Transitions

By Max Wunderle

For those of us who’ve done more than a handful of triathlons, we’re always looking for a way to cut time off our last effort or searching for a minute or two that we can shave in order to win our latest bet with our friends!  To accomplish this, we’ve spent countless hours swimming, biking, running and maybe even weightlifting/yoga/dieting to find those elusive minutes.  While we’ve spent all this time and effort trying to move these ‘big rocks’, we may have overlooked one of the easiest ways to save time in and among the little rocks—transitions.

Whether we’re talking about a sprint distance or a full Ironman, there is time to be saved through attention to detail on our transition work.  My favorite example of this opportunity was captured during the NBC coverage of the 2007 Hawaii Ironman.  Upon coming out of the water just behind the main pack, eventual winner Chris McCormack raced into transition and quickly shed his skin suit.  Next step, helmet and sunglasses.  The glasses went on without a hitch, but as he threw on his aero helmet, his chin strap refused to cooperate.  What made this even more painful was the fact that NBC had earlier shown him practicing this motion before the race!  Macca barked out three “No’s!!!” as he fought to get his chin strap fastened.  One might have viewed this as another type ‘A’ triathlete clawing and scraping to save a miniscule 5-10 seconds over an 8 hour race, however, one also has to remember that Macca lost the 2006 World Championship by 71 seconds.  Imagine if the 2007 effort had come down to 10-20 seconds and how painful it would be to remember his difficulties in transition.

Here’s what’s so cool about executing great transitions.  You’re never going to beat Normann Stadler on your bike and you’re never going to out kick Craig Alexander on the run, they simply have too much talent.  But you can beat them in transition, or at least come within seconds of doing so by establishing a transition process and following it with the same discipline you execute in your training plan.  The following coaching is for events that do not mandate the use of transition bags and allow T1 and T2 to occur where one’s bike is racked.

What is the best process?  There will always be variations to or personal interpretations of the following, but here are the basics.  All of the following should be executed pre race at every race you perform in.  Find the water exit, walk to transition, visualize this first transition (T1), then walk to the bike exit.  Do the same from the bike entrance by walking back to transition (T2), visualize your process, then walk to the run exit.   

Swim to Bike
Coming out of the water, let’s assume you’re wearing a wetsuit or a skin suit.  We will also assume that your race number is already on a race belt and was worn under your wetsuit to prevent you from having to put it on in T1.  The first thing we want to establish is a good line of sight to T1.  This means removing your goggles, but leaving them on our head and not in your hands.  If you remove our goggles and cap at this point, you will hamper your ability to quickly strip our wet/speed suit.  So, goggles still on your head, cap still on, but both hands free.  As you continue to run to T1, you want to unzip our suit and make sure you get the top half pulled down to your waist without slowing down.  Once the suit is at your waist you then want to find a spot that offers one the ability to stabilize your balance (tree, bike rack, fence, etc.).  Stripping your legs out of a full length wetsuit can be challenging and the option of leaning on a substantive object can be a big help.

Once in front of this object, you want to place both of your hands at your waist and pull the wetsuit down in one motion.  At this point, you will still have a fair amount of material somewhere around your knees, on both legs.  Next, you want to place your hands on the fence, rack or tree in front of you.  Once stable, you then want to pick up and place your left leg as far to the left of your body as one can.  This should pull additional material off of your leg and stretch out the wetsuit leg across the ground.  At this point, you then want to take your right foot (still in wetsuit) and place it as close to your left ankle as possible (on top of the left leg wetsuit).  Now, you want to pull your left leg up and out of the wetsuit in one or two motions.  If done properly, your left leg is now free of the wetsuit.  With your hands still on the rack, fence, tree, we now want to place our left leg on the right leg wetsuit, after you have moved your right foot approximately 1 foot to the right after removing your left leg from the wetsuit.  One or two aggressive motions of pulling the right leg straight up should now free you completely from the wetsuit.  At this point, if you are not already there, you’ll need to continue to race to where our bike is racked—upon arrival, pull off your goggles and cap.

At this point, we should only have to put on our sunglasses and helmet.  However, it is important that you put on your sunglasses first, then your helmet.  If the opposite is done, we will have to take off our sunglasses to take off our helmet in T2.  In terms of socks and/or bike shoes, your bike shoes should already be attached to your pedals.  As for socks, I would recommend trying to ride your bike without them.  Additionally, I would recommend not using socks in races with runs at 10K and below.  If you have sensitive feet or simply don’t feel comfortable racing without socks, then your post wetsuit removal T1 activities would include putting glasses on, then helmet, then socks—or socks, then glasses, then helmet.  At this point, you can now grab your bike and head out to the bike exit and bike mounting area.  Bike mounting can be done by stopping completely and placing one leg over the top tube and pushing off, or running along and swinging one’s leg over the saddle and jumping on your moving bike.

Bike to Run
T2 actually begins about 100-200 yards before the bike segment ends.  Coming into the transition, you want to remove your feet from your bike shoes and place them on top of your shoes.  This action should be taken one foot at a time (right hand releasing right foot with left hand on handlebars, then reverse) and should still allow for good speed as you pedal with your feet on top of the pedals.  Now close to the bike dismount area, you want to swing your right leg over the top tube of our bike and ride ‘side saddle’ until you hit the dismount area.   Once there, you can slide off your saddle and be on the run to the bike rack.  Once at your designated rack location, rack your bike, and immediately remove your helmet.  Ultimately, you can now simply put on your shoes (I recommend any triathlon lacing system—lock laces, yankz, speed laces, etc--to ensure you don’t have to actually tie your shoes), grab your hat/visor and head out to the run course.  Voila!  You have now aced both your transitions and are well on your way to a great race!

Obviously, such processes can be much easier said than done and will mandate practice time.  The most intimidating activities involve wetsuit removal and bike shoes being preliminarily placed on your pedals.  In terms of wetsuit removal, this can cause the most consternation as you can be faced with balance issues and stubbornly tight suits.  I suggest using Bodyglide as a lubricant on the bottom halves of your calves and wrists to assist in stripping along with plenty of practice.  As for bike shoes and pedal attachment, I suggest never taking your shoes off your bike!  This way, whenever you go out for a ride (unless you need cold weather booties), you will automatically be practicing your T1 bike mounting transition.  Similarly, when you are done with a training ride, you will be forced to practice removing your feet from your shoes and dismounting as you would in T2. 

Good luck with these tips and enjoy shaving new found time off your next race! 

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