Go for it! Test them, and see if your months of training will pay off or not! Or, don’t, and get through an IM marathon like the rest of us without music or podcasts.

From the general rules:

11. Athletes may not use communication devices of any type, including but not limited to cell phones, smart watches, Bluetooth enabled or “smart” helmets, and two-way radios, in any distractive manner during the Race. A “distractive manner” includes but is not limited to making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, playing music, using social media, taking photographs, and mounting the device to a bike for purposes of using the device like a bike computer. Using a communication device in a distractive manner during the Race will result in disqualification.

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

At IM Indiana last weekend, at the pre-race meeting, they specifically said that the ban on headphones included bone-conducting headphones.

I guess you could try and argue with the ref that the meeting said something different than the rulebook but... not sure how successful you'd be at that.

This seems to exempt non-communication devices (ex. MP3 players). So by a literal reading you could use Xtrainrz, but not one of the Aftershoz headsets that plays music bluetoothed from your phone or watch. I'm guessing that this is either an oversight, or they don't want people fiddling with their phones to change tracks.

That being said, race officials (USAT and IM) don't tend to be very nuanced (and to be fair, it's hard to tell if your headphones are stand-alone or streaming from your Apple Watch/Garmin). I'd get a specific ruling from IM before risking having to argue over a DQ.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

My wife refuses to tri any multi sport because she can't use any headphones for music.

I call her weak and then she reminds me that she did agree to marry me.

The answer is no.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Given that rule 11 explicitly forbids listening to music and making calls, what use do you see headphones being?

Same in Chattanooga.

No, I disagree that is what rule 11 is saying (to be clear I wouldn’t use headphones in an IM, but just reading the rules..).

It clearly specifies communication devices may not be used for…. listening to music. Since the other rule also specifies what TYPE of headphones may be used, it would be difficult for IM to argue that it wasn’t permissible to use a Garmin watch that stores and plays music (but isn’t a communication device) playing into bone conduction headphones.

I’d be checking with the race director though (actually, I wouldn’t, as I wouldn’t be using headphones, but you get my point…

There is, however, one small catch all phrase which I think would be invoked to forbid bone-conduction headphones synced to your watch- “including, but not limited to…”. Clearly the rules are not exhaustive in their permutations of wired/wireless devices, and the intent is to prevent competitors having distractions. The best course of action is to find a song with a good running cadence, listen to to it 4-500 times in the week preceding the race, then play it to the point of madness in your head as you run.

Basically what everyone else has said, you can’t use them. However, the past two 70.3 races I’ve taken part in, I’ve seen numerous phones in the pockets of peoples tri jerseys. One person even had music playing through the external speakers. Doesn’t mean they eventually didn’t get busted for it, but I saw quite a bit of them out there on the course. Spectated the run course for a while too and noticed a few people had their phones in their hands.

Stop. Everyone knows the rules and trying to play barracks lawyer instead of just complying is annoying. The person who asked the question has been on this site since 2014, this question has been debated ad nauseum. The answer is still no.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I don't disagree with anyone, but just really strikes me as odd that they would specify "inserted in or covering the ears" in the athlete guide. I know USAT struck a deal with Aftershokz. Seems to me it's all connected to the same theme. But if recent races are saying "no" then I expect Texas races will be no different.

I figured they were just too lazy to go back and amend the verbiage to include bone conducting technology.

The thing here though is you're talking about technology that wasn't available when that rule was written. The rule has been there for a long time, and way before garmin watches with music. To be fair it was there before garmin watches with GPS were around...

The rule is there for safety - the athletes and others in order that there is no (minimal) risk of an athlete not hearing an ambulance, bike (ie referee, medic, lead athlete escort, media), or even other athlete come up behind, or for the athlete to hear instructions from marshall / refs. In relation to the latter, examples are calling out potential trip hazard that has appeared on course, notifying of a course change (happened to me when there had been a fatality on the course), the need to put on a jacket / illuminated pendant at dusk.

And so the rule is there to just make it nice and easy - no headphones.
But then someone thought they would be a smart arse and so it got adapted to be really clear to the pedantic, that it was headphones and ear buds.

Etc etc.

There is an easy solution if you can't manage to survive for 3.5-4 hours of running past crowds of supporters and around other athletes. Train harder and run faster.....

"Fuck around and find out"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I asked an official recently, because with the advance of Bluetooth technology, I can wear a small speaker attached to my kit and have the volume low enough that it isn't "distracting" according to their rules. Still a no go.

Side note - at Choo I was passing a guy on the bike and commented about the Pro race that had just lapped us. He had to take out his ear buds in order to hear me talking right next to him.

And we wonder why our sport is struggling to appeal to the younger generation...

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Yep, because even for a relatively short time they can't be without their devices or entertained by 5 different things at a time.

I find it hard to predict/plan which song will be in my head during a race. All I know is that it is usually a recent song, and one with a catchy beat. If you listen to it too many times, it gets out of your head. I find the best course of action to be to make a playlist of such songs and listen to it race morning as you're eating breakfast or setting up your transition zone. From there, all you can do is pray that you get one of those songs you've picked and not something like baby shark that the kids turned on that morning.

There's like five songs that pop into my head during races. Bodies. Landing in London. All About that Bass. Khe Sahn. You're the Voice. I have no idea how Australian songs ended up as random stuff I'd sing.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.