Off the Deck

On Monday, my first outdoor LCM swim of the season, I celebrated by wearing a new suit (more on the actual suit below).

Any year always has other “new suit” occasions, all of which have long been tradition. (i.e. my birthday).

None of these, however, have such stringent selection rules to follow as for the summer suit.

It’s an intense, ephemeral season. So must be the suit. Thus, the following reqirements:
1) fun print
2) fun colors
3) new style (for me at least)
4) lycra
5) cheap or massively on sale

Yes, the polar opposite of the fall-winter-spring training suit(endurafast material, sedate color, a pattern you can live with for a year or more, basic crossback.)

On the contrary, the summer suit is specifically chosen for its wild colors/patterns/fit — cheery elements that off-set a tan nicely, but also might eventually become a little too much. This is where the lycra/cheap requirments come into play. Because when this suit is done, so is summer.

For summer 2010, I went with a Finals sports tankini. It’s the first training tankini I’ve tried, so one checkmark there. The print (kind of floral, kind of design-esque) and color scheme (white, black, turquoise and green) are both kind of Marcia-Brady-’70s wild, so more checkmarks there. And one more for lycra.

Best of all, I scored it for $18 this past winter at my fave swim website: www.swimoutlet.com. Final checkmark!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Doesn’t matter what company or brand — I have to flip through every swim catalog I receive in the mail, even if I don’t currently need anything. It’s always fun to see what’s new in prints and styles!

This includes Agonswim, even though they primarily cater to teams that want to design their own suit.

After riffling through their newest catalog that arrived this week, I realized that I don’t see any of their “house” prints around the pools. I’m assuming this is because Agonswim bases cost on order size, so a single suit would be pricer than average, especially when compared to a standard Speedo or TYR sale suit.

Although, maybe I do see Agonswim handiwork, but I just don’t realize it because it’s a specially designed and ordered team suit.

In any case, the new catalog did make me wonder about suit pattern design. Is it one of those things that sounds more fun than it proves to be? Does the final product come close to matching your vision? If you are a suit designer by trade, is it tough to come up with new designs season after season?

Must find someone in the biz some day to ask…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

The USMS decision to adhere to FINA’s ruling on suits this week meant that I had to order a new racing suit because my current one, a to-the-ankle cut, is now illegal at meets.

Not really a big deal. It was time for a new one in any case, and I found a “2010 FINA-Approved” knee-length Fastskin on sale via my fave swim-merchant, www.SwimOutlet.com.

Despite their price, in some ways it’s good that racing suits don’t last forever, because today I’m wondering how long this current ruling will stick. Will it still be in place before the new Fastskin wears? Or are we headed for another change, and thus another suit for me within a year or two?

I’m also curious about the fate of the now obsolete stash of tech suits — those with neoprene, zippers, etc. What are vendors going to do with them?

Obviously, a first move is to put them on sale now that masters can’t wear them either. But who would cough up $100 to buy one now, and for what purpose? Time trials at practice? Get used to the fit/feel of a tech suit for the first time? The occasional open water race that will allow them? Unsanctioned meets? Halloween costume?

This particular overstock situation must be kind of odd for vendors. After all, it’s not like these suits aren’t moving because they’re no longer the favored style, color or pattern of the day. They are banned.

No, these suits are not likely to end up in the “odd-size/ugly pattern” sale-bin box, merchandise that still moves because it fits someone somewhere who doesn’t care what they look like while training in a $10 suit.

So what is their fate? Recycling? Donation? Dust-rag? I wonder if someone out there will get savvy and find a good use for them…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

It’s been a hot topic with staunch supporters standing firmly on one side or the other for almost a year now: should USMS follow FINA’s ruling about competitive suits?

Today we learned the answer: yes.

I for one, am very happy about the announcement. Yep, I know that statement will anger many fellow masters swimmers. But, being an American, I plan to exercise my freedom of speech to defend my statement today.

1) I understand the argument that allowing suits such as BlueSeventy would attract new people to the sport. But at the price of losing dedicated swimmers? For every pro-tech suit person I know, I can count an equal number of lifelong competitive swimmers who were not going to race again if the suits were ruled legal.

Absolutely, let’s bring swimming to the masses, (I am the self-proclaimed swim-evangelist afterall!) but can’t we find a way to do this without alienating a good portion of the existing population?

2) I don’t like the extreme level of the “buy yourself some speed” promise of the neoprene suits. It completely negates hard work, finding your own edge, and the ultimate satisfaction of seeing your times improve based on effort, not equipment.

Having a special suit just for racing makes sense. But one that alters your alignment enough (and not equally for all) to drop crazy margins of time? I think not.

3) I’m not crazy about the potential mixed-message kids would recieve if FINA had one rule and USMS had another. Meaning, “you need to work hard and follow rules as a kid, but then all that doesn’t matter once you’re an adult.”

4) On a purely personal level, I didn’t want to have to go there to “stay competitive.” The suits seem really hot and uncomfortable. I don’t like it when my shoulders/arms are restricted.

In fact, I haven’t been excited about 2010 Nationas yet because I knew I might have to make a decision about wearing one or not if tech suits were ruled legal. On the one hand, it would be a big expense, one I don’t know that I could’ve justified on top of travel, hotel, entry fees, etc. On the other hand (and to be completely honest), I know I’d be super annoyed if someone who’s normally not within 30 seconds of me touched me out while wearing a BlueSeventy vs my Fastskin.

The issue is certainly complicated, especially when you throw Fastskins into the mix. What’s the defining line of a “tech suit?” What price is considered to be within the reach of the norm? Must rumminate some more…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

This morning, some of my fellow team refugees (our main pool is closed for three weeks) and I hit an outdoor club for an ad hoc practice. A water-cize class must have been set to follow us into the pool because a boom box, noodles and “wave gloves” were being pulled out of a on-deck storage closet by what certainly must have been an instructor.

In the locker room, there were several ladies of a “certain age” who were chattering away. Many of them were changing into skirted suits. Sudddenly it occured to me — despite spending a good portion of my life around water, I’ve never thought much about this style of swimwear. More importantly, would I some day end up in something similar?

Luckily, that thought was quickly countered by the following one: Based on the assumption (all mine, of course) that I’ll swim and compete until I die, I’m also going to assume that I’ll continue to wear some sort of racing-type swimsuit for the rest of my days. Additionally, I hope to age gracefully and thus successfully evade the whole “modesty cut” line of training/racing suits as well.

Another comforting thought: I really haven’t gotten that crazy with the suits in the past, so I don’t see myself suddenly sporting one with a skirt. Too out of my league. With the exception of a tankini here and there and a bandeau-style “sun” suit back when they were all the rage in the early ’80s and we really didn’t care about sun exposure, I mostly wear suits to train in. My self expression springs from the prints and colors I favor — dragons, skulls, amphibians, etc. against black, dark purple, silver, acid green, etc. In fact, the lovely Teri Jean (who adores Hawaiian-style florals in bright colors) has accused me of being from “the dark side of swimming.”

Of course, having written all of the above, maybe I’ll wake up one day during my 82nd year craving to put on a floral skirted suit and attend a water aerobics class. You just never know until you get there, right?

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

By now, most likely everyone in the swim community has read or heard the FINA ruling on tech suits. I for one, am kind of excited about limiting suits to textile material and the cut (neck to knee for the ladies, waist to knee for the gentlemen). I hope USMS will adopt the ruling as well; here’s why in a nutshell.

I like technical suits to some extent. I even own a fastskin, arguably the first type of “technical” suit. Yet I feel like the technical suit explosion over the past year has gotten out of control. For one, I am tired of seeing swimmers tricked out for dual/local meets. I guess I can sort of understand if you don a BlueSeventy or Jaked when shooting for a QT. But for just run of the mill meets? It just seems sort of silly to me.

Second, I don’t want to have any doubt concerning performances. Absolutely, upsets happen — that’s one of the reasons sports are entertaining to watch. But tech suits have left me wondering this past year if some results were based on a paradigm shift (training, diet, technique, etc.) or a new suit. I want swimming to remain as test of atheticism, not of suits. Yes, I get that a suit is unlikely to make the difference in finish between 1:30 and 1:00 paced swimmers. But in those close calls where competitors are separated by one-hundreths and one person is wearing a tech suit and the other isn’t — what to think?

Third, I don’t want suits to become another “keeping up the Jonses” element in life. Not everyone can afford the current batch technical suits (i.e. what about families that have several kids in the national swimming feeder system?) And it’s not like these suits are sturdy enough to last several seasons or become “hand me downs.” Personally, I’ve been steeling myself for the day when I am touched out at Nationals by a competitor wearing a BlueSeventies while I have my fastskin on. I just couldn’t justify spending that kind of money on a technical suit. Especially when it would looks like it would feel similar to a really uncomfortable wetsuit. And for the same price I could pay for oh, say my rent…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

I’ve had suits on the brain lately, and today something Lady COMSA said triggered another weird suit memory from my AAU days: boys wearing girls suits.

Yes, you read that right.

I must have been 12 or 13, and I recall it was a scy summer dual meet held at the far end of our town park pool. It was the last event of the evening, a free relay. I wish I could remember clearly how it all came about, but I think not having enough girls in my age group for a relay, and having a coach who was big on “exhibition” swims for experience and training were the sparks.

Mix in the casual-fun atmosphere of the meet, and suddenly you have two older male teammates volunteering to swim. And, since it was the girls heat, they decided to really get into the spirit of things and borrow drag suits from some of the older girls. (Yes, they put them on over their own suits!)

My strongest memory? Watching them try to inch the straps over their shoulders. At the time it looked so odd, but now I think we’re all used to watching women and men struggling into full-body suits while in public thanks to the advent of technical suits.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

All the recent talk about what’s legal (or won’t be legal once FINA decides and makes an announcement in September) for racing attire has me ruminating on “technical” suits of the past.

During my AAU age-group years, the “Belgrade” was all the rage for girls. Remember them? They had two snaps on one shoulder and a long, skinny, laced-up panel on the back. I had two — solid black, and then one with a really pretty abstract pattern in black, white and turquoise. After spending the last two years inching on my full legnth Fastskin (compliments of the fabulous Ellie) for Nationals though, it’s funny now to recall how you always left your snaps undone until right before the blocks because your suit was “too tight” otherwise. Heck, we didn’t know “tight” then!

During my varsity years I recall wearing another wacky racing suit. Maybe Speedo or the Finals made them. It had a black lycra lining with a silver (I kid you not) exterior in some kind of (what was then) “new age” metalic-y material that did not give one bit. You felt like you were incased in plastic wrap. I can’t remember if water beaded off them (or was supposed to) or not; I just remember how unbreathable-hot they were.

While sitting through heats on the bleechers during Saturday of our recent State meet, Barkley brought up the Speedo “paper” suit. Besides being a super fast sprinter, Barkley knows how to have fun — she thought she might still have one from her college career so she promised to check at home that night. Not only did she find it, but Barkely wore it for one of her Sunday races. Now, I know what’s reallyimpressing all of you masters out there: that the infamously skimpy-cut suit still fits Barkley well, years after college.

As for now? I hope the fastskins remain legal because I really love mine. Not only do I appreciate the compression factor that aids recovery during multiple day meets, but I feel all shark-like with it on!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Maybe it’s the economy, but there is no time for deliberation these days on purchasing sale swim suits off websites. And yes, I swear I’m not being paid by swim purveyors to blog about this today!

Last week I got one of those email alerts from Swimoutlet.com* which advertised the sale price of $166 for women’s full body Fastskins. I’ve been thinking about buying a new one for the summer competitive season, so I was excited to see they had my size in stock, and in racy-black, my favorite color.

Yet I didn’t jump on the offer. I figured that my normal approach — think about it for a few days then purchase — would work just fine.

Except it didn’t. By Monday afternoon my size had sold out. Grrrrrrr!!! Lesson learned? If you see a desired item on sale on a site, you probably can rumminate for a day or two. If you get an email that highlights a sale item? BUY NOW!

Here’s hoping there’s another sale before August…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

*O.K. so I will provide a free shout out concerning one swim website: Swimoutlet.com. they are by far my fave site for all things swim! They have the best mechandise selection, offer great sales and provide speedy delivery.

Yesterday’s snail mail included a clipping from my mom’s local paper about the impact of the LZR suits on scholastic swimming.

I’m surprised that a small regionally-focused daily would run an article on competitive swimwear debates. Then again, maybe everyone is still trying to ride the Phelps-gravy train (i.e. the “anything with Phelps will sell!!!” mentality) months after the Olympics. (While the article doesn’t focus on Phelps, it does include a shot of Phelps looking very master-of-the-world in a LZR).

But I digress. “High-tech Suits a Costly Edge” brings swimming’s eternal “is that an edge?” argument to the non-swimming masses. To sum: Although studies don’t exist yet to prove it, the LZR seems to provide an advantage. So, how can competition remain fair unless every college and high school student has one?

Of course, the article highlights how most students can’t afford one, let alone the several per season (due to wear and tear) that an elite level swimmer would actually need.

So what can you do?
1) Level the playing field by banning LZRs from all scholastic meets.
2) Level the playing field by giving all competitors one LZR suit per scholastic season.
3) Level the playing field by having swimmers compete naked (depsite some serious money making opportunities, this would just be icky for so many reasons).
4) Have two divisions akin to open water (wetsuit and non wet suit): LZR and non-LZR
5) Denote records set in a LZR in a separate category, sort of like wind-aided outdoor track records, until the debate is settled to everyone’s satisfaction.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist