Transition times

[triman]

 
This weekend pretty much marks 12-years in triathlon for me, it's staggering and disappointing. This year marks my most injured and least races season, only 2-started but I got a 6th and 3rd place so not, so bad.

I found this picture earlier today. It shows me in the middle, getting ready to leave T1 at the 1999 St Albans Triathlon. Totally old school style. Coincidentally, around the same time, in Butler Park, downtown Austin, I'll be teaching my 6th Transition clinic following the Jack and Adams shop ride.

It was a couples of months after this I first came to Austin, and bought my original Austin Tri Cyclist gear, and met one Jack Murray, who was then working as a bike mechanic for the original ATC store owner. Following this race I did a couple more sprint races with this bike, and then bought my first real race bike on a trip to Boston, at Backbay Bicycles.

So here are a few fun facts looking at that first transition.

1. How poorly ventilated my helmet was. Still, it wasn't probably more than 78f that day.
2. I was wearing a baggy cotton tennis shirt that I'd put on in T1, both definite no-no's now.
3. Gloves. Really! By all means wear them for training, but seriously not for racing.  
4. Number pinned to shirt. Again a no-no unless you wear a cotton shirt. In most cases if you pin your number to your shirt, either the number will rip or the shirt will. Use a number belt.
5. Regular running shorts. Nope. Can't recall if I changed in transition, if I did that was a penalty under British Triathlon rules, and hey the guy behind me was wearing a speedo, all else being equal, he would have beat me because I stopped to put my shorts on.
6. Downtube shifters. So 1980's and reaching down breaks your "aero-envelope" bar-end shifters are best.
7. Old school pedals. I wouldn't use these now, even for a duathlon, but I still think people underestimate the value of Pyro Platforms, especially for short races.
8. This guy is looking at my 1970's Raleigh racer and thinking I'm going to whoop him because he doesn't have an aero weapon. I wonder what he'd think today?

Oh yeah, the reason we were standing around in  those days is that triathlon was considered street racing, which required a permit from the local Police. To get around this everyones time was taken going into the wait box. Riders were released from the box at strict 1-minute intervals, their time in the wait box deducted from their overall time.

I'm aging up next year, if I can, it will be fun to go back and race again and see how my times compare, and maybe try again to win my age group. Last time was an unmitigated failure because I was too busy socializing.