what am I doing wrong?

You may be over-hydrating...I don't know...I'm a roofer.  I have over-hydrated, in my opinion, once.  It was a half iron distance aquabike.  I peed twice on the swim and again in T1.

Have you checked your sweat rate and/or practiced hydration and nutrition in training?

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Well, on a daily basis I'm usually not good about drinking enough, and I can sometimes tell during a workout.  So a couple days before I try to drink more water, then the night before I usually have some gatorade.  This morning I drank a little gatorade and sipped water since I got there so early and it was crazy hot today (98*, although not at race time).  So yeah, maybe that's it.  I guess I just tried to not be depleted as I knew if I was, I'd pay for it on the run.  I tried to go during the swim, but I can never do that while I'm actually swimming, and I was passing people from the first wave and having fun so I didn't want to stop.

So do you not drink lots of water the day before?  How do you know how much?

I think the swim does that to a lot of us but you might be over hydrating too close to the start of the race. If it's possible, try getting up earlier and hydrating right away, then stopping at least an hour before the race. I usually have a diluted Gatorade Endurance and some water, then stop drinking to avoid pit stops. Once you're on the bike and run, you can usually sweat enough to balance what you're drinking and avoid the breaks.

Uh, .... wait a minute folks .....

..... did I just read the above posts correctly?  Did someone say they peed twice during the swim?

Did someone else say they can't get used to peeing on the bike?

What's going on here?

Are you telling me that if/when I get to longer distances that it is a normal practice to pee DURING your swim and/or to pee while still RIDING your bike?

haha, I've never tried the bike thing.   But from reading various threads and knowing people who've done long distances like Ironman, I know plenty do!  I guess I just wanted to put it out there that it wasn't going to happen to solve my problem.  I'd rather lose a minute at this point. 

 LOL!

My coach says there are 2 kinds of triathletes - Those who pee in their wetsuit, and those who lie about it.

Same thing for SCUBA divers.    Well, unless you are in a drysuit, then it gets messy without adult diapers.

d00d,

What am I getting myself into here....

... is this yet another good reason to wear black vs. some other color of tri short?

Yeah, it sounds like you are overhydrating in the 24 hours before the race -- or, more accurately, you are perhaps UNDER-hydrated in general. When you then drink a lot before the race, your body cannot get used to that new level of water intake so quickly -- it is used to a certain level of hydration, and pees the rest out.  (This is not true of everybody.  Some people retain water when they begin to hydrate more than their body is accustomed to, while others pee the 'extra' out.) So you really should work on staying hydrated in general, if indeed you are correct that you generally don't drink enough.  It'll take some adjustments, but it isn't rocket science.

Oh, and about peeing on the bike, there are whole threads devoted to it on the IM forum, such as this one, which has helpful advice about when, where, and how to pee on the bike. I would practice it, but I bike on an army base, and I'm pretty sure that sort of thing is frowned upon.

I always buy a bouquet of flowers for my bike the day after a race considering the bodily fluids that I unload onto it.

... What can I say?  I was raised to be a gentleman.

Skip the black tri short, go with a nice light yellow.