FIRST SPRINT TRIATHLON BEGINNER TIPS: 10 things that will make you better

everyone my name is Justin if you've got your very first triathlon coming up whether that's a sprint or something longer than this is the video for you today we're talking about the ten that are gonna help you out and make that race as smooth and fast as possible so you can get through it enjoy it get a time that you're really proud of if you're new here and you're not already subscribed I hope you go ahead and subscribe so you can come back for more but with that said I'm not gonna waste any time on this video I just want to dive in and get to the tips the very first tip that I would give for you is relaxing and enjoying it not setting a blistering time your first triathlon is about getting through the race comfortably more so than it should be about making sure that you absolutely nail everything perfectly this might sound like kind of a soft tip but I can personally attest that making mistakes and stressing out will tangibly slow you down you're gonna be upset about the mistakes that you made earlier whereas you could just slow down a tiny bit relax except that you're gonna make mistakes and have a much more enjoyable time it's also really important to accept right now that something's going to go wrong in your race it's important to mentally prepare yourself for that now so that you're not on the side of the road in a panic when you have a flat tire that you've never experienced so things like knowing how to change a flat tire or knowing how to swim in choppy open water or racing in bad weather these are all things you can get into your training so that you're ready for them on race day any triathlon regardless of distance is a series of good decisions that stack up to result in a great race if something isn't going well focus on the controllables focus on staying present in the moment actively work to identify the solution and executing that solution rather than panicking and letting it ruin your day number two is don't get fancy especially for your first sprint triathlon you really don't need to stress about gear I've done a couple of videos on gear recommendations and essential gear before those are going to be in the description if you want to check out the specifics you're not gonna have the most expensive bike there you're not gonna have the most expensive running shoes or the fastest wetsuit it's perfectly fine the difference between a truly $10,000 bike and $1,000 bike that fits you well isn't that much especially in a sprint triathlon Fitness matters way more than the gear in pretty much all aspects so number is gonna make this a lot easier for you especially if this is your first ever sprint triathlon and that is you don't really need to worry about nutrition the body stores about 2,000 calories roughly of glycogen within your muscles if you're fully carb loaded and that's plenty to get through an hour and a half to two hours of racing taking it a little bit of sugar on the course is gonna essentially tell your body you don't need to conserve we have additional fuel coming in and that's gonna up your potential a little bit the really cool thing about a sprint is you're pretty much never gonna hit that point of glycogen depletion quick primer on carb loading it takes about two to three days to completely fuel up with carbs and store that as glycogen in your muscles I just like to shift my diet as heavily towards carbs as possible list of great foods right there that are gonna help you out on race morning if you can get in like a bagel or a banana or - pretty carb heavy breakfast about three hours before the start of the race that's ideal especially on a sprint where you're times are shorter it's really important that you eat efficiently you don't want to spend a minute eating a gel if you're not gonna gain a minute because of that gel so a couple really quick efficient options if you want to use a gel you can actually tuck it into the sleeve of your wetsuit and take that two to three minutes before the gun goes off at the start the other good option is take a gel and leave it on your bike seat so when you get into t1 and then my preference is actually to use a powdered nutrition like tailwind or scratch and put that in your water bottle so that when you drink on the bike you're actually in taking calories as well you know you're gonna drink water on the bike so you might as well get some sugar and calories there's links to those down below as well if you want to check out the ones that I use caffeine in studies has been shown to improve endurance athletic performance so if you're going to already be taking a gel or some powder or liquid nutrition you might as well get some caffeine on that as well make sure you're fully awake and cognitively engaged number four is pay attention to where you rack your bike in transition it's really easy to put your bike on a rack and then you've set it there and you think you know where it is but when you come out of the water you're coming out of the water a different direction you don't remember which rack you were on you lose your bike and you're gonna spend thirty or sixty Seconds running in a panic simply count the racks when I'm coming out of the swim I'm a six racks in and on my laps I can really look for a landmark I advise against trees you'll see a tree that you think looks distinctive and I swear when you come out of the swim they're all gonna look exactly the same you're not gonna remember it third little tip I actually picked this one up in a comment from someone a few weeks ago so I appreciate that bright colorful towel on transition underneath all your gear green or pink that'll help you stand out as well number five is specifically focused on those of you who do not have a swimming background and maybe you're still a little uncomfortable with the swim and that is simply slow the down there is no time to be gained by going out hard on the swim overdoing it panicking having to slow down it will work against you it will set you up to not enjoy your race and in case you think I'm just being hyperbolic I've actually brought my computer out here we're gonna do some quick math to prove to you why this is not worth it if you are a fast triathlon swimmer not necessarily a fast collegiate swimmer but if you're in the upper end of swimming for triathlon you might be doing like a minute 30 minute 20 per hundred for a seven hundred and fifty minute swim that is a ten minute and 20 seconds swim a pretty average swimmer like an adult learner who's maybe self coach they might be doing about 2 minutes 10 ish per hundred that person is gonna do that same swim in 15 minutes so a 4 minute and 40 second difference to 10 per hundred to a 1:30 400 is probably years of real effort and coaching so let's flip that question around a little bit let's say you're a 210 swimmer who can swim comfortably all day at 210 let's say you get in your head that like you're gonna go really fast you're gonna work really really hard you're in a red zone yourself and you swam a minute 55 so you cut 15 seconds off your hundred time you have now saved 90 seconds my very first triathlon I was that person who decided to save that 90 seconds by going out as hard as possible I way overdid it I ended up nearly throwing up in the water I was gagging on water and then I actually had to back float and rest water is just a barrier to entry for the rest of the race it's not where you need to put your effort or your time as a brand new beginner your goal is to comfortably and safely get through the swim nothing else number six continues that last theme if so if it's an open water swim you're gonna want to start on the shore on the back outside so if it's a right turn around the first buoy I like to start on the back left and once the gun goes off even if you just give it a five-second count to let the really fast aggressive people run into the water and then you can go and you're gonna make that gap and you're not going to be fighting over the super aggressive swimmers if your first triathlon is a pool swim you're not gonna have to worry about that but I would suggest starting maybe in the back ish a little bit so you're not gonna have people fighting over you who are faster than you have a little confidence in yourself too because I've seen people in races who actually seed themselves too far back and then they get caught behind slower swimmers who are ahead of them accurately assess yourself and try to maybe ask the people around you the pace that they're planning on swimming number seven is about transition and it simply comes down to don't stress about transition the problem that a lot of people have with transition is they try to do it super super fast and then like we talked about in the beginning they panic they freak out they make mistakes if you're coming out of the swim and you're wearing a wetsuit from an open water race I like to get the sleeves all the way off and get it pulled down right around to my waist a little bit of body glide here will really help the wetsuit slide off quickly from your ankles or your wrists and then otherwise you will already have your gear set up right on your transition towel and the biggest tip they hear that I can say is lay it out in the order that makes sense so put your bike gears closest to you and then your running gear a little bit further away number eight is a tip that solves a problem I see a lot of beginner triathletes make at sprint triathlons and that is put your bike in the right gear so that when you get on it and pedal you're in a gear that you can actually do something with so the next time you go out to ride your bike spend ten minutes starting from a stop and figuring out what gear feels good to you so that you can put one hard pedal down and actually get moving generally speaking I like to be in a bigger ring up front also recommend taking a look at the course if there's a big hill right at the start line or a big descent that's gonna affect your gear too so make sure to keep that in mind the ultimate goal here is to leave your bike in a gear that's gonna work from the start line up to that you know 10 15 20 seconds when you can more comfortably and safely shift rather than having to do it right when you're stepping on your bike and everyone around you is stepping on their bikes to number 9 is about going faster on the bike and that is if you want to be faster or without spending any money aerodynamics is the number one thing to keep in mind time you make up on the bike is really really where you can make a lot of progress so regardless of how fast you are getting low and aerodynamic and small on the bike is really gonna get some big returns for you in terms of your total time actually the slower you are the more these aerodynamic gains matter to you because you spend a longer period of time on the course if you're not very fast on the bike aerodynamics is actually really really important because you can see some big gains so a couple of things to keep in mind is essentially keep yourself small on the bike so that means ducking down as low as possible keeping your elbows in as close as possible one little move that actually will get you some pretty big gains is remembering that you don't actually have to have your head up the entire time so a lot of times you'll see people biking kind of like this where their their bodies bent over but then there are heads up and for one it's actually kind of uncomfortable it puts a lot of tightness up here and then this additional air space actually will slow you down quite a bit so you can actually bike closer to like this where your head is looking down at the ground kind of you know three to five feet in front of you but then you can look up with your eyes the other thing is clothes do matter you know now's a good time to break out that tight jersey that maybe doesn't fit as well as you hoped it would you're gonna save some meaningful tangible time as well so break out that tie jersey you're gonna go faster with it or in the number 10 thing is when you finish your bike ride your legs are gonna feel like jello and that runs gonna be hard but you have to trust that you're still able to run if you've got a GPS watch now is actually a time where they're actually kind of an advantage even though your legs are probably gonna feel really heavy and rough I actually see that most people are able to still run their normal pace having that watch is gonna help you out because it's gonna tell you that yeah you are still actually moving file1 is gonna feel rough biggest thing here to remember is that this feeling will go away you're probably still running your normal pace and to focus on keeping a quick leg turnover mile number two you're probably in your groove and that slow sloggy feeling is probably starting to go away so if you want to actually make a move and try to put a little bit of work in mile 2 is actually kind of a good place to do it because you're not feeling as tired from the run yet and then mile 3 if you're a beginner is where you can really focus on the finish line is just 10 to 15 minutes away you've definitely completed your first triathlon you're going to get your medal and that is gonna pull you to that finish line it's gonna be tiring you're gonna want to stop but here's where you really need to say like I'm not gonna stop I'm gonna focus I'm gonna work really really hard because it's just three or four turns away if you've got a little bit of time before your first triathlon maybe more than two weeks would definitely recommend doing a brick workout or two or three to get yourself used to that feeling if you've got maybe five to ten days you can do your planned bike workout and then maybe a five to ten minute run and then if you've only got about five days left before you race I probably wouldn't recommend doing a brick workout right now you're not really gonna get any advantages here focus on during your race staying strong in that first mile and it will feel better all right so that's at ten tips for your first sprint triathlon I chose to make those really specific and tangible and I hope you guys got something out of them I hope you subscribe there's a lot more videos like this coming if you have any questions about any of this or anything else feel free to leave it in the comments down below there is no question too small too silly I will absolutely do my best to answer it that said I will see you on the next video go have a freaking awesome race and thanks for watching you

Channel: JustinDoesTriathlon

Views: 190,312

Keywords: first sprint triathlon, sprint triathlon tips, beginner sprint triathlon, triathlon tips for beginners, sprint triathlon tips and tricks, first triathlon tips

Id: gISm0x1NmUw

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 31 2019