Interesting article on www.xtri.com; Road trip. In it, the writer states that he has **a fundamental rule about traveling to races: Never drive longer then you’re going to actually be racing. **Interesting point, especially considering I drove 12 hours (one way) for Powerman last weekend (2:33 finish). Anyone else have rules about how far they’ll travel for a race?
If it is longer than four hours I’m buying a plane ticket. I hate sitting in a car. I’d rather chill at 35,000 feet with my I-Pod and a book.
He’s a wimp…my cut off is around 8 hours each way for a 36 hour commando trip including racing up to 4.5 hours. The road trip is half the fun and if you have a bunch of buddies on the trip, the 8 hour drive can turn into an interesting post event series of “shoulda-coulda-woulda” analysis paralysis of extremely high entertainment value. Typically the 'shoulda-coulda-woulda" could have been anticipated on the 8 hour drive “TO” the race 
Depends on how bad I want to do the race. I try not to drive more than two and a half hours for a sprint race, up to six for an Oly, maybe longer for a half IM. But these are just general guidelines. I drove from Douglas, GA, to Lubbock, TX, for the Buffalo Springs Lake Half Ironman in 2002. Over 1350 miles and 22.5 hours of driving. And, as embarrassed as I am to report, the race took me almost that long to complete . . .
If it’s early or late in the season, I’m more likely to drive longer distances than I am in the middle of the season. For example, I drove six hours to St. Pete in last November for a sprint race. Was the last race of the season, and I really wanted to get one more race in before winter hit.
RP
No rules on how far to drive, just rules on total expense of the trip.
----->Trent
I have to politely disagree with Tom on this one, I absolutely hate flying. If there is a Stinky, Coughing, Sniffling and Obese slob on the plane, chances are they’ll be sitting in half my seat. (Because they are too large to fit in their own) Also, at 6’2", sometimes even the exit row is too small. I’m not even going to get into the stress of checking bags, bikes, wheels, etc. 8 hours or less I’m driving. I’ve driven as far as 12 with a overnight stop halfway at a friends house.
I think Slowman has the trick with his Northstar camper. Take everything but the kitchen sink with you, and have complete control over your pre-race environment. The mental side of this sport is huge, and if you have to contend with a stressful trip, it can’t possibly help your performance.
If the Don was going to fly me in his private jet, that would be a different story.
Hey Francois, a 1200 mi return trip would be the ultimate “shoulda-coulda-woulda” excuse session with my training buddies. I was at one race where my buddy who finished 6th overall started shaving off “virtual seconds” from his time based on a variety of mishaps that were somewhat “out of his control” (like they don’t happen to other people). Well, after about 3 hours, I added it all up and I replied, “Tom, looks like if you had “good luck” today” you would have gone 14 minutes faster and done a 1:48 and beaten Craig Walton or Simon Lessing if they raced today :-). You’d need a camper full of 6 guys though, to fill a 1200 mi trip with excuses for poor performance. Even my training buddies can’t come up with that many excuses !
The longest I will drive in that morning is one tri we do that is an hour and half away. Any more than that and we motel at the location the night before.
I regularly drive from Knoxville to Panama City(500 miles) a lot. It’s really no big deal. This summer I’ll probably drive to Lake Placid (950 miles). To me its much easier than flying, the hassle of getting to the airport early, waiting, checking luggage and bags, changing planes and waiting. Waiting for a car rental. Loading the rental car up w/ your stuff. Not to mention the having to deal with flying the bike. Plus-and this is a big plus, I like to drive. Saves some money too.
But I know a lot of people who feel the exact opposite. They’ll fly if its over a 3 hour drive.
To each his own I guess.
Yeah, in a 1200 mi trip, you should be able to “virtually deduct” 60 min off your time, finish sub 4 hours on the WTH course and thump Gordo by 50 min or so :-). Hell, the 1200 trip to the race itself is a worthy excuse to deduct 30 min off your time alone
Actual time 5 hours for a stud like you, virtual “shoulda-coulda-woulda” fantasy time = 3:59.59.
There was an article in one of the tri mags about hopping in a car and driving for a long time after racing. Apparently blood clots can form and cause seriuos injury or even death. The one newscaster who died in Iraq apparently died from being cramped in a humvie for a long time and clots formed in his legs that moved to his heart. I wish I could remember the article. The advice was to get out of the car every hour or so and walk and/or stretch.
I once drove to the indy velodrome for a track meet. About 10 hours of driving and 15 minutes of biking.
Swimmers have the best stories. i heard one of a long drive to a kids swim meet. The parents waited through 2 days of the meet for their 10 year lods 50 meter fly. The gun goes off, the kid jumps in starts swimming freestyle and is DQ’d.
Now you won’t have 60 min worth of excuses since you won’t have a 1200 mi drive. I’d like to do WTH some time, perhaps next year as I did World’s Toughest Tri (2mile/100mile/20mile) in Lake Tahoe back in 1993. Totally awesome race. One of the highlights of my tri career even though I had a very very tough day. Right now, my body is not ready for that kind of distance as the longest ride of the year so far is 60 min !
I usually have at least one 10 hour (one-way) trip each season. By that I mean 10 hours each way. So far I’ve returned each time. For the long trips I usually at least the whole weekend. New series of races starting in my state, maybe I can reduce my traveling. Good thing too with gas prices expected to be $2.50 by summer.
I’m driving from Seattle to Auburn, CA to race WTH. It’ll be a fun Thursday of non-stop driving to Davis, CA then a day of chilling and prepping on Friday. Race and party on Saturday and then haul tail back home all day Sunday to get to work on Monday morning.
It’ll make for some great times/stories I’m sure.
50% of my annual training hours is what I will drive to a race in minutes. My annual training hours is 600 hours so 300 minutes (5 hours) is my give and take figure.