questions on registering for 1st sprint triathlon

OK. I am so excited about completing my 1st sprint triathlon but how should I register. What have some of you done. Is it beneficial to sign up as clydesdale or as an individual. My goal is to complete the race and not compete. It is a 300M pool swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run. Thanks for any help and suggestions.

For larger races with wave starts I register age group because for some reason they always seem to start the clydes / athenas last or damn near close to last.   For a time trial start in a pool it's up to you.   They seed everyone according to your 300m swim time rather than starting  by age groups. 

Good luck with your race!

Chad

Thanks Chad. I cant explain the excitement I have already and I know it will increase. I do have several questions though. Could you give me a list of things I will need. There is a Tri-Club about 45 miles from me that I hope to join, but if you could help me out. Is there any gear in particular that I need. I still need to brush up on the USAT rules, but is there any special gear for the swim like a special swim suit. I guess I will need goggles and a cap although I have never used them in my swims yet. As for the bike, do you think I should invest in a heart rate monitor now or just worry about completing this first one? If there is any other info you can think about, I would really appreciate it. Thanks for everything.

Darrell

I'm not sure about your area, but 2 out of 3 of the last races I did, the second place overall finisher came from the clydesdale division.  Think of someone build like a athletic football player.   That's what this guy looked like.  Sure he was over 200 pounds, but not an ounce of it was fat.  This guy was ripped and did not need to be competing against the big boys.   Like I said he had the second fastest time of anyone registered.  The last race was more of what I would have expected of a clydesdale division.

I prefer to register my age group.  I did the clydesdale because I thought I would be able to judge my improvement or my day against similarly fit competitiors.  It just wasn't the case.

It doesn't really matter where you register if you are just racing to complete.  You can always go back and look at your times and see how you would have done in either category.  The important thing is to have fun and enjoy your success.

Congrats on signing up.

Scott

Thanks Scott. Any other advice and info that could help with my first sprint would be greatly appreciated.

pace yourself.
I started my first couple races with the intention of going nice and slow and finishing the race without stopping.  That didn't happen.  I ended up having to walk part of it.  When the start happened, I just started swimming and I was passing people and all of a sudden I realized I was tired and all those same people started passing me.  By the time I got out of the water, I was ready to quit.  I was the last person out of the water on my first race.  I got on the bike and caught a few people.  That made me feel better and gave me some energy.  But the swim had done it's dirty deed to me already.  By the time the run came along I was done.

I'm getting a better grasp on how to pace myself and not get caught up in the initial surge or adrenaline that happens when they start the race.  It's real easy to get caught up with the pack and move at their pace and then all of a sudden you are out of juice.

Equipment:
Wetsuit is worth having if you have any cold water swims.  It also makes you more bouyant and helps with the swim.  Check USAT rules for temp.  Many of the smaller events don't go by USAT at least not in my area.  At least they don't require membership and aren't real harsh on enforcing the rules.  The bigger longer events are a different story.

Bike If you are serious about this, get the best bike you can beg, borrow, or buy.  It is one of those things where you get what you pay for.  I have seen people riding on street bikes, mountain bikes, triathlon bikes etc.  There really is a difference in how they perform.  I have a friend who rides a mountain bike with street tires on it.  That helps him some, but he just can't keep up when the chips are down.  I'd say he is equally as fit as I am, but he is fighting a heavier bike and it's not set up for street racing.

Run
Good shoes.  Go to a real shoe store, not footlocker or something like that, but a specialty running store.  Many of them will actually put you on a treadmill and videotape you running.  They can recommend the appropriate shoe for you to help with any irregularities that they can see in the way your foot lands on the ground.  We have 2 of those stores in town, 1 video tapes, the other just eyeballs it.  There was no charge for this service, and there shouldn't be when they are trying to sell you 100+ dollar pairs of shoes that you are only going to use when running.

Good socks, not cotton you can get these at the shoe store as well

If you have the money to spare get a 1 piece triathlon suit to wear, it is wearable under the wetsuit, can be worn on the bike and the run.  But be cautioned, they are expensive.
I use an underarmor top (actually it's Wal-marts brand, but the same stuff)  Nice and stretchy compression shirt to hold everything in place.
I also bought triathlon shorts new off of ebay.  Think of the biking pants that have the padded butt, but there is less padding so it's not annoying when you run.  I wear this under my wetsuit. 

So when I come out of the water, I strip off the wetsuit, put on shoes and socks, helmet and sunglasses and off I go.

Don't be afraid to talk to people at the event and ask questions.  I have found that they are all very friendly, ready & willing to talk and answer questions.

You should start swimming with a cap and goggles right away. The goggles help with sighting (because you don't have water streaming into your eyes when you lift your head to sight) and the cap will be necessary if you end up doing an tri with an open water swim because of the cold.

I think a HRM monitor is beneficial for training but a lot of people don't wear them to race even if they train with them. I wore mine in my first tri but I hardly looked at it and mostly used it as a watch to see how my split times were. I did use the HRM part for the run in order to get me to push myself harder, but running is my worst of the three sports and my RPE is always off.

IOW, I wouldn't get a HRM just for the race, but only if you plan to use it in your training. (And it's very helpful in training even if you barely know what you are doing with it like me.)

If you are swimming in a pool, then you don't need anything special. If you are swiming in Open Water, get a wet suit! It can really improve your swim times.

Here is the bare minimum you need:

Swim: wet suit or swim suit, goggles, cap
Bike: Bike, helmet, shoes
Run: shoes, hat

You should also have sunscreen and sunglasses are nice.

If you are wearing a wet suit, then you should wear the clothes you intend to bike and run with under it. I have a tri top and tri shorts that I wear. If you are wearing a swim suit, then you have to decide if you are going to do the whole race in it, or throw some clothes on top at T1. Or you could swim in the tri top/bottoms, I guess? (I haven't got any pool tris on my schedule so I haven't had to deal with this.)

The whole Athena/Clydesdale category is a bit bemusing to me. The weights you can be and qualify seem pretty low to me, at least for the woman. (You can have a normal BMI and qualify for Athena if you are over 5'6".) Plus it seems to be a mixture of really fit muscular guys and unfit pudgy guys, as Scott mentioned.

So, if it was me, I'd do Clydesdale if I felt less fit, but otherwise, I'd do my age group.

Thanks everyone for the great advice. Keep em coing folks. All of this is awesome since I am so new to this.