My Trek to an Iron Man

Aug 15th, 2009 by sloper

The weeks up to this tri have been difficult. After 1 week of begin sick its been hard to get back into the game, but I think I am ready to chase 1:10 at Clermonte. So here is what I have planned to make my transition times quick and speed my race:

From swimming to biking, I am only putting on my biking pants. I was going to swim with them but I think the padding gets too wet.
Running shoes and no bike shoes. I will only have to put on one pair of shoes.
No shirt. I bought a race belt that I can attach my numbers to. So a quick click of the belt and I am ready to run.
I will only eat 2 energy gels. I “bonked” or threw up last time cause I had 3 of the energy gels during the race. I will have one 15 minutes before swimming and then one gel 1 mile before the bike is over.

I am looking forward to the race and as long as I can beat my time of 1:11:58 I am good. I am shooting for 1:10. Last tri I used up 6 minutes in transition so my goal is to be in and out of transition in 1:30 seconds. That means from the swim to the run I need to sprint, get shoes, socks and bike shorts on quickly. With the bike to running, I just need to drop the bike off, put the belt on and drop the helmet.

Here is the cool number belt I got for $10.00 at Orange Cycle Works:

Belt