thanks for the continued encouragement ladies.

I did order a swimsafe. I hope to get it in before next Monday's swim. Has anyone else used one? The site says I can use it in the actual tri. I don't know if this will help me with my problem, but I don't think that it will hurt.

I'm still a little confused about the wetsuit issue. I really hadn't planned to use one since I will just be doing a couple of summer tri's. But everyone keeps referring to them. I figured it would be best to just get used to swimming without them. I did pick up a cheap shortie one at Sam's but haven't used it yet.

Around here competition is light and I could be in contention for age group awards (I won first in my age group in my first tri last year). I'm not doing tri's to win my age group, but I'd hate to be knocked out just for using a wetsuit.

It sounds like some of you are saying that the wetsuit helped you with issues and for some it hindered? Well, I don't think it's whether it's the wetsuit or not, it's just that some of us seem to have some mental panic issue with the swim section that we are dealing with and trying to get through.

ok.....just rambling now. need to clean the house......