Except for the obvious bike handling issues (braking, slick road, wheel spray, post race maintenance) what else should I think about for a Triathlon in heavy rain…no lighting of course.
For sprints I usually don’t wear socks but wonder how well the feet will like it if shoes are soaked.
What about the swim…will we even notice?
Any ideas or tips??
Michael
I’ve only had one race in heavy rain. A few things I learned.
be sure to bring something to put your transition stuff on (especially important if the transition area is grass) AND something to cover your stuff with. Getting back to T2 to find your running shoes filled with water is an unpleasant experiance at best.
I’m not sure how to avoid this maybe teh bike experts can help, but my rims filled with water. I have “semi aero” wheels that have a hollow spot in the rim. Apparently water entered this cavity thru the valve stem hole. Some way of sealing that up woudl be nice.
be prepared to modify your nutrition. I was taking in most of my calories via fluids. Since it was raining and I was staying cool and not getting rid of teh water…Well I had to get rid of the water other ways. Inconvienant at worst. The good thing was that I could stay on the bike as it was raining so hard no one could tell and it was rinsed away.
be prepared to change afterwards and for severe temperature drops. Luckily my experiance the rain was failry warm. Well until after the race. Sun came out at teh begining of the run. However right after the award ceremony it started to rain again…but it was COLD rain. If this were to happen during teh race I could see it becoming a major issue if you wern’t prepared with proper clothing.
anyway a few things I ran into
~Matt
Hey Mike, don’t really have any suggestions but wanted to wish you the best of luck. Let us know how it went.
Swim, I always enjoyed swimming outdoors in the rain.
The sunglasses on the bike issue. I won’t go without some sort of eye covering, even if it ends up with a rain layer on it (have had one too many wasps bounce off the lenses on me). But I would go with light/clear ones because heavy rains make for dark days to begin with.
Watch the paint lines on the road. They’re slicker than blacktop.
On the bright side, the lower friction coefficient of wet pavement means that if you do crash, you don’t have as much road rash to deal with as you would in a dry pavement crash.
Dont change much…I have dome IM in the rain…I mean…Noah style…I am sure others here did that year at IMLP too…who gives a shit if your shoes get wet in transition, they are sure as hell going to get wet when you get running. Be a bit more cautious on the bike with paint and manholes…other that that…let er rip…
I always view training and racing in the rain as water-cooled exercise. The more the better.
Good luck tomorrow dude…watch out for those stinkin’ painted lines…I’ve had one of those take me down before in the rain.
Spot
For riding in the rain, instead of sunglasses, I have a pair of wraparound clear safety glasses. Keeps the rain out of your eyes and protects from bugs etc.
Cost $5 from the hardware store.
J.