I will be doing Ironman Arizona in April…it will be my first Ironman and I wanted to get some ideas on what to wear…a tri suit, bike shorts…?
Men - tights and long shirts. Baggy.
Women - thong and no top. Or no thong…naked, yeah, naked.
Cut-off jeans, snorkel mask, beach cruiser with a bunch of tennis balls in the spokes, ten-gallon hat, converse shoes, no socks… and still beat 10 hours.
I dare you.
not sure if the “tennis ball in the spokes” would fly, how about the old “card attached to your seat stay with a clothes pin” so the card flaps against your spokes and makes you sound all mean and fast!!!
Record you must stop it - you are killing me. I am in stiches.
This is the funniest thing I read today.
You have many options. You can change from swim to bike and run and change clothes totally in each transition. You can wear the same thing throughout the race. It all depends on how comfy you want to be, time goals etc…
Whetever it is train in what you will race in.
I wore Titanwear shorts the whole event. At t1 I put on a tri top. The sand and salt from the swim started bothering me in my private regions later in the ride. At t2 all I changed were shoes. I got a little cold toward the end.
it’s a personal preference. it took me 3ims to settle on bike shorts (for comfort) left on for the run and a sleeveless tri top the whole way too. put arm warmers and a vest in your t1 bag just in case the weather goes south. i also put an extra pair of socks and bandaids in my special needs run bag. last year at placid, i stopped at 13.1 of the run and put both.
I wore tri-shorts & a sleeveless bike jersey.
I’d stay away from the tri-suit… it’s more cumbersome to manuever when/if you have to relieve yourself and don’t plan to do it on-the-fly.
Agreed, wore a 1 pc suit for 1/2IM, and I tell ya I blew a couple minutes in T2 trying to get out of it to pee, and then to get back into it!
Tri shorts, sleevless tri top. Although I think I may switch shorts for the run… I’ll have to see how the training goes 
I always wear a pair of tri shorts and a long course singlet from start to finish (except Hawaii when I swam without the top since I didn’t have a wet suit over it). It all depends on how fast you want your transitions to be and how comfortable you are without a lot of padding for 180k of cycling. You can change into cycling gear and then back into running shorts and a singlet at T2 if you prefer but it is best to go with whatever you’re most comfortable with.
I will be doing Ironman Arizona in April…it will be my first Ironman and I wanted to get some ideas on what to wear…a tri suit, bike shorts…?
Wear a speedo on the swim.
Change to bike shorts on the bike.
Change to run shorts for the run.
It will take you less than 20 seconds to change each time and you will be WAY more comfortable.
Figure out somewhere else to save 40 seconds!
Are the changing stations for one to get into in order to change into the bike shorts @ T1? Sorry for the newbie question.
Could you rephrase that question please?
Ironman events have changing tents - one for men and one for women. No issues with changing shorts.
After trial and error over several IMs, I have found I like tri shorts with tri(long distance) top best. For several years I used a one piece suit but lost time during rest stops on the run. I was already tired and then trying to get a top down was a pain. So now I use De Sota tri shorts and top. I wear the same thing for the S/B&R and haven’t had any issue with discomfort. When I did IM Hawaii a couple of years ago I used the DeSoto tri full suit for the entire race without any problems. I just made sure to rinse off the salt good after the swim and use plenty of BodyGlide.
Hmmm. Excellent question and you are smart to plan and test your clothing options in advance.
A few thoughts: Some people prefer to make clothing changes to increase comfort. Good planning can reduce or eliminate clothing changes to speed transitions but still provide good comfort. You’re going to be pretty gross anyway, so changing clothes may appeal to you, but then again, you can argue it is kind of pointless also since you’ll be all gross anyway.
Specifically, One good strategy is this one I used at Ironman Canada 1997:
Swim: Wore Speedo under wetsuit with heart rate monitor band. Stripped off wetsuit after swim.
Bike: In changing tent pulled on bike shorts, jersey with arm warmers already in back pocket. Pockets also pre-loaded with race food. Pulled arm warmers on once underway on bike to save time.
Run: Pulled off shorts and jersey, pulled on running singlet with small back pockets for run. Ran in Speedo.
That answers my question! THANKS!
Tom,
Do you keep the speedo on underneath the bike shorts?
old people in arizona ride in golf carts everywhere. you might want to consider one of those. i find e-z go is better than players carts. personal preference. like campy over shima-no.
White Top hat and tails (and Vitruvians).