Richard Allen Tips - April - Transitions - Save Minutes

Transitions

It may take you a year to take 1 minute off your swim split and you probably work hard at trying to achieve this. Few people work hard at trying to improve their transitions and it is relatively easy to take this amount of time off with just a small amount or practise and visualisation.In the build up to the race season try to practise your transitions once a week and then once you start racing try to practise them the week before every event. Firstly plan exactly what process you will go through in transition and stick to this routine in every practise and at every event. By this I mean have a set lay out in transition and have an exact order you do things. If you lay your equipment out in exactly the same way each time then there is no room for error and you will always know exactly where everything is. If you always do things in the same order then this will become second nature to you. Once you have the layout and routine sorted it is time to practise. It is well worth practising trying to get the wetsuit off fast although this can be done at a separate time after a swim session. Set your transition out in your garden or garage and before going on a bike ride you can simulate taking your wetsuit off (just go through the physical motions in the correct amount of time), helmet and glasses on and then on to the bike. To get on the bike there are several methods. One is scooting where you scoot on one leg and then lift the other leg over. The more advanced method is to angle the bike towards you, lift one leg partly over the saddle and then hop on to the saddle. This is easier than it sounds and is one smooth movement which looks like you are jumping on when done very fast. Once on the bike try to have your shoes already attached to the pedals and put your feet in the shoes whilst moving. This saves a lot of time and is fairly easy to do with a little bit of practise. One good tip is to hold the shoes in place with elastic bands which will break once you start pedalling. You are then away on your bike ride.On returning from the ride take your feet out of the shoes whilst moving and place on top of the shoes, lift your leg over the saddle, coast for a few meters and then dismount by bringing your inside leg through the inside of the leg still on the pedal. Dismount, rack your bike, running shoes on, helmet off and you are away. Just run 100m or so and you are done.This method of practise is incorporating the practise into a bike ride. You can also just practise transitions on their own if you wish. If you are a total beginner and don’t have the correct bike shoes you would put your running shoes on after the swim and then get on the bike by scooting. You save time in the second transition because your running shoes are already on. I would always recommend trying to get used to the correct bike shoes as they are much faster to cycle in.