Friday I went to REI to spend our member's dividend. If RDC had been home, we'd probably have a GPS. My goal was a triathlon suit. I don't know what brands REI might usually stock, but at this point it offered only Danskin unitards and plenty of them. I took a large and an extra-large into the fitting room, already dubious about the minimal padding at the crotch for biking: enough to interfere with swimming, not enough to comfort even a sprint-distance bike ride. I tried on the large first--I live in hope--and it was fine in its lower half. I had to struggle to get the zipper up my ribcage, though, and as soon as I raised my arms it unzipped a little in what I imagine it would prefer to be a lot under the added strain of running. I had raised my arms to see how my breasts were contained, and goddamn, I don't think anyone at Danskin has actually ever seen a breast.
For starters, the struggle to close the zipper indicated an insufficiency of material at the bust. With the zip closed, my breasts were smashed southward. I could see my nipples--flimsy fabric--and they were farther south than I hope to see them before I'm 70. I hauled them up above a seam just below the bustline that suggested but did not provide support. I ran in place in the fitting room, and it was an ugly sight. My breasts sloshed from side to side and downward. I tried on a medium, hoping for more support, and the bottom was still fine but the top only constrictive.
Safely back in an actual bra, I sought a salesperson. First I found two men, neither of whom either had breasts or was an athlete. Then I found a woman who was an athlete but almost entirely lacked breasts, lucky wench. I asked her, just to be clear, if this seriously was meant to be the only garment worn during a triathlon. Yes. She suggested I could add bike shorts over it and a bra under it, and with those additions the point of buying a unitard would be what? This I didn't speak. The suit still would have shoved my bosom down and to the sides and, I now resentfully imagine, smashed them out and under the bra; and why would I wear padding during the swim and run if I didn't have to?
This is what I'm going to race in, since there no nudity is permitted in transition areas: my running shorts, of a loose but flimsy fabric that I haven't swum in but which I think will be okay; an athletic bra, because it supports and restrains adequately; and a running shirt I spent part of the dividend on, which unlike my usual running attire comes as far up my sternum as my swimsuit does (reducing drag); and for the bike portion, bike shorts on top of running shorts. If the shorts in the water are weirdly floaty or a hindrance or if the elastic waist wants to crawl down my torso and off my person, I can add my tankini bottom over them. Running shorts under bike shorts is the problem: I don't particularly want the former embedded in my crotch but that's where they might end up.
I want someone to justify a triathlon suit to me. No one suggests wearing the same footwear throughout--yes, swim in sneakers! run in molded biking shoes with a metal cleat! bike barefoot!--so why one piece of clothing?
Eh. I am doing a sprint-distance triathlon, maybe only one. I am not competing in but only completing it. I don't need gear.