- Morning Trainiacs!
The other day we played around with
some sweet, sweet graphs, and I love me some pictures,
that showed that in Half Ironman Worlds,
I had some of the the fastest transitions in the race.
Like in the run, even including the pros,
I think I was top 100.
I take pride in my transitions.
So, today we're gonna give, I don't know,
I haven't decided yet, somewhere in between
five and ten of my best, fast transition tips.
I also tried out the AMEO PowerBreather Snorkel.
During the fancy, montage-y swim sequence
right at the end, you'll see what I think about it.
(upbeat music)
Brief brag session here, if you didn't see
this video that I did the other day,
quick overview, trophy-box.com put together
this analysis of my race in the
Half Ironman World Championships.
You can see that in T1, of all the athletes,
entire race including the pros,
I was the top 7.7% overall.
In T2, top 3% overall, go down to
my age category, the old division,
and I was top 9.4% in T1,
top 2.1% in T2.
I like having a nice, fast transition.
Most races that I go into, this is the case.
You all want to know about how to have
a fast transition, here's how to do it.
Alright, so over here we have put
together a bit of a make-shift,
it's cold outside in Winnipeg,
so let's transition inside, little setup.
Before we get into the bike, one of the tips
that I like to use, that not a lot
of other people do, is take your bike nutrition,
whatever you're going to take on the bike,
and shove it into your jersey
underneath your wetsuit.
If you're in a non-wetsuit race,
have electrical tape and tape it already opened
up to the top tube of your bike.
But, most races are going to be wetsuit-legal,
so shove it in there, and it's not like it's
going to drag, it's not like it's going to
get wet, as long as it's sealed, that's
gonna save you a ton of time.
But let's get into the setup of the bike.
So a lot of people will ask what the
difference between road cycling shoes
and tri shoes are, well tri shoes
are designed specifically to slip into very, very easily.
So you want to get a pair of tri shoes,
if you've got the money for it,
because they open up like this,
and they just stay that way.
You clip them into the pedals before the race starts,
tri shoes also have this loop at the back to help
get your foot in, and pull it up.
You can use that loop to elastic the back
of the shoe to the skewer on this side,
and on the other side,
you can just clip it to the top of your derailleur hanger,
somewhere around there.
What I also really like to do,
is because my feet are gonna be so soaked
from the swim, I like to put a bunch of baby powder
in the shoe so that there's less chaffing
and it dries out my feet really quickly,
and I don't have to worry about blisters.
So you can take this setup, run through transition
really quickly, hop on the bike,
you're not worrying about your shoes getting
caught up and potentially dropping the bike,
everything's nice and out of the way.
Let's go into the helmet.
So ideally, you've got a helmet that has a
full visor in it and that'll save you
putting sunglasses on.
Regardless of if it's a full visor,
or no visor, if you have to put on your race belt,
and most races are making you put on your race belt
in transition one, because it'll disintegrate
under your wetsuit if you wear it
in the swim, so you want to have that
open, ready to go, very first thing you do,
grab it, clip it in.
Then, once that's out of the way,
you take your helmet, and have it positioned
towards you, so that all you have to do
is grab the straps and very quickly,
you don't have to twist it, it's on, and clipped in.
And this happens, regardless of whether you have
a full visor like this or if you've got shades,
you do the same thing.
You have the shades positioned in such a way
that you just grab them, put them on immediately,
same thing with the helmet.
Everything is positioned so you don't have
to twist it, you don't have to fumble it.
Once that's on, the bike computer is exposed.
Now, if you've got a bike computer,
set it up with all the screen settings
that you wanna have before the race starts.
Have it on, everything set up, GPS paired,
make sure that you've got full battery,
which apparently this doesn't.
The night before, clip it in, and then start it up,
make sure that it's set up, right before you go
out to the swim, then when you come in,
as you're running out of transition with your helmet
on with the shoes not hitting the ground,
just turn this on, and everything's going
to be set up and ready to go.
Now we get into transition two,
and this is what I take a lot of pride in.
So, a few things about transition two.
Let's talk about the runners,
you want to have elastic laces, of course,
and do small things like, you see how these are
positioned with the toes away, this means that
you can stand right in front of them,
and without having to twist or turn the shoes around,
you can just grab them, and slide them on immediately.
Related to that, you want to Vaseline the
inside of the shoes, like everywhere.
People ask, "What's the protocol for Vaseline
in your shoes?", the protocol is, I used an entire
tub of this for one race.
Your foot is going to slide in really easily,
and it's not going to blister, allowing you to
not have to put on socks in transition two.
The final thing that you need to work on is,
this is where a ton of people lose gobs
and gobs of time, they worry about setting
up so many things in transition before they get
out onto the run.
If you really wanna save time, basically just
have a setup that, all it takes is two handfuls
to grab, and then you go.
So in my case, I set things up so I've got
nutrition in one hand, shades and hat in the other,
grab it and I run.
And I start putting this in my jersey,
or I take this right at the start as I'm running,
so I'm not losing any time getting it all setup
at my transition setup, I'm dealing with
all of that as I'm making progression.
I put on my shades, I put on my hat, as I'm gone.
And that's it.
Basically, you wanna do as little as possible
in transition, and as much as possible
in the first few minutes of the bike,
and the first few minutes of the run, while you're doing it.
Constant forward motion.
So, that is being fast in transition one and transition two.
Think of it this way, being fast in the transitions
is not like you are losing a chance
to catch your breath, it's like you are getting
faster in the swim, or the run,
without having to actually get faster
in the swim or the run.
If you cut a minute off of your transition time,
that's a few seconds per hundred meters in the swim.
If you cut minute off your transition two time,
that's a few seconds off your per kilometer time
on the run, it's free speed.
So there you go, if you aren't already subscribed,
hit the subscribe button below.
If you are subscribed, and you wanna know more
about the swim that I'm about to show you,
go to triathlontaren.com/traininglog,
where every single week I give full details
of all these swim, and run, and bike workouts
that I do throughout the week, lots of details,
little more details on the AMEO PowerBreather.
So, here it is.
(energetic music)