Tinman Race Prep and Strategy

This post is more for me and less for everyone else, but hey, feel free to dive into my race strategy for Saturday!


I have today off of my clinical (awesome), and will be focusing equal portions of the day to my online classes and prep for the race on Saturday.  After reading about Scotty Tri's race prep for the Kansas City Triathlon, I thought I should probably devote a little more time getting everything together, instead of attempting to through everything in a bag at 4:30am on race morning and hoping everything I need is in there.  So, here's everything:

If it's not obvious, I'm going pretty minimalistic with the transition equipment.  I will have no wetsuit to contend with, which makes packing easy, and no socks which also makes packing easy (I guess).  I have been going sockless on quite a few of my shorter training runs and now feel like giving it a try to help cut down my T1 transition time. The biggest thing I will be bringing has to be everything hydration-related.  It supposed to be a hot one!

Pre-Race:  Tomorrow will be my 2nd favorite day concerning triathlons, 2nd only to the actual race:  CARBOLOADING!  Since I have to go to the clinical tomorrow, I will be having a "training partner" (my Supervisor) for my high carb lunch at Chipotle (thanks Ryan for the excuse to consume even more Chipotle than I normally would!).  After my clinical, I will be heading straight home, packing my bike and gear, and then my GF and I will be heading to Topeka!  I may drive the bike course one more time, since they recently made some minor adjustments.  I am planning on a pasta dinner once I get to my parents' house, doing a quick swim in there pool, quick ride and run, then nighty-night!


I will be setting MULTIPLE alarms that morning, as I slept through my 5:00am wake-up for the Heritage Park Tri back in May.  This will NOT be happening this weekend!  Once up, I'm going to grab a bagel, some OJ, a gatorade, and hit the road!

Race Strategy:  Despite my unanticipated training changes, I am still planning on having a decent race (well, decent for me).  I had a good workout today, and did a portion of it at race pace and felt good.  REAL good.  I'm excited to see what happens when I let everything loose!

Swim-  I am planning on imitating a bullet shooting out of a gun for the swim.  I have contemplated not going all out on the swim this race, mainly because I won't be wearing a wetsuit and I really like the buoyancy they give you, but screw it.  It's 400 meters, and apparently the swim is my strongest discipline (still can't believe it).  I just hope I can get into a groove early and keep my breathing consistent.

Transitions-  I am hoping to be under 3 total minutes on my total transition times. I am going sockless, don't have a wetsuit, and now know what a slow transition is.  I am better prepared for the transitions then my last race.

Bike-  This one is up in the air for me.  I am REALLY going to push it.  13 miles is pretty long for me to be going hard, but after driving it, I hoping I can average close to 19 mph for the bike leg, but would settle for something close to 18. My time goal is 44:00.

Run- Tough, slightly hilly 3 miles.  I am shooting for 22:00 for the run.

Total time:  1:14:00

We shall see how it turns out...