Doing Triathlons in a different time zone

I live in the Mountain time zone and have to travel to the East Coast for business several times a year.

For me: That first evening and first morning are brutal. I can never get to sleep until after midnight (i.e. 10pm "body-time" ) and if I then have to get up at 6am (i.e. 4am "body-time" ) not only am I under-slept but I am getting up earlier than usual. 

The good news is, after being tired that first day, usually getting to sleep that second night is easy (due to sleep deficit) and then I am good from the next day on.

I suppose you could start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier some days in advance in preparation for the time change if you think it may be an issue.

I traveled from San Diego to Lake Placid earlier this year to do a Triathlon

I arrived on Thursday before the race and was pretty much acclimated by Saturday and had no problems waking up at 4:00AM for the race. (I had to drive 30 minutes into town for the race) I woke up early on Saturday morning to meet a bunch of BT peeps to swim 1 lap of the course and that did not seem difficult.

One of the things I did that seemed to help was to book a "RedEye" flight so that I arrived at first light on Thursday. Us West Coasters usually have a tough time not because it is hard to get up early, but because we have a tough time going to sleep at a normal hour. The Redeye flight seems to trick the body and the mind somewhat.

But, I used to travel a lot for business and might be more used to traveling than others.