How much quicker is a wetsuit?
Last year, I would have said that it was 30 seconds per 400m quicker. In June 2009, my personal best for 400m was 5:55 without a wetsuit and 5:25 with a wetsuit. Both of these were done when I was feeling pretty fresh.
Today, I went to the pool to check that the moths had not got to my wetsuit. I only did the first half of my session with it on because I felt like a boil-in-the-bag. The fast 400m in the sessions are normally done in around 6:09 to 6:12. The quickest has been 6:03 on a day when I had some good motivation (someone behind me and I was feeling angry).
The first fast 400m was in 5:31. I was going fast, but not pushing it fast. The next fast one was 5:25 (with the first 100m on 1:17, reaching 200m on 2:40). This was pushing it fast but again not all out. The last one, without the wetsuit was again pushing it fast and came in at 6:09. Normally, I would be chuffed at 6:09. But to get 5:25, wow!
So how much quicker? I am not sure because none of the 400′s were “all-outs”. If the 5:25 was equivalent to my previous best of 6:03 then that is 38s per 400m’s quicker. I don’t think I pushed the 5:25 as hard as a 6:03, so I am going for 40s per 400m.
That’s 10s per 100m quicker!
But I am not sure that that is realistic. It sounds too much more than the 7.5s per 100m last year. So why the increase? Well, part of it will be differences in perceived effort. Part of it may be differences at less than “all out” speed. Who knows.
What I need to do now is do a full session in the suit, see how all three quick 400′s are. Also see how quick the moderate and easy 400′s and compare them too. If the moderate/easy ones have the same time differential then I know that I wasn’t going all out on the fast 400m.
So then the question is how quick could I go if I was doing an all out 400m rather than as part of a 4,000m set? Also, how quick could I do it if I was feeling fresh rather than my permanently tired state? I think I could do sub-5:20. A bold statement but I think that is reasonable. Once Lanza is out of the way, I’ll give it a try.
Hi
I’m a crap swimmer worried about making cut off at Wimbleball (! – a shame because the bike and run i’ll be fine with) – reckon i swim about 12min 400m (new to this swimming lark…). Given i’m twice as slow as you (and am definitely negatively buoyant!) would you reckon i’d save nearer 1 min per 400m, or would i still only get 30secs.
Thought you might have a view/some experience that i might find helpful
Good blog BTW
Cheers
Ed
Hi Ed.
I don’t know how much quicker other people are in a wetsuit compared to without. One way of finding out is to compare your times in a pool with and without a wetsuit. I guess you would be faster, but I have no idea how much.
If you are not swimming reasonably quickly without a wetsuit (e.g. more than 7:30 for 400m), I’d suggest you get one-to-one lessons from a good teacher. Failing that, there are quite a few DVD’s out there that should be able to help.
Good luck with Wimbleball.
Mark