amusedI did my tri on the cheap. My bike was refurbished and I bought bike shorts on sale but other than that, I had 2 bike jerseys I had bought on clearance for 10 dollars a number of years ago, a pair of shorts from Walmart and my clearance shoes and my clearance swim suit.
I was going to go with Gatorade which is far more reasonable than the stuff they were selling but a friend suggested cranberry juice. I had a cranberry/peach juice I like in the fridge. It worked great with far less sugars. Studies have confirmed that chocolate milk is a better recovery drink than most of the chemical mixes.
This became more interesting as I looked at a wetsuit so I can really swim through the winter. It is far colder than San Francisco in most place I find myself. Training for 10 minutes at a time is really not productive.
I found a rental wetsuit website that has clearance items for a reasonable price but I didn't see the wetsuit sizing information. I emailed a prominent wetsuit company to ask about sizing... They emailed me back but also said that they wouldn't honor a warranty on a used suit...
Now to be honest I never could rationalize buying a technical suit for swimming either. The money is too much. But let's do the math for a wetsuit. A used wetsuit that I can return within 30 days if it doesn't fit is less than 1/3 the price of a new one with a warranty.... That means if something happens I can buy 2 more and still not spend the money that a new one would cost.
It goes against my nature to even be considering a wetsuit but let's be reasonable about it. No one is going to donate one for a winter's blogging about how it worked or didn't for my purposes. I don't intend to use it for more than 4-5 months at a time and certainly not in a 'swim or race' environment.
So do I care about a warranty? Sorry but the way I do math it is far overrated for my needs as is the price for a new wetsuit..... So if I do get one, it will be a farmer john's used wetsuit and my wallet will be very happy with that decision. If I decide to get one......