Water bottle management
Not to overthink these things the day before Austin, but I have ability to carry up to 4 bottles now to start the bike, which seems silly. Have trained with 3 to this point. I figure if I start with 3 I can skip aid station 1 and probably 2. Assume I am paying for it with an extra liter of fluid weight for 90 minutes - thoughts?
DS
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Comments
I am a big fan of carrying as little as possible. Less weight and less aero penalty. That being said, if I were you I wouldn't stray from what you have done in training. Then after the race you can tweak your onboard nutrition.
So: for now stick to what you know works!
Not to mention the roads on the Austin course are terrible so that's just a couple more bottles likely to eject from your bike at some point.
Don't start out with more than one bottle of anything they're handing out at aid stations. I agree with Bob - more than one bottle on the bike coming out of T1 is a weight penalty we don;t need.
for a half iron race I carry a between the arm bottle and a behind the seat bottle (both regular bottle holders). I have an empty cage on my downtube. When the front bottle is empty I move it to the back, using the downtube as a an intermediary spot if necessary If I need extra i can pick it up and guzzle and discard at the same water station or carry it to the next before I discard. That way the most I'll ever have is 2 full bottles on me, and most of the time less than that. This system worked great at both my half distance races this past summer. I know from training/RR I need about 1 bottle (liquid and calories) for 1:00-1:10 or so so two bottles is almost enough for the race. Last year I was refilling a 'nonstandard' bta bottle during the race but it was too complicated for me so i stopped doing that. Its not a problem to sit up every 15 minutes and have a drink from the bottle I keep in the bta holder, i don't think it slowed me down too much.
But, I don't think you should do something new if your race is tomorrow!
Going forward - 1 bottle leaving T1. They give them out on the course. Personally I start out with a disposable bottle full of Gatorade. I pick up water at the first aid station and either ditch the remaining Gatorade or hold onto it and ditch it at the next station.
DS