Ten Things I learned During My First Year of Racing Triathlons (Page 2)

thank you Bobby!  first tri is a little over three weeks from now.  this is awesome info!

fatty

Excellent post...!!!!

Many tips that will help many in this board and in special for the new ones...

Thanks Bob!!!

Very nice Bobby - great job of summarizing your year and putting it into an excellent "Lessons Learned".

Looking forward to seeing how much better you do this year!

As another obsessive compulsive athlete who is starting his first full year of multisport racing/training this post is a must read for anyone with similar lack of experience. The tips are priceless and IMHO may be the best post so far of 2009. Thanx for writing and sharing a fantastic pice of information!!!

Great post, and great racing!

Thanks!

Another benifit of this is you get a great parking spot!

BUMP Great post....

Welcome to the sport of compulsive people! I'm right with you!

Great post.

Here's my two(-ish):

1.  Volunteer at a triathlon before you race in one.  You'll see and learn a lot more than you would as a spectator.

1a.  Keep volunteering, at least once a season.  A volunteer who's also an experienced triathlete is a great help to the race director and especially to the newbies racing for the first time.  Plus, it's just good karma.

2.  Check out the race venue before the race if you can.  Scope out the transition area (in daylight), walk the run course and drive the bike course.  Gaining some familiarity with the course will ease a lot of uncertainty on race day.

2a.  While you're checking out the course, look around for the "secret potty."  If there's a public restroom nearby (like, within a good warmup run distance), you might be able to avoid the lines at the port-a-jons and get to use a real flush toilet.

Oh, and one thing I learned when I showed up really early to volunteer at my first tri.  There are two kinds of people who generally show up really early:  1) volunteers who have been told to show up then; and 2)  the really thin, fit, fast people with super trikc tri bikes, who know they'll be going off in the early waves. 

You'll be totally intimidated and think "oh my God, if I tried to do this I'd be the oldest, fattest. slowest person with the crappiest bike in the race."  Don't worry--the fat, old, slow people with the crappy bikes will be showing up soon, and when it's your turn to race, there will almost certainly be older, fatter, slower people with crappier bikes than yours.  And if there's not, who cares--you're still a triathlete, and there are plenty of folks who aren't.

Such a great post... I'm going to be doing my first of what I hope, 2 Sprints this season.  I'm mostly working on my swim for now.  I can't swim a leangth of a pool with out being to tired.  So I've sought out some lessons and with practise I should be ok.  So I wll book mark this post and read it often..

Again, thanks for your post. It's priceless to us nubees.

 Rich ...aka...Mainerunner

Two thumbs up for the secret potty!

great advice there...  wish i would have read this one year ago when i first started...

This made me laugh and feel better.

On the OP, what a tremendous help.  I am in my first year now and I am fighting the urge to schedule too many races.  Thanks for the tips. 

Superb avatar and name.

My secret potty is my kiddies "thrown of your own".  http://www.babyearth.com/images/images_big/10-3268-01.jpg

I have one in the back of my mini-van (which has black tinted windows) and when the port-a-potty lines are long, I just climb into my mini-van and pee into that... then empty it next to a tree.  Works fantastic.  The being early to the race is useful for going #2 because you can find a "secret potty" or you can use the port-a-potty's which are still clean and haven't been used much. 

Where's the fun in that?

On a more practical note, it may be best to apply sunscreen after getting body marked.

thanks about the lantern hint, and the idea about the head lamp was great - have just ordered one realising that my tri in two weeks time will be dark, very dark, in the river and it'll still be dark in T1.  

Re sunblock:  don't put it on your face before the swim - it can be hard to get a good seal on your goggles.