By
PCG Coach Chris Myers
As summer gets closer, we are starting to enter our
primary race season. Many of my
athletes are striving to peak to win their “A” race events. For me, I focused on trying to complete
something on my bucket list. I wanted to
complete my first Xterra Triathlon event.
Where I live in Louisiana, Lincoln Parish Park of
Ruston, LA hosts the oldest and longest Xterra event. The long course, affectionately named the
Gator Epic, consists of a 1 mile open water swim, 30 mile mountain bike, and 10
miles of trail running. Since I have
athletic limitations due to my service in the Army and the Iraq war, I am
unable to run. Keeping this in mind, I
participated in the Aquabike division.
During the race, I learned a very hard lesson in
performing a transition properly. Coming
out of the water, I had clocked just less than 28 minutes for the swim. However, my transition took me 10
minutes. I made several mistakes during
this time. The first, and most important
mistake was clothing. I chose to wear a
swimsuit and then change into a cyclist’s bib shorts and jersey. The change took me about 6 minutes when I
look at the video my wife took at me.
Due to being wet from the swim and sweat, the clothing fibers from the
cycling kit kept sticking. This mistake
can easily be fixed with using the proper clothing. If I used a proper triathlon singlet, I could
have saved myself several precious minutes.
The second mistake I made was not laying my
equipment out in an efficient manner.
The equipment was organized, but not in order that I planned on using
it. If I had organized my equipment
better, I could have saved myself about 30 more seconds.
These two mistakes have definitely made me a better
multisport athlete. Since this race, I
have bought a singlet and practiced my transition. I have incorporated the transition when I do
brick workouts. My overall time
transition time has decreased significantly.
I now feel I have strengthened one of my biggest weak areas of my
training.
The biggest thing I want readers to take out of
this article is this; the transition is probably the most difficult portion of
any multisport event. Plan your
transition strategy before the race and practice it. Many novice multisport athletes do not
practice this portion of competition until the day of the race. I have learned my lesson of practicing the
transition and I hope you have too.