The secret to faster transitions, of course, is to practice them OFTEN. I have been training for, what, three years now? And I JUST NOW thought of this idea.
Who says you have to do a brick workout in order to practice transitions?
T1
If you are going out on a bike ride, just put your bike gear in your back yard. Then go to the end of your driveway and run to your back yard to begin your bike workout. There, you’ve just practiced T1! (I start brick workouts this way).
T2
If you are going out for a run, put your running shoes, hat, water, Gu, sunglasses, etc, in your back yard. Why not even throw in a race belt for good measure? Then go to the end of your driveway and run to your back yard to put on your running gear and then start your run. There, you’ve just practiced T2.
A blog reader named Jonathan commented that it’s better to practice transitions while out of breath. So, how about we do 20 jumping jacks first!?
Your neighbors might think you are a total nerd, like this guy named Steve, whose blog I read. Nerds, and Steve, are cool 🙂 Here’s why I thought of Steve just now: I was searching google images for an interesting picture to put in this blog…I typed “triathlon nerd” and Steve takes BOTH first and second place in the search results! Way to Go, Steve!!!
 1st Place |
 2nd Place |
HA! Thanks for the shout-out!!
And practicing transitions are tough – the best practice is your first triathlon!!!
Practising the above when you are out of breath is even better.
Years ago, my club coach was an old school army type. He had been involved in triathlon in the army in the 1980’s
We used a Go-Kart track for training and had an evening super-super sprint duathlon series.
First run – 1 lap of the track (800 metres)
Bike (obviously after shoe changing & helmet on) 3 or 4 laps
Second run – 1 lap (after helmet off and shoe change)
5 minutes after the last person finished – the race went again
3 races per night
So you get to improve bike handling, shoe changing and errr.. getting out of breath all at the same time…