A Runners Review on Swimming Goggles.

If you have been reading this blog recently you will know that I have been confined to the swimming pool for the past four months due to a running related hip injury that is refusing d to heal. I am the first to admit that as a runner, to begin with I knew very little about any aspect of swimming, ranging from stroke technique to pool etiquette; but over the past four months I have been buying and testing what seems like a very large amount of goggles to try and find a pair that can stay watertight and stand up to the demands of long distance swimming without breaking the bank. The following blog post details my results.

The first pair…

My first pair - Zoggs Phantom Elite's

As a runner preparing for his first swimming pool training session all those months ago, I found myself heading down to the local sports shop to pick up some essentials. Along with the usual towels and swimming trunks (my beach-wear didn’t quite cut it!), goggles were pretty high on my list of things to buy. As usual, my shopping trip was a flying visit and I didn’t have much time to take in the entire range of goggles on display in my local SweatShop, preferring instead to go for a big brand mid priced goggle in the hope that I could put my trust in a big company and that the pair would be suitable enough for an amateur swimmer such as myself. How wrong I was. The pair I bought was a pair of Zogg’s Phantom Elites costing £11.99 and were bought on recommendation from the sales assistant under the assurance that they were a popular model and should suit my needs. The goggles were great to begin with, as they were comfy and seemed to fit my eyes and face with almost no adjustment. However, after three weeks of thrice weekly swimming sessions, the left eyepiece began to leak water around the seal between it and my face and no amount of fiddling and adjusting could stop the leak turning into a torrent within a few more days. So back to the shop I went to buy another pair.

The buying continues…

Thinking that I just must have been unlucky and bought a damaged pair the first time, I bought another pair of the same goggles in the hope they would last me a lot longer than the other pair. Upon hitting the swimming pool the next day, the same problem resulted, in that the goggles leaked water within 20 or so laps of the pool and upon taking them off and refitting them the problem would only get worse. Upon returning to the shop to return them I then invested in a pair of Speedo Mariner Mirror goggles, thinking that maybe the Zoggs that I had previously purchased were just not designed for long distance swimming and that the Speedo’s would stand up to multiple lengths in the pool more sufficiently. Again I was disappointed as after five lengths of the swimming pool, the Speedo’s let in water and the only way to prevent this was to tighten the head band until my eyes were almost popping out of my head! In case you are wondering if I had taken time to adjust the nose strap; I tried wearing the goggles on every single setting until the strap became wedged on the narrowest setting and i had to loosen it off upon my return home with the help of a flat headed screwdriver! Not only did the goggles let in water, i had to wear them so tight that the area around my eyes became bruised for a few days afterwards; leading to a few stares at work the next day! Over the next two months, I bought numerous pairs of goggles including Speedo Marniers, Speedo Rapides, Speedo Vanquishers and Zoggs Predators, and although each did keep out water for a time and met with limited success, all but the Zogg Predators were uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time in the pool (upwards of 90minutes)

Success, a pair of goggles that are actually watertight!

Best Buy - Decathlon's Nabaiji XBASE ADULT

Then, a breakthrough! Whilst I was sitting on the edge of the pool one day adjusting my goggles, a man front crawled his was up to me and suggested that I should try a buying a pair of the cheapest goggles from the local Decathlon store as he was also an injured runner who had been relegated to the swimming pool and had gone through almost exactly the same process as me with regards to picking out a pair of waterproof goggles. The next day I picked up a pair of Decathlon’s Nabaiji X- Base goggles for £3.99 and to my delight they worked perfectly. The eye seal around the goggles is both comfortable and very successful at keeping the water out even after taking the goggles of and putting them back on again when they are wet. I have been using them for over a month now and they have not failed me yet. I have been swimming 100 lengths three times a week for the past two weeks and even during these sessions they have been watertight and comfortable. They only steam up after about 30 lengths, which was about the same as the other goggles and I think this has something to do with both my body temperature and the temperature of the swimming pool. At the end of the day, even if they begin to leak water in the next few months, for £3.99 a pop I can but three pairs for the price of one pair of Speedo Rapide’s even if the Speedo’s are supposed to be the best goggles on the market!

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Cheapest Online Retailers:

Zogg’s Predator’s > Amazon.co.uk < or > Amazon.com <

Zogg’s Phantom’s > Amazon.co.uk < or > Amazon.com <

Speedo Vanquisher’s > Amazon.co.uk < or > Amazon.com <

Speedo Rapide’s > Amazon.co.uk < or > Amazon.com <