Latest / Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes / Triathlon Ready for the Bike: Tips on Transition, Fueling & Pacing Ep 48

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Triathlon Ready for the Bike: Tips on Transition, Fueling & Pacing Ep 48 · Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes

• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Find your Edge podcast.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: This is day three of our podcast Blitz leading into Ironman, north Carolina 70.3.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: But again, some of these tips are applicable to whatever race you might be doing.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Today is all about the bike.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So once you have exited the water and at Ironman, north Carolina, the transition from water to the transition area or T1 is kind of long, so just be prepared for that.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It is on concrete and pavement, so some people will slide their shoes next to the along sort of the dock area to put those on.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: But come on, y'all, you can make it.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: You can make it to the transition area, which is on grass.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So when you are setting up your transition area, just some key tips.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to check your tire brush on the race morning, just in case something has happened after you check your bike overnight, and then keep things as simple as possible.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So I know it's going to be a little cooler on race morning.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So consider having arm warmers if you're somebody who really is sensitive to the cold, one of my favorite pieces of gear is a really light vest.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It keeps the wind off of your core and keeps you just at that right temperature that, as it starts to warm up and the sun starts to come out, you're going to be okay.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: If your toes tend to be a little bit more sensitive to being cold and because you're wet coming out of the water, you may want to put some neoprene toe covers on.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: But that is a total personal preference.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: For the arm warmers, I like those because you can pull them off at any time.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: You can even slide them down just to your wrists without needing to get off or anything like that.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: But that's totally dependent on your comfort level and how chilly you're willing to be.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: If this were a spurn or Olympic distance, you may be fine without anything, just because your intensity is going to be much higher.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: But for this race, as a half iron man, you're kind of harder than easy and easier than hard, so your intensity is not, or shouldn't be, too terribly high.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So you may need that little extra bit of warmth.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: But otherwise keep it simple.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Helmet, sunglasses, vest, whatever shoes you're going to wear, maybe your socks that's personal preference.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I do like having a small towel or large towel, it doesn't matter whatever.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: You prefer to dry off a little bit, especially again if you're sensitive to the cold, and it also makes getting arm warmers on much easier.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Same thing with socks, if you prefer to put socks on.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: As you probably remember, putting socks on when it's wet is just a pain, so a little bit of drying off does go a long way, all right.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Another thing specific to this race is you are going to be salty getting out of the intercoastal waterway and there are not hoses to rinse you off like there are at Kona.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So if you don't want to have all that salt drying on you and potentially causing some chafing, you can fill.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Just throw away water bottle or water bottle that you don't mind putting into your transition bag when you're done, just filling it with water and pouring it onto kind of key areas that might chafe, like armpits, the nether regions, maybe even your feet, but anything that you feel like you need to rinse off.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I also prefer to rinse out my mouth, having all that salt water in my mouth and lips.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I'm also personally obsessed with chapstick, so I always have that on my bike and making sure that I don't have dry or chapped lips, especially being in that salt water.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So and this is also a good opportunity if you wanna have a little bit of a snack, you can.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I have one athlete who loves his grandma's cookies.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: You do, you, and hopefully you have tried all of those nutrition things in training, because that's super important, which is a perfect segue nutrition and hydration on the bike.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So we wanna make sure that we're being really consistent with your intake so it's not like, huh, when was the last time I had a drink or when was the last time I had a gel.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It should be consistent intake which stimulates what's called gastric emptying, so your stomach emptying into your small intestines, where there is the opportunity for additional absorption and delivery of those carbohydrates and necessary calories to working muscles.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: So consistency is important.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Rather than you know stuffing your face at you know key times, it's better to have that consistent intake and nutrition.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you've gotten your fluid, your electrolytes and your carbohydrate intake nailed by this point, because that is another podcast, but that's super important to stay consistent when you're on the bike.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Know that there are water bottle handoffs.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you are skilled in grabbing a bottle if you need one or having something that you can throw away at the aid station.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So those are things again to start to think about and how much you can carry on your person.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So hopefully some of those logistical things have been worked out for nutrition and hydration.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I love pockets on your kit or on vests to be able to carry various things, or something on the top tube of your bike, or having aero bottles, things like that, that make it easier logistically for you to carry all your nutrition and hydration.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: So now key things about pacing and strategy.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: First of all, when you and this goes back to setting up your transition area make sure you're in the right gear.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: That's a really important one.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: You don't necessarily wanna be in this massive gear that you get out and you're like, oh my gosh, I can like barely push the bike, but you also don't wanna be spinning like a mad person.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You are coming out onto kind of a relatively flat road when you exit transition, so you shouldn't kind of a middle of the road gear should be fine, but then going over the bridge can be a little sort of disheartening.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So you do wanna be in a good enough gear that you're not gonna panic or trying to be pushing some large gear as you go over that bridge, but other than that you should be good to go.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: So from a pacing perspective, again, like I mentioned, I have find Ironman pace is just so weird.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It's not easy and I'm air-coating here, I know you can't see me but not easy like more of an Ironman and it's not hard like in a sprint or Olympic.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: It's kind of easier than hard and harder than easy, kind of in between right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: But the tendency because if you've tapered right and you've been training right and you had a really good swim, you're probably gonna want to go really hard and really fast and that's gonna shoot you in the foot by the time you get to the run.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: So what we use for our power numbers with our athletes, it's typically somewhere between 75 and 85% of your FTP or your lactate threshold pace on the bike.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: If you are not using power, that's okay.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Again, it's easier than hard and harder than easy.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Definitely don't wanna be hitting that zone for heart rate zone because again probably going to be wearing yourself out and this is all very athlete-specific.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: More of your faster athletes or more experienced athletes can, and have been training specifically for that, maybe able to get away with those pacing strategies, but the rest of us, including myself, probably not gonna be able to get away with that too much.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So this is kind of that solid sort of zone two, maybe into zone.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I should say zone three, maybe into zone two.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Also consider and this is unique to every race you're at the coast, so you're probably gonna have some pretty fierce wins potentially.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: So be prepared for that, especially depending on what type of gear you're gonna have, like if you're gonna do race wheels or like a solid race wheel on the back.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Also, make sure that those are definitely prepared and ready to go before you head out onto the bike.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: But just be expecting that it's less about the speed and more about your physiological pacing, especially when it comes to heading into, say, a headwind, for example.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: You're gonna wanna push faster because you wanna increase your speed, but then how much does that wear you down in tip in your Gleigagin stores?
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: That is going to affect your run.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So gotta be kind of careful about that pacing strategy and similar conversation to the headwind part making sure that you've got some good bicandling skills.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: You still have to honor all the rules of the road.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: So, courty, yes, breaking good cornering, not being riding all over the road or being squarely holding your line, making sure that you have smooth gear shifting.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: But luckily there's not a whole lot of technical sections of this particular course.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: There might be some more technical sections on courses that you do elsewhere, like Placid, for example.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So always making sure that you're honoring the rules of the road and handling your bike safely in consideration of others.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Don't forget that helmet.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Make sure you're wearing a proper layup.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: It should be sort of centered right on the middle of your forehead, not sort of tilted back or tilted to the side, not kind of stuff.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: If you do have any sort of mechanical issues, hopefully you know how to change your own tire, hopefully you know how to adjust some of those things, but know that there is, on course, support.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: You just might be waiting a while for it.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So sometimes we got to think on the fly.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And then also making sure that you have all the necessary equipment with you, like a spare tube, method of inflation, so CO2, which is great, but sometimes you got to be a little bit more careful with that.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: You can always do a backup of having a pump with you.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Tire levers are great.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Definitely too, if you can.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And then I always tend to carry, like, say, a dollar or five on me just in case you need to put that as sort of a temporary patch, or if you just happen to be by a gas station and need to grab a water or a Gatorade or a snack.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: That's always kind of a fallback method of being able to do that and, like I said, other things that I have on my person are my chapstick Again, personally obsessed with chapstick so make sure that you have those items on your person.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Even if you don't know how to change your flat, maybe somebody will be nice and kind of stop and help you out.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: As long as you have the necessary equipment, you should be good to go.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Then it comes to mental strategies on the bike.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Sometimes, especially if you're newer and have never done this distance before, it can be a lot.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It can feel like a lot.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So thinking again about just like you did on the swim going, say, buoy to buoy, breaking down your bike into your reasonable chunks so let's say it's 10 mile chunks that you're gonna be looking for, or five mile chunks, because maybe your watch goes off sort of automatically every five miles and you can set it to whatever you would like.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Don't forget about engaging in that positive self-talk and really visualizing yourself getting done with a bike and getting across the finish line, but also enjoy the journey.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So, as you head into transition.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: This is a good one for people just flying into the bike dismount line.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I have witnessed multiple people just literally just zip right over that dismount line.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Don't forget you have to dismount before that line.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Inevitably people are wobbly when they get off the bike.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: You have probably been battling some wind, it might be a little bit chilly.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: It's almost like everybody is frozen in their bike position, whether it be an aero position or in that sort of road bike position.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Everybody sits up to get off the bike and then they're just like you can almost hear their backs and hips cracking as they sort of like go to stand up and inevitably somebody's gonna fall over at the dismount line, whether they can't clip out or they clip out too early and then they get off too early and then somebody behind them runs into them.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So be mindful of other people around you as you're exiting.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Kind of do like a quick glance over your shoulder just to see who's around you and be sure if you are clipped in to clip out safely, don't forget to lean the bike ever so slightly in the direction that you are clipping out on.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So if you're clipping out on your right foot, you're ever so slightly leaning to your right so that your foot can come down.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: But again, inevitably somebody's gonna tip over and it's not gonna be you right.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So another little tip as you're coming in hot into that transit, into that area, because it is like kind of a really nice straight array you turn this corner and you're like yes, there's the dismount line.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Everybody just hauls butt to the end.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: This is a good opportunity to spin your legs a little bit, drop that gear and make it super easy for yourself so that you can transition to the run and maybe even sitting up a little bit, maybe even standing up and kind of stretching your back before you know you have to get off the bike.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is like mere, not even seconds to make sure that you have a good transition.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Obviously, there's gonna be volunteers there and there's that big arch that you're gonna be shooting for, but still be safe, be courteous to the people around you and hopefully have a good transition to the run.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: And it is on pavement, so, and that's T2 is on pavement.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, hopefully this helped for some quick tips as you head into race week preparing for the bike, making sure you got your hydration, your nutrition, prepared for any mechanical issues.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: You've got your tire pressure correct, you've got your mental strategies in place and you're ready to go have fun.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So thanks for listening and let's head into D4 of the podcast Blitz, and we're gonna be talking all about the run, and I will catch you then.