COACH JON S GUIDE TO TRIATHLONS This will hopefully give many of you some good guidelines to follow when racing triathlons. For many of you it will be your first race. For others, it will be the first race after a long period of training. In this guide I will try and take you through every part of racing a triathlon step by step so you are as prepared as you can be for the race. PREPARATION OF THE WEEK LEADING UP TO THE RACE As my coach always says the hay is in the barn. All the hard work of training has been done. No hard training at this point will benefit you in the race. It will only make you more tired or sore for the race. On average it takes about a month to see any improvements from a hard training session, that time has long since passed. What we need to focus on this week is rest and recovery. REST The first thing is make sure you are getting enough rest. Go to bed early, take naps, sleep in when you can. This is your bodies best mechanism for recovery. Surprisingly it also matters more the sleep you do on a Wednesday or a Thursday than it does the night before. If you have been resting up the week leading into the race you can still race very well on just a few hours of sleep. If for some reason you have to drive down to San Diego super late on Saturday and get only a few hours of sleep, make sure you have plenty of sleep saved up throughout the week. EATING The second thing to focus on this week is eating healthy. Again, there is an old theory that as long as your carbo load the night before the race, you will do fine. All that is usually going to do is make you take at least a couple trips to the porta potty the morning of the race. Make sure you are eating healthy, well balanced, meals throughout the week. Also make sure you are eating or drinking some kind of recovery food within 30 min after any kind of hard work out. Your body craves it and will put all those nutrients to good use. The night before the race, try and eat something that you know wont upset your stomach in any way. With the nerves and intensity of racing, your stomach can be very sensitive to new things. You don t want to have any stomach or intestinal issues in the race. RECOVERY Lastly, focus on getting the body recovered. If you are carrying any kind of injury right now, take some time off and get better. If you are having some kind of running problem with shins, knees, feet, etc., do not try and do anything fast or hard this week. Think slower than warmup pace and nothing more than 30 minutes tops. Also, make sure you are icing the problem areas. ICING Take a dixie cup, fill it up with water and freeze it. Then take it out, peel away part of it and massage the affected areas. Make sure you are moving around and getting the muscles and ligaments
underneath the skin and not just the surface. After hard runs, even if you don t have inflamed areas, use this technique to massage knees, tendons and feet. If you do have some kind of running injury, do this twice a day for 10-15minutes. You will be amazed with the results. On top of the ice massage, you should try and get at least one ice bath in. Take a tub or a large barrel, fill it up with cold water and put a big bag of ice in it. 20lb bags are good. I think Costco has them for a couple bucks. Sit always down into it for about 10-15 minutes. Do not take a warm shower afterwards, as that would defeat the purpose. On top of all the eating, sleeping and icing, make sure you are resting your body. Don t go out and do some crazy fitness class or add extra practices or have some late night party. Whenever you can, sit down and take the weight off your feet. Elevate your legs above your heart as much as possible. This will help them recover and feel fresh. If you do all these things, come race day, you are going to be feeling super antsy to go do something. You will feel like you haven t worked out in forever and will be bouncing on the walls. That s ok, lets channel that into a great race! PACKING FOR THE RACE Everyone should have a list of what they should bring for the race. I suggest getting everything together that you are going to bring and go over the list a couple times. You would be amazed with some of the things people have forgotten. I have seen people on the team duct tape an extra pair of shoes to their cleats because they forgot their bike shoes.
1. Do not forget a race belt! That is the number one thing forgotten for a triathlon. If you have extras, bring them. If you don t have one, you can go to running warehouse or GH Sports to get one. They are pretty cheap. 2. Think about nutrition for the race. This is a sprint distance race, so you should not have too much food with you on the race. Most of your nutrition should be consumed before the race. Don t be that person that has two water bottles and an aero bottle for a 30-minute bike ride. 3. Bring a change of clothes for before and after the race. You will probably not want to be in your tri kit all day. 4. Bring a sleeping bag and a pillow. 5. Bring extra caps and goggles. 6. Bring some snacks for the ride. PREPARATION FOR THE ACTUAL RACE The old saying in triathlon is Don t try anything new on race day. Don t try that new GU or sports drink everyone is raving about unless you have trained with it. Your stomach might not like you very much. Don t try a flying mount or putting your shoes on and off while on the bike unless you have practices it to the point you could do it in your sleep. The stress and intensity of the race makes everything harder to do. Don t be that person that crashes in front of everyone in transition because they are trying to do something they aren t prepared for. If you are going to try and bike and or run without socks, make sure you test that out before race day. The last thing you want are big blisters showing up have way through the 5k and not being able to walk for the next week. Go through the whole race in your head a bunch of times. Start with how you are going to lay out your transition mat. When setting up your transition always check to see what gear you are in. Make sure it is not too big of a gear. Here is the order that most people follow when doing their transitions: T1 1. Exit the water. You might feel a little dizzy first getting on land. Take a second or two to get your bearings. 2. While running towards transition take your cap and goggles off 3. Unzip your wetsuit and take it down to your waist 4. When you get to transition, take the rest of the wetsuit off using one of two methods a. With one leg step on the wetsuit on the other leg and pull up with that leg until it comes off your foot. Repeat the process with the other foot.
T2 b. Sit down and use your hands to pull the rest of the suit off (my preferred method) 5. Put your helmet and glasses on (fasten the strap before touching the bike) a. Have your helmet resting upside down unclasped on your aero bars or on the ground with the straps hanging off the side so it is one easy motion to put the helmet on. b. Have your glasses upside down either inside of the helmet or next to it on the ground 6. Put your shoes if not already on the bike 7. Run out of transition 8. Make sure you know where mount/dismount line is! Don t be caught off guard. Also figure out what direction you run in and out of transition. You will look silly going the opposite way as everyone else 1. If you are doing a flying dismount, then leading into the transition with ¼ to ½ miles to go, take your feet out of your shoes and peddle with your feet on top of your shoes. 2. Move one leg over to the other side of the bike and step down with that foot right before the dismount line. Remember start running with the opposite foot first 3. When you get to your rack, put bike on rack 4. Remove helmet 5. Take off shoes if not already off 6. Put on running shoes 7. Grab Race belt and run out of transition (put race belt on while running) Make sure you have everything laid out so you can get to them quickly and in order. A couple notes about transition area 1. Make sure you know what rack your bike is at. Find some kind of physical marker or know what number down the line you are. 2. Make sure you are not crowding the person next to you. The transition areas should alternate sides so the two people next to you on the rack are transitioning on the other side of the rack. 3. Get there early so you can get a good spot. The most desirable spots are at the end of the racks. WARMUP Give yourself plenty of time for a warmup. The shorter the race, the longer you want your warmup to be. Its sucks when your racing and your body only starts to warm up and feel good at the end of the race. Everyone is different, but I will share with you want works for me. I go through warmup in reverse order. I start with the run. A light jog, followed by some stretching, then some strides (just like how we do it in our track practices). This warms up the legs and gets them stretched out Then I jump on my bike (I usually try and bring my trainer with me to warm up on that) and warm up for about 20 minutes. Starting off easy then getting harder, with some short sprints at the end. This warms up the engine. I m usually pretty sweaty at this point, but actually feeling really good and ready.
I go through a whole 16oz bottle of Fluid when warmup up. That way I have all the electrolytes I will need for the race already in my body. Then I get everything set in transition. I check the bike gearing one more time and make sure everything is where I want it to me. Then I go put my wet suit on and warm up in the water. A full warmup like this can take upwards of 45 minutes. This will probably be too much for a lot of you, but I want to stress the fact that you will have a much better race with a good thought out warmup than something that is thrown together at the last minute. Again, make sure you know how you are going to do your warmup before the day of the race. Practice so you aren t doing it for the first time on race day. PACING THE RACE THE SWIM For those of you that aren t strong swimmers or have never done a bunch start in a swim, it can be very unnerving. The key is to stay calm, try not to get hit, and carve out a space for yourself. That might mean going far to one side or the other. That also might mean letting all the faster people go by you at the start so they aren t climbing over you in the swim. If you are a slower swimmer, please do not line up in the front of the group, you will regret it. If you are a faster swimmer, make sure you put a little bit of a sprint effort off the line in order to get into the lead group. Pay attention to the starting gun. A lot of times they go off with no warning. Be ready at all times. If you can take advantage of a draft do it. Try and swim in a straight line and spot the buoys. Your wetsuit will give you a lot more buoyancy that you are used to, so use that to get your body flat on the water. Maximize your pull stroke and try and swim a little ¾ catchup to conserve energy. Stay calm on the swim, don t try and push it too hard. You cannot win the race on the swim. Find a pace that is comfortably hard for you and stick to it. At the end of the swim, put in a little bit of a kick in order to get some blood in those legs. THE BIKE Once you are on the bike, take a few minutes to let the legs warm up. Even with a really good warmup, your legs are not ready to go 100% right away. Try and get your breathing and heart rate down before you start to push it. The race is three laps around Fiesta Island. This means that there will be a lot of traffic on the island.
Use good etiquette while in the race. I am pretty sure on the island you ride on the right, pass on the left. Make sure you are not a moving road block!! Do not sit behind someone and draft. You need to either get by them or drop back 3 bike lengths. If someone is passing you, once their front wheel pulls ahead of your front wheel you need to drop back. Ideally you want to build your effort throughout the bike. Make each lap a little bit faster, but do not go to hard at any one time. This is about sustaining the highest average overall power/speed/effort, so don t try and sprints or hard efforts to catch up to someone or pass someone. Remember there is a grueling 5k to go. THE RUN Again, start out the run at a conservative race pace. Even though you have been using your legs on the bike, you are using them in a totally different way on the run. Don t go out there at your mile pace and die half way through. The run is laps as well, so use that to your advantage. Know how far you are from turns and the finish so you know how much effort you can put out to get to the end. It would be a good idea to run a lap of the course in warmup. Use quick feet with a fast turnover and pretty big stride length with your feet landing underneath your hips, not in front of them. Feel free to drink some fluid on the run, but try and limit how much you drink. Putting a whole lot of fluid in your stomach all at once while trying to run fast is a recipe for stomach cramps or worse. Make sure you save up for a little bit of a kick for the end. Let s look strong as a team and look good in race photos. I HOPE THIS HELPS A LOT OF PEOPLE. TRY AND READ IT OVER A COUPLE TIMES AND VISUALIZE THE RACE ALL THE WAY THROUGH. IT WILL REALLY HELP WITH NERVES AND JITTERS BEFORE THE RACE. I LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING A GREAT RACE WITH EVERYONE!!!