EverymanTri.com

Newbie Raising Star wins "Toughest Triathlon"

Dantley Young finished his first triathlon last year.

Yesterday he won one of the toughest triathlons in the world. Young crossed the line first at the Silverman Triathlon in Nevada in a time of 10 hours, 1 minute and 29 seconds..

It was Young's second victory in three weeks. The win proved he has the potential to be one of the world's top competitors. The next closest finisher, Chris Williams of Bend, Ore., finished 38 minutes back.

Live High – Race Low

On any given day in Boulder, Colorado (our home town) you'll see hundreds of athletes running or biking.

That is of course not so unusual. You'll see the same thing in almost every city across the world. What makes Boulder stand-out is that when you go for your typical lunch time bike or run you may just be passes by:

Made: Can MTV Turn a High School Goofball into a Proper Triathlete?

• MADE
• MTV Shows

Barb Lindquist Shows How To Transition Like a Pro

The Best Advice I Ever Heard

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was sitting by the side of the pool speaking with my old Coach Wes Hobson before my usual Friday masters swim-a-thon.

Wes likes to coach Masters the old school way so he gives long sets on just about impossible intervals.

Vitamin or Painkiller

During the peak of the Dot-com bubble (read the 1998-2000) I was lucky enough to get to know a very energetic entrepreneur. Donna August, along with several partners, started a company called FreshWater Software. The company had a NASA like control center here in Boulder, Colorado.

It was a pretty wild room with dozens of massive monitors, tons of computers, and lots of very serious people doing what looked like mission critical work in a highly cooled and I'm certain redundantly backed-up mission control center.

I'm sure that NASA would have been proud of what Donna and her partners had built in a non-descriptive and unassuming office building on Arapahoe Avenue.

At this point you must be wondering what any of this has to do with vitamins, painkillers, or even triathlon. Personally, if I were you, I'd be more curious about what Donna and her partners were up to in their control center.

I'll start at the end of this story and work my way forward. Donna ended up selling her company for tens of millions of dollars (or perhaps more), as was the way in those heady Dot-com days. She retired very young and last I heard was working on a foundation who's goal was to bring Gospel music to Africa.  Or perhaps the foundation was going to bring African Gospel music to America.  I must confess that I have forgotten the exact details.

She made all this money by providing a painkiller (her word) to her corporate clients. You see the control center monitored the health and wellness of hundreds of big name web sites around the world. The technicians who worked at FreshWater Software would make sure that if you happened to operate a mission critical web site (think Amazon, eBay, Pets.com, Homes.com, GayTurtlesRus.com, SellmySmellySandlasNow.com ) or any of the other hundreds of new web sites that were popping-up everyday during those early internet days, your site would be up and running all of the time.

FreshWater would monitor your web site 24/7 and would ping it from around the world to make sure it was responding in a fast and furious manner.  And if by some unlucky bug, malicious attack, or fluke of nature your mission critical web site crashed, they had access to web based tools that could and would bring it back-up and get the orders rolling out of the door again.

Because if your entire business model depended upon Gay turtles or selling smelly sandals online, it would not impress your VC backers to have a broken web site.

I asked Donna how she came to creating her company and she simple said that one day she and her partners were sitting around a table discussing business ideas. First and foremost they all agreed that their new company should be a painkiller and not a vitamin.

In her mind a vitamin business was a company that provided discretionary sales and service tools. You know things and services that increase a company's bottom line by improving performance, or cutting cost, such as marketing or sales tools.

On the other hand a painkiller is a business model that the client company can not do without because it would directly cost money and/or directly derail sales and perhaps even the business.

To put it into a more endurance athlete friendly context, a bike mechanic is a painkiller because if you break your bike, and you don't know how to fix a bike yourself, you won't be riding or racing without his or her services. While an areo (Time Trial) bike helmet is a vitamin because you don't really need one as you can use a regular helmet to ride or race.

With that in mind here's a list of some other Vitamins and Painkillers that you may not have considered as such when racing. I do not include the obvious gear such as a swim suit, running shoes or even a bike because you know what basics you need to race. But with gas prices at an all time high, and the economy sputtering and stalling, I though this list of preferred vitamins and painkillers might help make the most of your race day budget.

PainKillers: 

BodyGlide: This a figurative and literal painkiller. Nothing wrecks my day more than forgetting my BodyGlide Anti-Chafing Skin Protectant Stick at home on race day, because without it I know I'm in for a painful wetsuit hickey, chaffed nipples, among other sore body parts. Plus I use BodyGlide on my wrist and ankles to help speed up the wetsuit removal dance. Some athletes prefer Pam to help remove the wetsuit, but I personally don't like to smell like an spinach egg omelet during a race.

Butt Butter: Once again as an age group athlete I consider any race or ride that does not involve bleeding or chaffing a success. I hate it when I have to go to work the next day with bloody or sore body parts from forgetting something as essential as chamois cream for a long bike ride.

Bicycle Pump: It's all fun and games until you blow a tire in the transition area. I can't tell you how many tires I've heard the frightening bang of a blown tire right before a race.  HERE is an interesting discussion as to why tires blow in transition. This is a huge painkiller tip that is well worth remembering.

Salt Tablets: When it is hot and certainly when racing any distance at/or beyond a 70.3 these are worth their weight in gold. I've had the misfortune of almost passing out during my FIRST half Iron distance race from dehydration, and I can tell you that it all stops being fun when you start to get tunnel vision.

Vitamins:

Areo (Time Trial) Helmet: I have to admit that I really love my Rudy Project TT helmet. Does it make me faster? I'm sure that it is a faster helmet when worn by the pro's on the TDF. When worn by yours truly the answer is not so clear, but once again it makes me feel faster and for us everyman age-group athletes that's just as important.

Transition Bag: You can of course use a regular backpack or gym bag to get all of your gear to and from transition. But I have to admit that I wouldn't go race without my transition gear bag anymore if you put a gun to my head. I love the special pocket for my water bottles and helmet. I can't help but believe that sometimes feeling professional makes me race professionally.

Disk Wheels:  My friend Marc rented a set of Zipp 808 for his recent Ironman. Was it worth the $140 he spent to get a set of Zipp 808 for his race? Read all about it HERE.

If you have a second please use the comments section to add your list of favorite vitamins and painkillers. This old dog is always eager to learn a new trick.

Transition Do’s and Don’ts

Raise your hand if you can tell me the best place to rack your bike in the transition area.

Anybody?

If you said nearest to the bike exit you are get today’s gold star award.

So now for the tougher question, why do you want to be near the bike exit and not near the run exit, or by yourself in a remote corner of transition, or near the swim entrance, or at home sleeping in and eating a glazed chocolate covered donut for breakfast?

Never mind that last part of that question as I don’t have a good answer to “Donut Conundrum” as I like to call it. Why am I up at this predawn God forsaken hour racking my bike anyway always comes to mind...all too often as I’m stumbling in the dark getting ready for yet another bout of triathlon torture.

Anyway, conventional transition wisdom, at least as taught to me by the local Boulder professional tri Zen masters, states that the closer you are to the bike exit in transition the less distance you have to cover (both going out and coming in to transition) while:

a) Pushing your bike though a maze of racks
b) Running in bike shoes (never fun or fast)
c) Running in bare feet if you happen to have your bike shoes attached to your bike

So now that we have the optimal location of your bike sorted, here are some other transition do’s and don’ts:

Do get to transition early to stake out the idea spot for your gear.

Don’t stumble into transition one minute before it is scheduled to close and expect to have a good race as you try to rack your bike, put on sun screen, sort out your shoes, sun glasses and race number and go to the bathroom (both #1 and #2) all at the same time.

Do be polite and friendly to your fellow racers and happily share your sunscreen, and/or any other necessary triathlon commodity that they may have forgot and you have in spades.

Why?

Because you can bet that what comes around goes around. That person who just borrowed your sunscreen will certainly be the one who will have that extra tube that you realized you forgot when you flat on the bike course.

Don’t be the one in transition who is so into their race plan that the slightest smile or comment from a fellow racer sends them into a dizzy of anger and/or an emotional hissy fit. Unless your last name happens to be Woods, Jordan, Schumacher, or Armstrong you probably haven’t had the results and earned the right to be or act like a prima donna.

Do place your bike and gear in any kind of order that works best for you. I like to put down a towel next to my bike. On the towel I place the following items from front to back with back being closets to the rack.

Front row: Triathlon bike shoes with or without socks lying on top of them. Olympic distance or less I go sockless. I also love my tri bike shoes as the Velcro strap is designed to stay open with little notches just for this purpose.

Back row: Running shoes with race number attached to race belt stuffed in one shoe with running hat on top of shoes.

I like to have my bike helmet upside down on my areo bars and my sunglasses in the helmet. This way when running from the swim I first put on the sun glasses, followed by the helmet, followed by the bike shoes. The helmet first rule ensures that I don’t forget this critical part of the swim to bike transition as not having a helmet on the bike qualifies for an immediate DQ during most races.

Don’t touch other racers bike or stuff. This seems self evident but all too often I see this #1 rule being broken all the time. I (like you) have my stuff just the way I want it, and need it, so please don’t mess with it.

Do try to hang your bike by the rear seat so that it faces out (front wheel forward). This is a great technique that makes it super fast and easy to just grab your bike and go. All you have to do is hang your bike by the front of the seat from the rack. In other words, just place the pole of the rack under the front of your bike seat (see photo above).

Don't hang your bike by the brake levers from the pole. I have seen racers get their bikes stuck on their brakes and almost take down the entire rack trying to wrestle it free.

Do zero out your bike odometer/computer before the start of the race.

Don’t clear your computer as you are leaving transition, while clipping into your pedals, while climbing up a hill, trying to avoid the rest of us, and most likely crashing in a pile of sweat and shame.

Do get a transition bag. I have a huge and terrific backpack transition bag from Zipp that holds everything including my pet elephant. This makes life so much easier before and after the race that I can’t believe I ever raced without it.

Don’t try to bring all of your stuff into transition in your everyday gym bag while riding or pushing your bike. Chances are it won’t fit and you’ll crash juggling your bike and gear to transition in a heap of sleepy-eyed slumber and shame.

Do transition quickly and efficiently so that you spend your time racing.

Don’t spend a lot of time in transition during the race because transitions really do count and you can make up huge amounts of time just by getting in and out fast. I’m hope you believe me when I say that is a lot easier to make up three minutes in transition as opposed to on the run. If you don’t believe me just try to drop a minute a mile on your next sprint tri three mile run and see how easy that is to accomplish.

Don't blow dry your hair in transition!

This weekend I raced a small local triathlon that claims and probably is the Colorado’s oldest race. In the past the racers ran from the pool swim, through the recreation center locker rooms, to the transition area in the parking lot. A friend of mine mentioned to me that when she first did this triathlon (her first) she stopped in the ladies locker room and blow dried her hair before heading out to the bike.

This certainly qualifies as one of the top don’ts for any race situation.

And for finally, for goodness sake: don’t forget your towel!

And another one down, another one gets the bug

As you probably know, I've recently been doing some thinking about why we tri?

It's a funny thing this week's topic because the answer came all of a sudden in an email from my book's publisher.

She sent me the email (below) from Larry who just did his first triathlon in VA Beach. My publisher sent a copy of My Training Starts Tomorrow to him when she heard he was training for a tri.

If you read his email and take a look at the photos you'll clearly see the beginning of a lifelong addictions to the sport of triathlon.

He's definitely caught the bug.

All the classic symptoms are in place. He's got an old bike that he clearly wants (and I would say needs) to upgrade. He did his homework by bringing along a bucket of water for the sand for his feet AND he read my book (this shows he's been thinking about the sport in his spare time).

He almost crashed on the bike which gave him a great adrenaline rush. He likes the transition from the swim to the bike to the run. And most importantly of all he certainly wants (and I know he will) do better at the next race.

I would say that those are the classic symptoms of catching the triathlon bug.

Congratulation Larry on your first race. You did great!

And don't fret about catching the bug. We all have it. It's not so bad once you get use to the lack of sleep.

Please keep me posted on your future races.

From Larry:

I had a blast in the Triathlon! It was an interesting experience to go from one activity to another. The surf was a little tougher than I thought it would be. Out of 725 entrants, 458 completed the event with most dropping out because they couldn’t finish the swim. I swam a bunch of breast stroke instead of crawl because I only practiced breathing on the left side and I kept coming up for air as a wave was coming in. I think I had the oldest bike there.

Wow, what a lot of nice bikes! My time was not too great, 397 out of 458. Here are some photos to give you an inkling of what it was like.

I said I wanted to finish smiling.

Here is my antique bike. I had a bucket to wash my feet at T-1. I think I had the only bike with a kickstand and a back rack.

I did see two other nice new bikes with flat tires. One guy was on the side of the road changing his tire. The other one blew out and the tube came out right in front of me. It locked his rear wheel up (we were doing about 20 mph at the time) and I had to swerve around him.

See how far out the waves were breaking. The buoy was out about 25 yards from shore.

I’m ready to go again. Now that I have a better understanding of what to expect, I would plan to training more for the next one.

The tri book gave me a good feeling about what to expect. I found it very helpful. I liked it where he talks about why is this called a sprint when it takes a long time to complete.

Larry Saunders

To email Larry click HERE

Plan for the New Year

I suppose I started this crazy sport like most by doing a triathlon just for fun. I had never really been a swimmer (except for family vacations to Florida at the Ramada pool). I had been a casual runner (read weekend jogger), and in collage I raced bikes a bit because my roommate happened to be on a local bike team. He would drag me out with him on their team rides.

I figured that was all the background one needed to complete a Sprint triathlon that started at the local rec center’s indoor swimming pool with a mere 500 meter swim. I trained for this race for about 2 months. By train I mean that I went on a “long” run of about 5 miles once a week. I biked about 15 miles once a week and I swam the 500 meters a few days before the race. On race morning you could say I was race ready. And if by race ready you meant that I was 40 pounds overweight, with the aerobic fitness of a marshmallow and the leg muscles of your average preteen girl, you’d be correct.

The swim went pretty well in that I finished it without walking or drowning or reverting to the on your back angel swim. The bike started out well but about the second time I hit the moderate hill my lack of training began to show. I was huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf but not blowing much down, except for my ego.

By the time I got to the 5-mile run I was spent and in pure death mode. My legs had locked up like a vise grip and I was trying my best to do the survival shuffle. This is that sort of run walk motion that feels and sort of looks like you are running, but in fact you moving along much slower than if you were actually walking.

I was gulping water, air, sports drink and anything else I could think of to help me make it to the finish line…which I did, you could say, in record time, that is if you consider record time to be smashing the slowest time for your age group.

But I had indeed finished and now I was a triathlete. And worse yet I had been totally bitten by the triathlon bug. I wanted to test myself on longer and longer races. So I spent the next few year basically repeating my first race performance in longer races all the way up to the Olympic distance.

It wasn’t until my 40th birthday that my smart and beautiful wife kick started my racing career. She got me a coach and it was only than that I began to realize how much I really didn’t know about the sport. For instance:

a) There is an entire body of knowledge for each of the three disciplines. I didn’t really know how to swim (Ok I knew that I didn’t know how to swim) bike and run.
b) You could easily fill a library with books on proper sport and race nutrition.
c) And most importunately, you could easily fill several libraries with books on the science of peak race performance and training.

But it was really the training part that I had completely gotten wrong.

My typical week went something like this. I would get up and look at my day.

Monday I had some free time at lunch so I would head to the health club for a 30 minute treadmill run at a pace that felt comfortable for the say 10 minutes. Than the adrenaline would kick in, or the guy next to me was going faster, and I would increase the speed to some huff and puff range for some undetermined amount of time or until I felt I could no longer keep up.

Tuesday I would be back at the club for a swim. How about doing 1000 yards in intervals of say 200 yards each or until the siren call of the hot tub called me to her?

Wednesday it was time for my 15-mile bike ride but the wind came up or the sun went down, or work got busy, so nothing got done.

Thursday I’d make up for Wednesday’s lack of biking by going on a hard run. So I ran extra hard for 20 minutes and ate extra hard for 10 minutes.

Friday it was back to the pool. I would swim in a noon masters class which was a real killer, but also probably the only “valuable” work out I did that week.

Saturday was family time so no working out or perhaps just a short jog with the dog.

Sunday was my time to go for a long bike, which I did for perhaps an hour and a half with no particular goal, but to finish. I would, more or less, repeat the entire week until race day at which point my legs would seize up on the bike or the run. I’d bring it on home with my fav death shuffle.

Wes Hobson, my coach, got me started on the long road from being an amateur age grouper to a real triathlete. First he taught me how to run. Did you know that there really is a right and a wrong way to run?

Next he worked on my swimming which I’ve come to realize is pretty much a life-long endeavor.

Next he changed my bike position to a proper bike fit and got me biking on a plan with a goal.

But most importunately he put together a real training plan for me based on the science and a life-long knowledge of the sport.

After just a few months of training with Wes, I lost weight and started to finish strong. The next year I began to drop my race times.

Today I use that first Sprint triathlon as a measure of my fitness. Since I actually began to train like a pro (not in terms of quantity but in terms of quality) I’ve dropped over 45 minutes from my initial Sprint time. That’s an eternity (for me about 35 percent) in a race that’s only about 2 hours long.

Last year I took third in my category at the Chicago Triathlon and more importantly no more death shuffle. This year I’ve changed my focus to longer races. Remember that eventually all roads lead to Kona, the home and start of Triathlon.

So my best advice is plan for the year. There are tons of training plans and pros out there that you can use. I’ve had great personal experience with two:

Wes Hobson
MarkAllen Online
Wes sells both canned and personalized plans on his web site. My friend Luis Vargas runs MarkAllen Online. Luis has taken Mark Allen’s winning race training program (Mark has won Kona 6 times) and made is adaptable to your personal schedule. Check out his web site for really powerful interactive training plans. Both of these folks also provided great one-on-one support and keep up-to-date with the latest in triathlon thinking.

Take a look and see which one is the best fit for you. If you are serious about this sport, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better investment for the New Year. Or if you plan on doing a half or iron distance race next year, you best have a plan, unless you really like the death shuffle.

There is no such thing as a Sprint Triathlon

If you think about it, there is no such thing as a sprint triathlon. Triathlon is an endurance sport…one of the longest and hardest that test an athletes muscles, athletic abilities, mental toughness, strengths and weaknesses and most importantly, endurance.

However I suppose you could design true Sprint triathlon. It would look something like this:

1) A fifty meter freestyle swim
2) One lap around a Velodrome
3) A 100 meter dash

Now that would certainly be a Triathlon where transitions matter. I have not seen many Velodromes with indoor pools around my neck of the woods so I wonder if this true Sprint Triathlon would have a hard time catching on. In America, the founding home of triathlon, if there is the will (and there’s money to be made) there certainly will be a way.

For all you wannabe race directors and or Nike, please feel free to take my true Sprint Triathlon idea and run with it. Just think of all the commercial possibilities for new true Sprint Triathlon gear. An entire new set of racing stuff we would buy for the true Sprint Triathlon to speed up the all important transitions like:

- The Aqua Helmet
- The Running Goggle
- Nike’s new full-body, one-piece, super fast-dry Shark/Lance/Sprint skin complete Air racing cocoon leotard featuring built-in ear plugs and built-in biking/sprinting cleats.
- Full Body Glide Spray in a Can to be able to remove Nike’s new Air cocoon after a race.
- The GU Power Pellet for a super small and super fast burst of energy
- The Nose Marker for marking the nose (which as it happens is the only part of the body left exposed by the Nike’s new Air Cocoon .
- Breathable and brimmed swim cap.
- Imskorts (swimming skirt and shorts) (Nicole Deboom feel free to run with this idea).

A true Sprint Triathlon would also benefit a completely different type of body types. Most current Pros would have a hard time succeeding in this event. Let’s face it; the ideal body type for a good or great triathlete is that of a depression era Nebraska farmer.

I’m lucky enough to have met some pros up close and personal and to say these guys and gals have body fat would be like saying that Oprah has a hard time promoting herself. Unfortunately when I started in this sport I misunderstood my goal for the ideal body. I’ve spent years trying to cultivate that perfect washtub stomach when all along I was supposed to have a washboard stomach. Oops!

Lets face it, one of the reasons so many of us Everyman Triathletes have taken up the sport is to lose weight. I know that my goal is to be fit (read thin) and enjoy a healthy lifestyle (read eat whatever I like) and enjoy some friendly age-group competition (read crush the other big guy with a 40 on his calve like a hapless bug).

For this reason a true Sprint Triathlon would not really appeal to as many people, unless Dairy Queen created the true Sprint Triathlon nutritional race supplements. I’d call it the DQ Oreo Wizard for its magic ability to provided tons of calories while being smooth and delicious. Mmmmm the DQ Oreo Wizard!

True sprinters (100 meters types) have bodies like Superman, not depression era Nebraska farmers. These athletes have muscle from their toes to the ears. If I followed their high calorie/high strength work out training regime my abs would go from being a washtub to a wash hot tub. Mmmmm the DQ Oreo Wizard would make a great supplement a short lift and long hot tub.

Which brings me to the Super Ironman.

Do you suppose it would be possible to train a world class marathon runner (talk about depression era farmers body type) to be a world-class winning triathlete…The Super Ironman.

Now I know this may sound a bit silly but when you consider it, this does seem to be possible. Arguably the marathon runner is currently the ultimate world class endurance athlete. Wouldn’t he or she make the ultimate Super Ironman?

The men’s world record marathon time currently stands around 2:05 and change. In an Ironman no pro has yet broken a 2:40 run. That’s a 35-minute difference. This is an eternity of time at the professional level.

The real question is, would it be possible to train a world class runner to swim and bike fast enough to become the Super Ironman and crush the current crop of pro like so many hapless bugs?

I think the swim part is certainly doable. Most current pros race the swim leg of an Ironman in about 55 minutes. We all know that runners usually make the worst swimmers, but I almost positive that even a great runner could get good enough to complete the swim in about 1 hour. That still leaves him with 30 minutes advantage on the run.

The better follow-up question would be, could a great runner stay within 10 minutes on the bike and still put down a 2:20 run to take the tape. I’m betting they could. Why? Because if you take a look at Lance or any of the other top biking boys they certainly look like marathon runners…. Ok, marathon runners with huge thighs.

Which brings me back to why there’s no such thing as a true sprint triathlon. Many of us Everyman triathletes got started at the sprint level of the sport. I remember saying to myself before my very first race, “Self, why not sign-up for Louisville Triathlon, after all it is just a sprint tri?”

It took me until the first transition to really understand what I had gotten myself into. I was about 10 minutes into the race. The swim was only 500 meters in a pool but I was breathing harder at that first transition than I had ever breathed in my life. And yet I still had a 15-mile bike and 4.5 mile run to finish. I somehow managed to muddle my way through the bike (washtub stomach and all), while being passed by spry 84-year-olds on mountain bikes with massive under inflated knobby tires.

One the run my thighs seized up like the jaws of an angry alligator. I kind of stumbled through the finish after having walked most of the “run”. But I had finished and I was a triathlete. I may never be a Super Ironman but I finished the race in just over 2 hours, which by anybody’s reckoning, is not a sprint.

Powered by Dairy Queen

In the military they say that all the action happens at the tip of the spear. The sharply pointed end where the winners and losers are sorted out. For us newbie and amateur Clydesdale triathletes the tip of the race is only a distant skirmish. We live and race at the other end of spear; the round curvy end which, as it happens, tends to be shaped like many of us. These are some of our some of our stories:

They say that races are won or lost in the mind. Motivation, the eye of the tiger, and the will to push mind over body is what separates the winners from all the rest of the racers. With this in mind here are a handful of strategies that you may find useful in motivating you to push yourself beyond any perceived mental boundaries.

Proper Race Preparation: I find that I’m much more able to really push myself during a race if I have done the hard work before the race. To this end, I must humbly confess that among my peers in the triathlon Mecca of Boulder, Colorado, there are few amateurs and pros alike that will out taper me before a race.

I like to start my taper at least a full month before the race. That way by race day I’m completely rested and up to the task. Sometimes I’m so calm and well prepared that I will completely sleep through the start of the race. Some may see this as a disadvantage, but I only consider myself that much more tapered and prepared for the next race.

Nutrition: As most know nutrition is the key to a winning time. For this reason I like to start my carbo loading, like my taper, at least a month before the race. Why wait until the night before the big event to load up on the pasta? Start early and you’ll have that much more of an edge and energy on race day.

Race Day Strategies: I have a few simple strategies that I like to use when racing. These are free tips that you are welcome to use to really take your racing to the next level.

The Swim: The fastest pros and amateurs know that drafting is surest way to a fast swim time. For this reason I like to scope out my competition at the start of the race. How is this possible? I’m sure you’ll believe me that a Clydesdale in a wet suit does make a remarkable impression of a Milwaukee sausage and is thus not hard to spot.

Once I have identified my competition I make it a point to get in front of as many other Clydesdales as possible to provide them a great drafting opportunity. When I have at least a twelve pack of Clydesdales drafting me I tend to get lost or weave like a drunk on a bike. A slow left of right turn, or perhaps a quarter turn too far around the buoy does the trick. Once my drafting group is completely confused I stop, let them pass, and bring it on home.

The Bike: The bike is always the longest part of any race. This is why it is crucial that you employ a few simple mind games to get you to the run as fast as possible. Here are a few of my mind strategies that keep me fast and motivated.

I will never let the following racers pass me: Guys wearing only Speedos. Nobody wants to look at a hairy butt for the  next 20 miles. Racers wearing Camelbacks. Do I really need to say any more?

I will always let the following racers pass me: Big girls on mountain bikes. These gals are surprisingly fast. Girls wearing skimpy race suits. Do I really need to say anymore? The Run: You’ve made it this far and now the race really begins. It’s gut-check time. Do you have it in your mind? Do you have it in your Quads? Can you push yourself harder and break the tape in record time. These are the questions you ask yourself at the tip of the spear.

At the butt of the spear it’s party time. The quads have long ago checked out, the calves have seized up like a vise grip, and the prospect of running is almost too silly to contemplate. Now is the time for a leisurely walk, have a friendly chat with the fellow strollers, and really enjoy the last part of the race. If you have done your job on the swim and the bike your competitors are strolling somewhere far behind.  Now it is just a matter of walking a few miles before you can start your next taper.