What's up triathletes, Taren here.
If you've got one of your first few races coming up, stick around because today I'm
going to give you five do's and five don'ts that you should be doing and don'ting in triathlon
races.
The first do is to warm up and how you do this is by going in reverse order of the race.
Start with a small run, a small bike and a small swim.
You don't really want to be tiring yourself out in these warmups.
You basically just want to get to the point of doing maybe 20 to 30-second strides, sprints,
intervals, whatever you want to call it, at race pace.
By the time the race comes around you want to have opened up your lungs and your heart
so that you're ready to move at your race pace.
If you can't get into the water, bring some stretchy cords and make sure that you can
move your arms in the fashion that you would once you get out into the swim.
The second do is that you should be sighting the swim course.
Assuming that you can get into the water, go out and do a light swim and go to the corners
of the buoys and the turns in the water and look onshore and look for tree lines that
you can use to sight because it's going to be really hard to spot those buoys and you
don't want to be forced to follow nothing but tows.
As we know from previous videos, there's some dumb tows out there.
Make sure that you have a sight line that's higher up above the water that you can see
without any trouble.
The third do is to in transition one, make sure that you put on and clip in your helmet
before you even touch your bike.
Then in transition two, make sure you rack your bike before unclipping your helmet.
Very, very big issues with this.
Don't go getting yourself a penalty just by taking on or putting on, putting off, taking
on or putting off your helmet before or after you should be.
The fourth do is to go through transition one and transition two from the entrance to
the exit, marking exactly where your transition zone is before the race.
You want to go in to each transition knowing where the entrance and the exit are, what
your route is going to be, and make sure that you count which rack and how far down it is.
I myself once misplaced my bike and lost about 20 seconds in a race.
Don't be like me.
Make sure you know exactly where you're going into, out of, and finding your bike.
The fifth do is to take in moderate amounts of carb.
Moderate being the key term.
Do not load up on carbs and Gatorade and electrolyte drinks and water and fluid and all this stuff
throughout the race.
If your body hasn't been trained to handle a huge amount of food going into your gut,
guess what?
You're not going to be able to process all that food and carbs and electrolytes going
into your gut.
Be very moderate.
We're going to get into that right meow.
I'm sorry, are you saying meow?
Now the first don't is to don't carb load immensely.
Assuming that your first few races are going to be sprints and Olympics, you don't need
to be lap, lapping in?
You don't need to be just piling on the carbs for days on end and having huge dinners and
huge breakfasts before the race.
If anything, just have maybe 20% to 30% more carbs and calories in the day before, if anything,
it doesn't need to be a whole lot more, and then have a light carb-based breakfast.
I will link a video up here to where you can find a 24-hour plan leading into your first
race.
Now, the second don't relates to the do number five.
It's to don't, how do I word this?
It's to don't pile on as many carbs as you possibly can during the race.
A really good rule of thumb is to have anywhere between about 20 and 30 grams of carbs every
half hour plus a light electrolyte drink.
Just that alone is more than enough for most races, especially your first couple which
are probably a sprint or an Olympic, so you don't need tons of calories for these types
of events.
Having too much in your stomach, especially while all the blood is in your arms and your
legs, raise my legs here, and not in your stomach, it's going to be really hard for
your body to digest whatever you put in your stomach so you got to err on the side of caution.
The third don't is to don't go all out in the race.
Ease yourself back.
It's a long day.
Typically, successful races are done not by the person that goes the fastest, but by the
person that slows down the least.
If you're going all out on the swim, you're going to be cooked for the bike.
If you go all out on the bike, your legs are going to hate you on the run.
If you go all out in the first little bit of the run, you got a long way to go and I
can almost guarantee that you're going to get some cramps.
Think about going 80% to 85% of your max throughout the duration of a race.
Once you start gaining more fitness, gaining more confidence, knowing your pacing a little
bit better, then you can start pushing the efforts, but in the first few races where
you're just getting yourself comfortable, don't go all out.
The fourth don't is to don't plan your transition one and transition twos to be a big pit stop.
Essentially a good rule of thumb to think about how much crap you should be putting
into your transition and how much you should be preparing to change over from one sport
to the next in transition is if you can't do one of the things that you want to do in
transition within the first little bit of the bike or the first little bit of the run,
you're probably doing too much.
For instance, you probably can't put on really big compression socks in the first kilometer
of the run because you're running, so you know what?
Don't put on compression socks in transition.
If you can't have a big meal in the first kilometer of the run or the bike, don't plan
to have a big meal on a bunch of calories while you're in transition.
You've always got to be thinking very minimally in transition to have a fast transition and
make sure that you're not doing too much and over-complicating the race, losing time.
Think to yourself, losing my notes, losing my phone, so think to yourself what is the
least amount that I can do in transition and in the first little bit of the bike or the
run to get me through that next leg of the race?
If you think minimally, probably going to do a lot better getting in and out of transition
quicker.
The fifth biggest, baddest and best don't that you should not, absolutely not ever be
doing, even in my case where I'm very comfortable in the swim, is to start in the middle of
the swim pack if you're worried about getting knocked around.
For years and years, even though I was one of the faster swimmers, I would end up going
off to the side of the swim pack because I didn't want to be knocked around in that chaos
of the first few seconds of the swim.
I'd let all the goofs that are really just throw the elbows and the feet, sort it all
out amongst themselves in the middle, I'd swim up in front of them and get away from
all that crap.
If you can't swim up in front of all that crap, stay behind all that crap, off to the
side.
You're going to have a much better and probably a much faster race if you can maintain calmness
in the water.
The last thing you want to be doing is raising your heart in the first few minutes of the
race, getting a race plan knocked out of gear because maybe you got kicked in the face,
or kicked in the stomach or elbowed in the jaw.
This is all a part of going through the churn, and if you can keep yourself out of that you're
going to be much happier.
There you have it, triathletes.
I'm sure there are a lot of first races coming up over the next few months, so I hope this
helps.
As always, if you've got any questions or comments about this, hit me up in the comments
below or on social media.
Happy and hard training, triathletes, and good luck in your next triathlon.
Quick!
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