetsuit and tried to cajole that neoprene up and on to my body. After much struggling I pulled the zipper up and headed back out in to the store to get the verdict on the smaller suit. Still too big! After sizing down again and much coaxing of the neoprene we had a winner. With all of that sizing down it wasn't quite the horrifying experience I expected. It sure was a workout though... So check out the new suit, a Blue Seventy Reaction: