My race shorts have enough padding for an oly but not enough for a HIM or full. Have you or do you change shorts in T2? Do these longer distance races have areas where you can strip down or at least do a deck change? I have my first HIM coming up and I have no clue.
I have never seen changing tents at an HIM, only IM distance. I personally wear my thin-padded shorts the entire race.
Tri shorts + a De Soto neoprene seat cover for HIM
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most HIM races I’ve been to don’t have a tent where you can completely strip down. Many full Ironmans do, at least in my limited experience…
Solution that most people I know use is to wear non padded or thinly padded suit and then slide on regular bike shorts over it for the bike leg. This gets rid of the exposure problem, gives you more than enough padding and avoids the nearly impossible “dry shorts over a wet but tug of war” that’s liable to ensue should you try to pull on bike shorts in T1 while wet;)
Practice in thinner…i did a 90miler in a pair of tri shorts with a really thin pad Sunday…