Transitions: Simple Steps to Shave Seconds
Triathletes at all levels put in hours every week of training, spend hundreds of dollars on the newest and greatest gear, and do a countless number of other things all for the same purpose - to get faster come race day. Time does matter, or people wouldn’t act as such. There are a lot of elements to triathlon racing and training the athletes work on, as they should, but they often forget about the importance of the 4th discipline- transitions. I remember talking to my friends last year after the Dallas US Open. A friend of mine was chatting about his splits. For him, he had a great race, and a bike split and run PR, but I heard a transition 2 time of over 6 minutes!! What?!! Now some courses may require a longer transition depending on course layout, if there’s a long run out of the water into the transition area, but this one should have taken under 2:00 for sure. Many people view transitions as a time to “get ready” for the bike or run. This means put on an extra layer of clothes if it’s chilly out, sip their Gatorade, take in a gel, lace up their run shoes, then get back on the course. In my opinion, that’s craziness! The clock is ticking folks! Let me try to put this in perspective a bit and offer a few time saving tips on how to dominate the 4th discipline of triathlon.
It takes a lot of effort in training to drop your 10k run split by a few minutes, or to bike a minute faster over 40k (well, to do this legally I should say). To run 20 seconds per mile faster takes a bit of work and increased fitness for sure. Obviously, the faster and fitter runner you are, the harder it likely will be to drop significant amounts of time, percentage wise. Nevertheless, athletes often stress and only focus on getting their run pace down 10 or 20 seconds per mile, when it’s equally as important as shaving transition time. Seconds are seconds, no matter what part of the race they’re in. It’s good to have ambition, and yes the point of training is to get fitter and faster, but in addition to this we can shave valuable seconds by following some common sense transition tips.
T1: Swim to Bike: Get your wetsuit off fast, but stay relaxed! Relaxed & fast can happen simultaneously, although many people don’t think so. Getting flustered and frustrated will likely stress you out, and slow you down since you can’t focus mentally. I remember watching Hunter Kemper grab Matt Reed’s helmet off his bike a few slots down from his in the ‘08 Beijing Olympics, before noticing it wasn’t his. These things can happen. It hurt Kemper’s time by a few seconds, yet he remained calm, and focused to find his bike a few slots down from Reed’s. First, get your wetsuit off as fast as possible. Practice this! Start unzipping it as you’re running out of the water, and begin pulling it down off your shoulders as you’re running. Don’t wait until you’re at your bike rack to start unzipping! You could have already had it halfway off by then, and that translates to 5 seconds saved right there! When the wetsuit is off, grab your helmet, calmly clip it, put on your glasses if necessary, grab your bike, and your off. The whole process from wetsuit off to pulling your bike off the rack should not take more than 25 seconds.
Leave your bike shoes clipped to your pedals. Some disagree with me on this, and actually some races don’t allow age groupers to do this, but most do. Using rubber bands, hook the rear loops of your cycling shoes to the rear skewer and/or the notch on the front derailleur, to keep your shoes in place. Clip your shoes into the pedals before the race starts. Putting on your shoes and tightening the straps, then running out of T1 clunking away with your bulky shoes on can cost you valuable time. This all takes practice, and coming into the race confident you can handle this is crucial. So, practice this! Also, there’s no need for socks on the bike (unless it’s an half-Ironman distance or longer). Putting on socks with your wet, sticky feet can take up to 30 seconds itself! In an Olympic distance race, you shouldn’t need socks. You’re feet may get a few blisters, which you won’t notice until after the race anyways. Plus, most triathlon specific cycling shoes have a soft inner fabric and shouldn’t be an issue.
Another important element of this practicing pedaling on top of your shoes. When you hop on the bike, put your feet on top of your shoes, and don’t always clip into your pedals right away. It’s important to judge the course, right out of transition. If there’s an immediate hill, pedal on TOP of your shoes til you’re at the top of the hill, and have SPEED going. What is faster, slipping into your shoes when rolling at 3 mph, or slipping into them when you’re going 20mph?! Pedal on top of your shoes until you reach a good speed, then slip in while you’re cruising. This can save you valuable seconds. Again, practice this in training! I know draft-legal racing is different, but to prove the point, at the ITU Mazatlan race I came out of the water about 20 seconds behind a chase pack. I hammered the bike for about 4 minutes riding on top of my shoes. Why? I had to! I had zero chance of catching a group if I took 15 seconds to slip in while my speed decreased. I needed all the speed I could get, and caught a pack because of it. Non-draft racing isn’t as crucial as this, but there are still times where it’s beneficial to wait to slip in, such as when climbing a hill out of transition. Get up and over the hill, get some speed going on the flat or downhill section, then slip in your shoes, reach down to tighten the straps, and get after it!
Gels/Fluid: Don’t take them while standing still in transition! People often stop in T1 and take a long drink, wash down a gel, while just standing there. Instead, tape your gels on your top tube of the bike (electric tape works well, tape the top tab of the gel so you can easily rip it off the bike to where it opens, so you won’t have to use any hands or teeth to fight it open. Have your water and fluid bottles ready on your bike cages, and forget about the gels and fluids until you’re on the bike. It won’t hurt you to get them in your body 45 seconds later when you’re ROLLING at a decent speed, as opposed to going ZERO mph standing still in transition. Your bike is a nutrition rack, so take advantage of this. Squirt your fluids down while you’re coasting along. Same with the gels. That’s 10-15 seconds saved right there! 
T2: Bike to Run: When you’ve sighted the dismount line at the end of the bike course, reach down carefully, un-strap one shoe at a time, slide your feet out, and pedal on top of your shoes again, leaving the shoes clipped in your pedals. Once again, running barefoot after the dismount line is a heck of a lot faster than clunking along slowly in cycling shoes. Plus, it won’t damage your cleats. Once you rack your bike, all you have to worry about is taking off the helmet, and slipping on your running shoes. That’s it. I like the Ez-Lace of Yankz system for running shoes, which allows you to tighten the shoes with one or two pulls. It’s crazy to take another 20 seconds to tie normal shoe laces.
If you need a gel for the run and there isn’t an aid station soon into the run, leave a gel in transition next to your shoes. Grab it as you run out of transition. Don’t stop and take the gel, might as well do it on the run or tuck it in your shoulder strap of your tri top and save it for later when you’ll need it. Do all these things, and you’ve just saved yourself over a minute. Look up your recent race results. How many people finished within the minute ahead of you? Two? Three? Five? Ten? That’s way too many just for sloppy transitions!
