The Long Course Triathlon Execution Seminar, Lesson #6 — Race Day Logistics

In this lesson we’ll cover the logistics of race weekend, including recommendations for setting up your bike, transitions bags, what to carry (and not carry) with you during the race.

~ Rich & Patrick

 

Part 1: Race Day Logistics Overview

We’d like to break this topic down into three parts:

  1. What do I do race week?
  2. What are/how do I manage the moving parts of getting everything where it needs to be on race weekend? We’re talking about registration, bags, number stickers and what not.
  3. Transition bags, what to carry on/how to set my bike, what to carry on the run, and in general how to manage all the “stuff” on race day.

Race Week: Patrick will give you a good template in next week’s lesson.

Race Weekend Logistics: Very simply, usually about two weeks before the race, the race will email you the Athlete’s Guide — a .pdf with EVERYTHING you need to know about the race. This includes the registration schedule, where and what you need to have/be when, information about parking, road closures and much, much more.

If we told you what that stuff is for each race…we’d probably screw it up! Bottomline: read the athlete’s guide! Pretty much any questions you have about race weekend will be answered by the guide. See additional tips below.

What should I carry with me, how to manage my stuff, etc?
Principles:

  • Whenever possible, eliminate as many moving parts as possible. Begin with a simple and strip away anything that only complicates it.
  • Whenever possible, rely on the course and your special needs bags for nutrition, fluid, etc. There is really no need to carry anything more than what you need to get you to the next aid station.
  • Keep it simple, clean, and simple 🙂

Checklists!!
Use checklists for all of this stuff. During taper you have nothing else to do so might as well plan what you need do/pack, etc for every day of race week and during the event. Think about it once, make a checklist, and let the checklist do the remembering and the worrying for you!

 

Part 2: Specific Tips

This is from Coach Rich, as in, this is how he does it..

Wearing (under wetsuit): tri top, tri shorts, if cold race will wear arm warmers under the wetsuit.

Transition bags:

  • Swim to Bike Bag: helmet, sunglasses, bike shoes.
  • On the bike:
    • Aerobottle of water
    • Tube, Co2, inflator, tire lever, allen tool in a bento box behind the stem
    • 600 cal bottle of Infinit on the downtube
    • Tube and Co2 jammed under the saddle rails
    • Nothing behind the seat.
    • Gearing: we HIGHLY recommend a compact crank (50/34 chainrings) and at least a 25-12 cassette for all AG’ers on ALL US Ironman® courses. Consider 26, 27, or even 28-12 for IMWI, CDA, LP, and SG. Bottomline: you can never have enough gears in an Ironman!!
  • Bike Special Needs: 2nd feed bottle, tube, Co2, spare tire (absolute worse case)
  • Bike to Run Bag: Socks, running shoes, hat, Garmin. Garmin is turned on in the morning, acquire satellites, turn off. Slap it on and turn it on while running out of T2.
  • Run Special Needs: Dry socks, duct tape (for blisters).

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