As a lifelong swimmer, wearing a wetsuit is not something that I need when it comes to open water swimming. I actually would much rather swim without one. However, if a triathlon is wetsuit legal, I'll be sure to wear one as it does keep me warm in cold water and it gives me a little lift to make swimming faster a bit easier. Because I've spent over two decades mastering my body position, alignment and tautness in the pool, the wetsuit doesn't give me a huge advantage when I swim in the open water. Whereas for Karel - who just learned to swim in the summer of 2012 - the wetsuit gives him everything he needs to "speed up" his swim times. For me, I don't get the same significant advantage.
For the past five plus years, we had a great relationship with Xterra wetsuits. The Vengeance was our wetsuit of choice and it worked really well for us. My fastest wetsuit legal open water time in an Ironman was 57.04 - set in Ironman Austria in 2016. Karel also had several great Ironman and 70.3 times with his Vengeance wetsuit.
After partnering with ROKA this year, we purchased our new wetsuits and wondered - will this wetsuit be as fast and comfortable as our Xterra wetsuit??
After St. George 70.3, Karel was wondering if his new Roka Maverick X wetsuit was really as fast as his previous Xterra Vengeance wetsuit as he wasn't so thrilled with his swim time. So, we decided to put them to the test with a wetsuit pool test, prescribed by Gerry Rodrigues.
Gerry R. with Tower 26 posted a podcast (and video) on how to test wetsuits. He stressed the importance of testing a variety of wetsuits, instead of just purchasing a wetsuit based only on price, popularity or hype. We have had a few of our athletes use this test to try out different wetsuits and not surprisingly, even though we have partnered with ROKA, some athletes found that other brands worked better for them.
For the past five plus years, we had a great relationship with Xterra wetsuits. The Vengeance was our wetsuit of choice and it worked really well for us. My fastest wetsuit legal open water time in an Ironman was 57.04 - set in Ironman Austria in 2016. Karel also had several great Ironman and 70.3 times with his Vengeance wetsuit.
After partnering with ROKA this year, we purchased our new wetsuits and wondered - will this wetsuit be as fast and comfortable as our Xterra wetsuit??
After St. George 70.3, Karel was wondering if his new Roka Maverick X wetsuit was really as fast as his previous Xterra Vengeance wetsuit as he wasn't so thrilled with his swim time. So, we decided to put them to the test with a wetsuit pool test, prescribed by Gerry Rodrigues.
Gerry R. with Tower 26 posted a podcast (and video) on how to test wetsuits. He stressed the importance of testing a variety of wetsuits, instead of just purchasing a wetsuit based only on price, popularity or hype. We have had a few of our athletes use this test to try out different wetsuits and not surprisingly, even though we have partnered with ROKA, some athletes found that other brands worked better for them.
After an exhausting week of training as we gear up for Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga on Sunday, we decided to do our wetsuit test on Sunday afternoon in place of our normal Sunday PM swim.
After warming up for around a 1000, we did the test which was:
5 x 100's at race pace w/ 10 sec rest (per wetsuit)
We used our smartphone stopwatch to record the times to be as exact as possible. Karel went first with his ROKA suit and then I went second in my Xterra wetsuit. We swam a 100 yards right before the test just to adjust the wetsuit and to get a good feel of it in the water. After we both completed the first round, we put on the other suit. Whoever was on deck recorded the times with paper/pen and gave the 10 sec countdown so that this was a blind test (not knowing what times you did until it was complete).
Along with the times, we also recorded our immediate feedback with each wetsuit. With years of experience with our Xterra Vengeance wetsuit, we always found it comfortable to put on. But after comparing it to the ROKA, we noticed how much better our arms felt with the ROKA. We felt like the ROKA was more fitting, allowing for a more natural swimming feel. We both agreed our arms were more tired in the Xterra whereas with the ROKA, it felt much more efficient and smooth. Karel immediately mentioned that his RPE was going up in the Xterra and in the ROKA he never felt tired. Subjective feedback is important when doing a wetsuit test for a wetsuit may be fast but if it exhausts you or feels uncomfortable, it's probably not the right wetsuit for you.
The purpose of this blog is not to say that one wetsuit is better than another. As I mentioned above, we have athletes who don't wear ROKA simply because it doesn't work for them. Try out a variety of brands well in advance of your upcoming race so that you can feel confidence and comfortable when swimming in the open water.
Here are the results of our test:
As a reference, Karel usually swims 1:22-1:25 for 100 yards if doing half IM effort with short rest in the pool. As a comparison, I typically swim 1:14-1:16 for 100 yards if doing half IM effort with short rest in the pool. You can see how much the wetsuit helps both of us, but specifically how much it helps Karel as a non-swimmer.
Karel ROKA
1:10.22
1:11.05
1:11.35
1:10.63
1:10.51
Marni ROKA
1:10.40
1:10:35
1:10.67
1:09:78
1:09:40
Karel Xterra
1:10.70
1:11.76
1:12.02
1:11.97
1:11.99
Marni Xterra
1:10.60
1:10.42
1:10.25
1:10.05
1:10.00
After warming up for around a 1000, we did the test which was:
5 x 100's at race pace w/ 10 sec rest (per wetsuit)
We used our smartphone stopwatch to record the times to be as exact as possible. Karel went first with his ROKA suit and then I went second in my Xterra wetsuit. We swam a 100 yards right before the test just to adjust the wetsuit and to get a good feel of it in the water. After we both completed the first round, we put on the other suit. Whoever was on deck recorded the times with paper/pen and gave the 10 sec countdown so that this was a blind test (not knowing what times you did until it was complete).
Along with the times, we also recorded our immediate feedback with each wetsuit. With years of experience with our Xterra Vengeance wetsuit, we always found it comfortable to put on. But after comparing it to the ROKA, we noticed how much better our arms felt with the ROKA. We felt like the ROKA was more fitting, allowing for a more natural swimming feel. We both agreed our arms were more tired in the Xterra whereas with the ROKA, it felt much more efficient and smooth. Karel immediately mentioned that his RPE was going up in the Xterra and in the ROKA he never felt tired. Subjective feedback is important when doing a wetsuit test for a wetsuit may be fast but if it exhausts you or feels uncomfortable, it's probably not the right wetsuit for you.
The purpose of this blog is not to say that one wetsuit is better than another. As I mentioned above, we have athletes who don't wear ROKA simply because it doesn't work for them. Try out a variety of brands well in advance of your upcoming race so that you can feel confidence and comfortable when swimming in the open water.
Here are the results of our test:
As a reference, Karel usually swims 1:22-1:25 for 100 yards if doing half IM effort with short rest in the pool. As a comparison, I typically swim 1:14-1:16 for 100 yards if doing half IM effort with short rest in the pool. You can see how much the wetsuit helps both of us, but specifically how much it helps Karel as a non-swimmer.
Karel ROKA
1:10.22
1:11.05
1:11.35
1:10.63
1:10.51
Marni ROKA
1:10.40
1:10:35
1:10.67
1:09:78
1:09:40
Karel Xterra
1:10.70
1:11.76
1:12.02
1:11.97
1:11.99
Marni Xterra
1:10.60
1:10.42
1:10.25
1:10.05
1:10.00