Are you carrying fluids on the run? If so, go for it if you like. Why not?

I would always just feed off the course and usually that means gobbling down a gel before aid stations every half hour or so.

I do usually feed off the course. I was thinking on the run about alerts to remind myself about pacing. Of course, by the run especially at IM distance it’s more about feel at that point.

I have 20min feed alerts on the bike (edge 520), I don't bother with feed alerts for 70.3 run, as I have a gel start of run, then 2 more (every 30mins) so easy to remember. I didn't have feed alerts for a recent IM run which was a mistake, as I got tired I started to forget when I last had a gel, so will do that next IM race.

What watch do you have? If it's a Garmin I wouldn't set the pace alert, I did for one race, couldn't keep the pace and the alarm was going off every 10s, it was driving me crazy. I had to stop and turn it off. With my pacing, I have autolap set to 500m and one of the screens on my F5 set to pace and lap pace, especially useful for the first few kms when inevitably you run too fast. You don't want to get to km 1 and find out you've been running way too fast.

Hydration, I would drink at every aid station.

On the run I do a feed alert every 35 min. to remind me to take a gel.

It lets me shut down my mind and just focus on form and pacing.

I keep it on even when doing training runs. It has become a bit of a time check for me, even though I don’t use it for feeding during training.

I use a 20 min timer for GUs and salt (hourly=3x 20 min), however I never figured out how to set repeat timers on my Garmin Forerunner or Garmin 520. And the vibrate / alarm on the forerunner isn't loud enough anyways. So, I wear a second watch on my right wrist during an ironman - a Walmart $24 timex ironman just for the 20 minute repeating timer. And I at least don't put it on until T1 since it won't help during the swim. Somewhere there's a joke about how many watches does a Polack need to tell the time.

Ha! I’m betting dcrainmaker wears the most while testing out watches

This is exactly what I did for my first 140.6, couldn't figure out how to set it up properly on my Suunto and I already had the Timex. Worked perfectly.

Doesn't a 910/920/935 go off every 10, 15, 20, etc. minutes when you set a time alert for that length of time? I don't do it in races, but I'm fairly certain I've done that during long training runs as a reminder to take a drink and the time alert was recurring.

I know it works on the Edge biek models. I set mine to a 15 min time alert for taking a swig of Infinit.

There has been a setting on Garmin watches for setting custom alerts since forever, well at least as far back as the 305. Generally, you look under Settings for the specific activity. Scroll down and you'll see Alerts. In there you can get to set repeat alerts for time and/ or distance. You can also set custom alerts for food or drink or name them whatever you will. We've always had a 20 min alert on ours for feeding/drinking for training and events.

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Trust me I’m a doctor!
Well, I have a PhD :-)

Can you quickly go through how to set the alerts for the Garmin 520? I was keen to do this, looked once and it looked like there was a single time point I could select but nothing more. Figured it must be able to do multiple alerts but have not had the chance to figure it out!

1. Select [/url][/url]Menu > [/url]Settings > [/url]Activity Profiles.
2. [/url][/url]Select a profile.
3. [/url][/url]Select [/url]Alerts.
4. [/url][/url]Select an alert type.
5. [/url][/url]Turn on the alert.
6. [/url][/url]Enter a value.
7. [/url][/url]Select .
   
   
   Just be careful with power/hr/speed alerts, your bike computer will drive you crazy if you're not in the right zone, the alarm goes off every 20s or something stupid. I only use it for feed alerts.
   
   

Awesome thanks. Will have a look through the menus again tonight. I found that with alerts as well.....I have used pace alerts before with run training but then got so sick of them that I now hardly use them...!!

Copy that. I only found that the alert sound on the 920 isn’t that loud (compared with previous models) but use it for drink (15mins) and food (20mins) on the bike. On the run I check beforehand where the stations are and plan on that when to take a gel shortly before.

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-shoki

I've been meaning to set this up for a while and wasn't sure my watch (Fenix 3) could do it so I'm certainly going to investigate further.

I'd prefer the reminders to pop up on my Elemnt bolt but I gather it's not been implemented yet, although it has been submitted to wahoo a few times to add to their wish list.

I’ll have to test the alerts on a training run.

Eat and drink alerts are good, probably most for the bike since you have a longer period between aid stations as a reminder.
Running maybe not so much, personally as I use aid stations for the reminders.

Down side is you will need to train and hone the right times for you, but then maybe adjust if weather is different on race day.

I have an athlete training in TX for 70.3 FL and going from 60 degrees in training to 90 on race day. Intervals he set for reminders in training may not be smart for race day.

Moving target.

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Ryan
http://www.SetThePaceTriathlon.com
http://www.TriathlonTrainingDaddy.com
I got plans - https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...dotcom#trainingplans

agree. for the bike, it will probably be helpful for me to have fueling alerts as drinking to thirst doesn't seem to work for me and I'll forget to drink much at all. Fortunately, my first ironman, my coach has driven that point home so much during training that I probably drank a little too much on the bike as I had to stop to pee 3 times. I'm not FOP so an extra bathroom stop is not killing my race day.

The run I do usually just use the aid stations. For my ironman, I took some fuel/drink at each one. I think I was considering some alerts to remind me to pay attention to my RPE or what I'll call "don't be stupid" alerts just as a reminder to really be thinking about how I'm feeling and not burning all my matches on the first half of the run when things are feeling great. I don't think it would have a specific pace alert as too much happens on race day to try to keep to that.

For her first Ironman, my friend accidentally set her feed alert to 20 seconds instead of 20 minutes. She threw her watch away after about 30 miles on the bike.
Sharon

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Festina Lente

yeah similar thing with my 920XT. I wanted to know what my 100m splits were for the swim so set the alert accordingly, but it went off for everything, so I was getting alerts very 100m on the bike...