As mentioned yesterday, I will be racing in a sprint triathlon in ten days time.  I have set myself the goal of being quicker than I was in the exact same race, two years ago.  One of the keys to doing that, will be reducing my transition time.

I went back and looked at my results from two years ago.  One thing that stood out to me, was how slow I was in transition compared to other athletes.  My time in T1 was 2:20 in 2019.  There was only one other athlete in the top 50, who was slower than me.  The vast majority of other athletes had T1 times in the range of 0:45 – 1:15.  The story was similar in T2, but not quite as pronounced.  My time was 1:09 and most others were between 0:35 and 0:50 for the bike to run exchange.

I rough terms, I lost a minute and a half to the average athlete, just by being slow in transition.  Compared to the fastest person through transition, I was well over two minutes slower.  These time savings don’t sound like a lot, but in a race this short, it can mean the difference between a podium slot or not.  In 2019, saving a minute and a half would have moved me from 3rd to 2nd in my age group and would have put me in the top 10 overall.

I will focus on reducing my transition time, by going after some low hanging fruit.  The easiest one, will be to swim without a wetsuit.  I know I spent far too long taking that wetsuit off,  two years ago. The swim is only 10 minutes long. so the benefit gained from a wetsuit in the water will be minimal.

The second area of focus is going to be putting on my bike shoes, while actually riding.  I will set them up like the photo in transition, using a small rubber band to hold them in place.  Not only will I save the time of actually putting on the shoes, but I will be able to run through transition much faster in bare feet.

I have a short bike ride tomorrow.  This will perfect opportunity to practice getting into and out of my shoes, while actually riding the bike.  I am looking forward to trying it.