Wailin' about wetsuits

There’s a stranger on my tri forum. And I don’t like strangers.

So what do I do? Why, get into a cat fight of course!

The background:
The Lone Star Tri festival is coming to Galveston. There'll be a sprint, a half ironman, and a quarter ironman... because apparently here in Tejas we're too good for the Olympic distance-- you know, the one in the actual Olympics. I'm 10% annoyed because a famous RD (Timberman, Musselman guy) is putting on this deal, and he excessively uses ellipses in his tri forum posts. I'm also a little annoyed that everyone's preemptively kissing his butt. Isn't that more appropriate after the successful races? But still, it's nice to have an RD who pays attention to the club and tries to get folks excited and involved. So what if I'm not a "tri festival" kinda girl? I can respect that others are.

A Stranger joins our forum to specifically ask this RD if his friend's registration for the sprint came through. He mentions he's not a local (Indeed, he's in school north of The Republic of Texas) and he's jazzed for the race.

Excuse me, but isn't that a question that belongs in an email and not on a public forum? I don't know how you do things Up North (I love pretending I'm not from up there sometimes), but around here you post questions and comments that pertain, you know, to others. I can say with absolute certainty that no one who read that gave a flying mouse turd about dude's friend's registration.

The RD obviously replied via email, and the Stranger kept replying to him on the forums. I decide this stranger is a D'bag. Let's call him that for the rest of the post, eh?

The story
Someone asked on the Lone Star Tri training forum thread about wearing a wetsuit for the sprint. A few folks said you didn't need one since the water's in the low 70s/high 60s, a few folks said they were planning on wearing one, and a few folks added information about renting wetsuits, because the question asker sounded like s/he didn't own one. I am neutral about the conversation.

D'bag chimes in. He says he's planning on wearing one and he's expecting to exit the water around or just under 7:00 (for ~500m swim, so a pretty decent swimmer). He claims that everyone should wear one unless they're expecting their transition to be slower by more than a minute because you lose about 10 to 20 seconds per 100 yards while wearing one. For a sprint. When you're sprinting.

Someone else asks about his info source, and I do too. He says he's not sure, but that's the generally understood benefit of wearing one; he, for one, dropped from a 6:00 400 yard TT to a 5:30 when suited up.

Since I swim just over 1:30/100yd at a regular pace and hold about 1:22/100yd when I'm busting my hiney, I am skeptical. Someone who's already reasonably fast who drops that much time in a wetsuit? No way! It doesn't happen. I usually lose maybe 2 seconds/100yds in a race in my wetsuit, so the first problem I have with D'bag's statement is that he says 10-20 seconds/100yd, not 0-20 seconds/100yd to include everyone from awesome swimmer to tri newbie.

So I look to the internet for help and find these studies:
Wet suit effect: a comparison between competitive swimmers and triathletes

Effect of a triathlon wet suit on drag during swimming

Physiological responses to swimming while wearing a wet suit

The most relevant of which is the first one comparing competitive swimmers and triathletes in wetsuits. This study found no significant difference in swim times with or without a wetsuit in a 400m time trial for 8 swimmers and about a 19 second reduction in time while wearing a wetsuit for the 8 triathletes. I post this and say that dropping 4-5 seconds/100yd is a much more reasonable number for most people to drop, which makes the wetsuit wearing a wash for average to faster-ish swimmers when transition is taken into account. I feel good about my statement because, well, at least it's backed up with one study.

D'bag posts again and questions my ability to swim straight as well as my wetsuit age and fit. I'm peeved because my wetsuit is a 1 year old full Ironman® stealth, a very respectable buy (and very inexpensive since I bought it just as they switched to Blue Seventy. Go me!) and I'm in the dead center of my size in terms of weight and height, so that mofo fits. What's more, I'm not such a dumbass I compare an open water swim in a wetsuit to my pace in a pool, D'bag. I race much slower than I swim: despite holding 1:28/100yd for all my long pool swims all last year and still averaged a 1:34/yd in Arizona. It comes with the territory when you hit open water.

Here's what I don't get: what does my swimming straight have to do with a study that has to be marginally more objective than his results? Um, nothing. He further includes these links:
http://www.athletesden.com/wetsuitfaqs.jsp

http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/features/wetsuit.shtml
as proof he's righter than I am.

I snap. I sent a very respectful email telling him that I don't appreciate his overestimating the benefits of wearing a wetsuit, that it's a very individual thing and certainly not for everyone in a sprint. I believe that wetsuits should be worn for comfort, safety, and confidence-- if you're faster in one as well, awesome. But not everyone IS faster, especially by that much. What's more, that first link is to a guy with a HR in the mid-160s for an IM swim. Is it me or is that obscenely high for an Ironman swim? I swim in the 120s-140s, maybe higher at the beginning of a race or in sprints, but an Ironman is supposed to be as aerobic as possible. Considering your HR is much lower in the water than in air (10-20 bpm from what I've heard), a 164 seems like it's pushing the envelope.

He responds, saying I don't know about wetsuit gains because I've been swimming my whole life. And who am I to judge heart rate? That's dumb. It's different for everyone.

Wait-- it's different for everyone?
I want to beat this A-hole up. Ultimately that was my whole bleeping point: wearing a wetsuit isn't a guarantee you're zipping through the water holding sub 1:00/100yds. Sure, they help you more when you're a weaker or newer swimmer. Yes, for almost everyone the reduce effort and heart rate. But don't go flipping telling people that they're going to get significantly faster in a wetsuit-- say "I go significantly faster in a wetsuit. Y'all should try it."

One more thing I can't decide on: do you think a wetsuit helps more when you're all slow like an IM/HIM swim or when you're busting your tail like in a sprint/Olympic? It seems to me a wetsuit would help you more on the longer, slower stuff because your stroke is more efficient (for most) when you're not trying to go all out. Ideas?

All that said, I'm curious about your anecdotal evidence: how much time do you guys drop in a wetsuit?