i would do the following.

first off, i would sit for 30-45 minutes and read over the manual. then, i would make an initial call to Polar to go over your initial questions. then i would practive using it for a couple of days and then call Polar again with your new questions.

I just take splits at each transition, as the overall time is not as important to me my splits during the race. it can get a bit in the way though when taking off the wetsuit.

I start the "stopwatch" just before entering the water, then use the split button to mark T1 and T2. I also use the split button to mark things like stopping to fix a flat and the moment I begin riding again (so I can fool myself into thinking about how much faster I "really" was), or any other strange thing that happens during the race. After the race and with the help of the official timing results, it's easy to "reconstruct the evidence" and evaluate your results.

I use the basic mode, I don't worry about HR zones for a race. I have my bike selected, but autostart turned off. I start it at the start (obviously) and use splits for entering T1, and exiting T2. My transition times get lumped onto my bike split, but it is too much to remember to hit the split when getting on/off the bike. If the race has timing mats for the transitions, you can reconstruct your transitions by editing/adding splits in the software. The only drawback I've found is that if you have the bike functions on, you cannot edit the splits to add distance information to the run.

Some smaller races don't have timing mats to capture splits. They'll only have a mat coming out of the water, one at the run exit, and one at the finish, so your splits get lumped into the bike splits. I "recreate" splits as follows:

1) leave the altitude feature on. Your swim exit will be the point where the altitude stops going nuts (for me, at least, the altitude curve while I'm swimming bounces all over the place.

2) The bike start will be the point where you first get a cadence and speed reading. 3) Bike end will be when your speed/cadence curves stop recording.

4) Run start will be when your HR starts shooting up again (pretty easy to spot in the chart).

You can manually insert a lap marks at these points afterwards if you don't want to record splits while you're racing.

I usually set HR zones depending on what distance I'm racing. If it's an Oly I'll use 2- one for the bike (bike zone 4) and one for the run (run zone 4). If it's a 1/2 I'll set 2 for the bike (bike zone 2 for first half, bike zone 3 for second half of bike leg), and run zone 3. For Full, same as Oly except all zone 2.

I never thought about looking at the altitude or speed for transitions. I'll have to check that on my last race, somehow they missed my T2.

For your HR zones, do you use and Exercize Set? How do you change zones for each event?

I use my 710 strickly as the cycle computer. I always leave it on the bike. I use my 810 for the entire race, starting it before the swim or at the gunin a duathlon. When I get to the bike transition I get my split (set up to trigger when I put the receiver near the center of the chest strap, so I dont have to push any buttons) when I get to the bike I turn on the 710 and the autostart does the rest.

After a race I downlowd the 810 as the entire race, then I download the 710 under "cycling power" The cycling power download does not get added to any of the training numbers, so nothing is duplicated. I like having just one program for all of my training info and I urge my training clients that I work with to do the same.

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Jason Goldberg
FIT Multisports

Wow, you have a 710 and an 810. That's certainly a comprehensive way to work the problem! :-) I do the whole race with one 710. I've mounted the receiver mount on my Synace C2 and put a big patch of industrial velcro on the back- this way I don't have to take time to actually fasten the watch strap onto the mount. As soon as I get out of the water I take the watch off as I'm running and put it in the bike mount in T1. As I'm approaching the end of the bike I'll pull the watch off the bike and out it on my wrist just as I'm getting to T2. Works pretty well and I can get the whole race in one file.

Yes, I go in (through the PC) and create a new exercise called "TRI" and set up my HR zones. To switch from one zone to another during the race, you hold the top right button down for a few seconds. The display will briefly show what the new HR zone is.