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What to do when your GPS breaks during the swim?

AMA168AMA168
in Racing Forum 🏎

 This weekend my GPS watch broke when I exited the swim at the Beast of the East Triathlon.  I was thrown off and did not have a backup plan when this happened.  What have EN athletes done in the past when this has happened?

Comments

  • jburbattjburbatt
    I use RPE and the race clocks to manage my time. If it's a race with a few clocks and I need a backup I'll look around for someone running near my desired pace and a watch and check and see what they are running. Then I'll pace them for a bit to get my legs under me, then for the remainder I'll focus on my cadence.

    I'm assuming this didn't screw up your bike? But on the bike, I'd use my speed and cadence sensor (if you don't have power) and watch my RPE going up hills. Better to go easier on the bike than push too much and booger the run.
  • kcb203kcb203
    The two times I've misprogrammed or forgotten my watch, I've set PRs. First was in a 10k. I programmed virtual partner to pace me to a 39:59. But I accidentally had it set to end at one mile. So I did the rest of the race blind, and ended up at 39:18. If I'd followed my watch, I wouldn't have run so fast.

    I forgot my watch for a local informal 3k that has no clocks except at the finish. PR'ed by 20 seconds without the watch.
  • Al TruscottAl Truscott

    I also race without a Garmin/pace watch. I wear a very small (actually a women's!) Timex IM watch, to give me mile times for info. But no HR and no current pace. I find them more confusing that paying close attention to RPE and the "feel" of various paces I've cemented into my brain over years of training at various effort levels and speeds, and then seeing that play out in races. Paul Hough, another ENer who is a decades long runner, follows the same model.

    But that might not work for someone who is still in the learning phase of triathlon training and racing. Undertstanding what happens to internal sensations and actual speed while running after swimming and biking is a whole different animal than simply going out and running hard for 30-60 minutes. A pace watch may be useful to many of us in a race.

    So how to plan for this sort of evenutality? First of all, consider how necessary the Garmin (310?) actually is to your ability to pace your swim? Do you have to wear it in the water? Some ENer's, especially those who use a 305, will put the watch in the T1 or T2 bag, or strap it to the bike. For shorter races, just starting it before the race, and leaving it with shoes in transition also works.

    And if you feel a fail safe is needed, in an IM, you can always put an ordinary Timex IM watch in your T2 bag (or again, at transition with shoes) for a backup to atleast check mile splits.

  • AMA168AMA168

     Great info...I actually use a Timex which may be a problem.  I have been using my watch for my bike and did not have a backup speed sensor on my bike to use as a backup.  So of course, I pushed too hard and blew up the run.  

    Note - Just joined EN 2 weeks ago so I now know after reading 800 pages of info that this is a BAD option.

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