Subject: RE: If you could go back and coach yourself through your first triathlon, what would you tell yourse Well...since I have the advantage of knowing how the first race went if I went back to before my first race in a time machine I could tell myself of things that a coach or race experience wouldn't be able to tell me before the race. I got double flat tires on my first race. Yep....it kind of sucked. The first tire wasn't too much a problem. I had it changed with help of fellow athletes in about 10-15 minutes and was back on my way. I, however, made the wrong assumption that there were be bike support at the major aid station at mile 40 of the bike course so I stopped and asked a volunteer if I could get a bike pump and check my tire pressure. Well...that was a disaster. The dear volunteer had a bike pump in her truck that she fetched for me but it was for Shrader valves. She assured me that it would work for a Presta valve. I didn't know how but she held the valve and I pumped. The air was escaping almost as fast as I was pumping it in. I got the tire up to 100 PSI and told her to hurry and pull the valve off the tire before we dropped pressure (again). After wasting more time at the aid station than it took to change the tire in the first place I was back on the road only to get a 2nd flat less than a mile from the aid station. I didn't have another tube and I was possibly the only person on the course with 650C tires. So with 14 miles to go I considered running the bike all the way to the T2. There were people on the course doing the full Iron distance so I wouldn't be running any further than them and the aid station would all be open. 45 minutes later SAG had found me and rescued me, but the extra 45 minutes in the sun on the course ran me out of water and the mile 40 aid station was the last one on the course before the T2 so I did the last 13-14 miles of the bike ride with no water and was cramping before I got off the bike. So....I would tell myself 1) that if I should get a flat tire to ride the rest of the race on the CO2 and not try to get bike support at an aid station. 2) I would also tell myself to go to the full iron aid station between miles 40 and mile 54 of the bike course if I should run out of water even though it was not on the 70.3 course and get what I need because once you get behind on fuel and hydration it is extremely difficult to catch back up. Those two golden nuggets of information could have saved me over an hour on my first race's time. |