Quick Test: sailfish Blizzard Swim Goggle - Slowtwitch News

I didn’t grow up on swim teams. Sure, I swam a lot in our backyard, above ground pool, and living on Cape Cod meant plenty of time at Nantucket Sound facing beaches, on Bass River, or out on the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. But goggles were never part of the equation.

It wasn’t until I came back to swimming as an adult, a baby triathlete, that I started wearing swim goggles. And I’ve always taken the mindset that if you want to improve as a triathlon swimmer, well, you should treat your swim training like a swimmer. It means that, in the pool, I’ve almost always worn Speedo goggles of some type — Speed Sockets, or Vanquishers, or if I’m feeling frisky, the Fastskin Hyper Elite.

All of these goggles have one thing in common — the gaskets sit inside your eye sockets, versus over them. Want to get that lovely raccoon look from swim goggles? Any of these pairs will suffice. And they’re great in the pool. For open water? Well…less so. They’re more prone to giving you a headache over a long period of time, and a kick to the face definitely hurts a bit more.

For open water I’ve almost always worn something larger — like Zoggs Predator Flex. It’s a lot like a decent hotel room. It’s fine. You won’t write about it. You won’t think much of it. But they work. They serve their purpose and do nothing else.

So color me surprised when I received a pair of sailfish’s open water specific goggle, the Blizzard. Like a lot of open water goggles, they feature polarized lenses to reduce glare and a gasket to fit over, not inside, the eye socket. The lenses are curved, which when in water provide a clearer picture of what’s swimming around you (like 2500 of my closest friends in Mirror Lake this week, or hopefully, the cable so I can be lazy and not sight). And there’s easy adjustability near the temples.

I wasn’t particularly impressed out of the box. The packaging is fine, but not descriptive. You can buy them in any color you want, so long as it’s black on black. It just seems like another open water goggle in a sea of them.

And then you actually wear them.

I cannot understate this enough: these are the best goggle I have ever worn outdoors, period.

It comes down to three factors. First, the soft silicone gaskets and adjustable fit made for leak-free, comfortable performance for swims lasting upwards of 90 minutes. Second, the polarized lenses simply work. I am lucky enough to have access to an outdoor pool, but lap swimming only occurs in the afternoon, and you’re usually staring into the sun if you breathe to the wrong side in each direction. You can breathe to whatever side is most comfortable, even with the sun brightly shining on that side, and you won’t then be blinded. And three, micro adjustments to the straps are possible quickly, and without having to take the goggle off.

It’s rare for me to be shocked by a product. It’s even rarer for that shock to be because the product is excellent. For it to be a swim goggle, of all things, has me dumbfounded.

They are that good.

$45.00, Available NowBuy at the Slowtwitch Shop