Swimming with a wetsuit?

Before I became a triathlete I was a surfer. Once I moved to Oregon I gave up surfing but whenever I am close to the beach I still like to catch a few waves. One of the things that I have never liked about surfing is that when the ocean gets cold you must wear a wetsuit. I really don't like wetsuits at all I feel like they make me heavy and make me tired so the best thing for me was to never wear a wetsuit.

When I became I triathlete a started hearing chatter about wetsuit legal races, how people could not swim without the wetsuit, how swimming with a wetsuit was easier and I was really confused. Since I had always hated wetsuits and was a pretty strong swimmer I could just not understand why anyone would want to wear a wetsuit because it helps you swim faster?! That had never been the case in surfing.

My first few races I did not wear a wetsuit, but I noticed that even though the water was warm people had their wetsuits on. I then had a race in mid June where I was 4 people out of 400 with out a wetsuit. The water was cold and I decided to buy one out of need to fight the cold.

More on buying my wetsuit and how I like it in the next post........