3 easy ways to lowering your time in a race
I came in 10 minutes behind a friend in a local Olympic Distance race recently. These numbers aren’t entirely accurate, but they are close enough to get the point across. He came in at 2:14, I finished in 2:24. I truly felt great as it seemed to all come together for me during the race with the exception of the run, which wasn’t fun at all. I think I was doing 8:10 minute miles where I should have been doing 7:30’s. Anyway, what disturbed me was that his time was 5 minutes better in the swim, 30 seconds in each transition, 2 minutes better on the bike and 2 minutes better on the run. All told, not a huge difference. However, I came in 168th place. He placed 68th. To think that there were 100 people in those 10 minutes that separated us is incredible. I thought to myself, if only…I had turned my arms over faster on the swim, transitioned a bit faster by not walking my bike through the transition or running into T1, or pushed a little harder on the flats of the bike, or ran 30 seconds faster per mile, I could have come in 69th instead of 168th. Ignoring the pain I was feeling on the course, I didn’t think about placing higher until I finished. This is always the case. The case of the “should have, would have, could have’s.” Now I regret not pushing it a little harder and lowering my overall time, as in hindsight, it seems so easy to do given all the things I mentioned above, and below. Regret however, robs us so easily of our present day victories, so I keep telling myself that I don’t have any regrets of my yesterday’s, especially in this last race, only wishes for a FASTER future.
In this particular race, I still finished in the top 1/3 of my age group, but my friend finished in the top 10. I have dreams of finishing the top 10 of my age group, but I’ve got some work to do over the winter, and it doesn’t include drinking a lot of beer while watching football…although that kind of sounds like fun.
Getting your time down to a certain point is easy. You can save 30 seconds here, 1 minute there, by following my simple suggestions below. Getting it down beyond this point will be entirely up to you however, based on how well, how smart and how hard you train.
PS. I do these types of time calculations in my head on a regular basis to try to rationalize a particular training style or find ways of getting around plain old hard work. It’s helpful and keeps my mind busy, but since I keep doing them to this day, they obviously aren’t working. So I should be the first to take my own advice outlined below.
Improving your swim time.
Arguably the easiest thing to do and the most effective in terms of time savings. Consider this: An improvement in a swim by 2 minutes in an Olympic Distance race is equivalent to being about 20 seconds / mile faster on the run. Shaving 15 minutes on the swim during an Ironman is equivalent to being 1 mile or more ahead of others on the bike, which makes for a ½ mile per hour improvement in your average speed over 112 miles going 15 mph, or a whole 1 mile per hour improvement in your average speed going 20 mph. Imagine the amount of training on a bike to be able to average 21 mph over 112 miles versus 20 mph. It’s HUGE, trust me! Based on everything I’ve read and coaches I’ve spoken to, I would wager to say it’s a lot easier to figure out a way of making your swim faster through a more efficient stroke than it is to average 1 mile / hour more on a long bike.
It is widely written about and common knowledge that the swim is the one area which can be improved upon the easiest. It is clearly the one leg of a race that has the most resistance working against you. Dragging a body through a very heavy substance like water is tough. Water causes resistance equivalent to wind at 100 mph in your face (I just made that up but it’s probably a fair comparison). The run of course, being the leg with the least resistance. So, if you can figure out a way of streamlining your body through the water and making your swim stroke more efficient, you can save a lot of time on the swim.
- Buy a wetsuit. Buy a tri-wetsuit. Make sure it fits tightly so that there are no sags, wrinkles, or other bumpy areas that will slow you down. A wetsuit provides buoyancy and slipperiness. Some say it saves time. I say it saves lives and time, as in most events, you are struggling for breath and getting beaten up by other athletes climbing all over you. It is sometimes nice to know you won’t sink or die if pushed underneath the water by someone else. Manufacturers coat the wetsuit with a spcial substance to make it more slippery. Wetsuits last 2-3 years, so use your money wisely. I found the non-elite version of the 2XU’s to be the best value out there. Today however, there may be others. I remember trying it on for the first time and saying, “I’ve got to return this thing. I can’t breath nor can I get it zipped up.” I stuck with it and it stretched out and is a perfect fit. Go with their sizing charts. They are usually dead on. Women’s suits fit better for men with big chests, so if you have a big chest, you might want to try a woman’s suit on.
- Swim a lot with a masters group over the winter. They will improve your time significantly.
- Take lessons from a tri-coach, ex-pro or swim with a local tri-club. They will all teach you tricks about your stroke to make it more efficient so you can go faster.
Shorten you transition times.
Improving your transition time is one of the easiest things to do. An improvement of 1 minute faster in each of two transitions is saving 2 minutes overall, which can translate into a top 1/3 age group finish versus finishing in the bottom 1/2. It can mean the difference between being invited to the national competition (a huge ego boost), or not. And it’s sooooo simple to do. No training, sweating, or injury prone activities required. Here is how you do it.
Simplify everything in your transition area before going off for the swim. I look at a professional athlete transition and compare it to a newbie’s transition, and it’s night and day. As mentioned, the pro has a small towel, his bike shoes in front, undone and ready to slip his feet into. His helmet on his bike, upside down with glasses inside. No gloves. No socks. No food or beverages around. Behind his bike shoes, he has his running shoes, maybe socks but often not, and a visor. That’s it. Sunblock is a spray bottle that is used before the swim and then put away. The pro’s fuel is already on his bike in a bento box. His clothes are on him the whole time, under his wetsuit, as is his race number. His transition time is always fast, maybe 45-90 seconds, compared to the average transition time of 3-4 minutes.
On the other hand, unorganized, newbie transition areas are full of things. Sweat bands, food, gels, water bottles, towels to dry off with, hats, backpacks, two pairs of socks for the bike and run, sunblock, etc. Running shoes have laces you tie instead of slip on. Bike shoes have three straps instead of tri-bike shoes having one. All of this adds up to seconds and minutes added to your time. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to save time in transition and finish higher up the curve than to have to train that much harder to make up for the 2-3 extra minutes I spend in transitions 1 and 2. Simplifying your transition is easy to do and can move you up 10 – 20 spots in the standings.
So get your transition area organized and get rid of the clutter and superfluous junk. If you have more than 3-4 items on a single small towel, that’s too much. Bike shoes, one pair of socks (maybe), running shoes with stretch laces, and maybe a hat. Helmet and glasses are on the bike ready to slip on. No lotions, towels, sweat bands, back packs, extra food, change of clothes, etc. Put everything on under your wetsuit so there is no changing of clothes (with an Ironman being the exception where even the elite athletes sometimes put on a pair of true biking shorts). Pros suffer through the cold and wet weather to save time. I don’t, but they do.
Note: Where your bike is racked usually doesn’t account for any difference in transition times given that the bike exit is opposite the swim entrance and the run exit is opposite the bike entrance. So where your bike is racked is usually a wash unless the entrances and exits are in the same spot. Then the loser is the one with their transition furthest from the entrance and exit, but I’ve never seen a transition area set up this way.
Lower the weight you carry on the bike. With less weight, you will go faster and lower your overall time.
The third way of lowering your time is lowering your overall weight you carry around with you on the bike and the run. Lowering the weight comes from equipment and nutrition planning, as well as body weight management. Clearly, the lighter the bike, the easier it is to get up a hill. A bike weighing 5lbs more than the bike of an equivalently trained athlete can have a meaningful difference in energy exertion and time. I would say that as long as two athletes have the same tolerance to pain, pushed the same, and were trained the same, but one rode an old steel road bike while the other road a $3,500 carbon Guru, the guy on the Guru would blow away the guy on the old aluminum bike over 40k or 56 miles. The Guru athlete would finish the bike more refreshed, more confident and a heck of a lot sooner than the other guy. This would allow him to either push harder on the run and have an even faster overall finish, or to take it easy on the run and finish still well ahead of his friend on the old bike.
For amateur athletes however, spending $3,500 on a carbon bike can be a waste of money because we may all be a little overweight or have an undulating weight issue, which throws out the window the whole saving weight on the bike advantage. So I would recommend that anyone looking to drop $2,000 or more on a light bike to do three things. Buy the lighter bike, decrease the liquids you carry, and drop body weight.
Try ebay for a light used bike and manage your body weight throughout the year. Dropping 5 lbs of body weight is like unloading a backpack full of oranges that you no longer have to carry around with you up hills, on the flats, through the water or on the run. Or, dropping 5lbs of body weight could be considered equivalent to buying a $5,000 bike versus a $1,500 bike. Losing 10 lbs is like not having to carry your infant child with you for the entire race. So I’d recommend first losing the weight, stop eating the extra carbs, and bring that percent body fat down from 20% to 10% or less. Then, once the body weight is managed, step up and buy that bike that you have always wanted. You will reduce the overall weight you carry for your race, training will be more efficient with the combination of your weight loss/lighter bike – plus you’ll have that much more confidence in yourself as you tackle the hills or the run given how good you now look with both a new body and a new bike!.
One other easy way of saving weight is by managing fluids on your bike. Most races that are longer than Olympics have fluids on the course. You’ll need at most one 12 or 16 ounce bottle of fluid to get you to the first rest area where you can refuel. Most races I’ve been to have Gatorade Endurance formula on the course, which is the fluid I train with and respond to the best. So it’s easy for me. I just carry the amount of fluid I’ll need to get me to the next stop (either T2 for an Olympic distance race) or Rest Stop 1 for a ½ Ironman or a full Ironman. I use no fluids for a sprint distance. Since 16 ounces of fluid is 16 ounces of weight, by not carrying around an extra bottle or two, I’ve just gone from a 21 lb bike to a 19 lb bike. Kind of cool given I didn’t have to pay an extra $2,000 for it.
I recently saw a friend of mine who bought a brand new tri-bike and was using it for the first time at her first ½ Ironman. I looked at her set up and saw two water bottle cages plus this big huge bottle contraption nestled between her aero bars. I told her this before the race, “don’t use the bottles in the cages, you won’t need them. Just fill up the one aero bottle and refill it any time you need to. There is food and drinks every 10 miles. You only need enough fluid to get you to the first rest stop.” She didn’t listen to me and instead carried around 3 lbs of fluid in her cages and another 1.5lbs up front, that she kept refilling, fearing she’d run out of fluids and bonk. After the race she said, “you were right, I didn’t touch the bottles in my cages. I just carried them around with me for 56 miles.” So much for the weight advantage of buying her new bike.
Lose body weight, lose the extra fluids and buy an expensive light bike. Note: if you feel obligated to buy two of those super fast full carbon tri-bikes, I’d gladly borrow one for the 2008 season and write all about it in one of my blogs. Combining all these three, you can save 10-20 lbs or more. Imagine going out for a fast 56 mile ride where all your buddies are on light bikes with skinny wheels and huge quads, while you are carrying around on your back an extra 15 lbs of potatoes in a back pack. Ask yourself who would make it up the hill first: the person without the 15lbs of potatoes on his back or the person with the 15lbs of potatoes on his back, everything else being equal. My guess is the former.
Race safe, look good, and by all means, have fun. Life is but a journey to enjoy.
Jeff Dyment lives and works in Weston CT. He has been doing triathlons for the past 3 years. He is single with three children and is looking forward to a long apres ski season to recover from the wraths of a busy tri-season.