Training & Nutrition - Warm Up for Short Race

I have a short 12 mile race on Sunday. It is part of a Triathlon Team Relay and I'm doing the cycling portion. They are requiring bikes to be in the staging area before the event begins, so any warm up will need to take place before the whole event or I'll need to warm up on another bike.

Do you have any ideas how to warm up on the trainer before the ride? How long and hard should I be warming up for this twelve miler?

During a normal 26 mile club ride at moderate pace it takes me about 8 to 10 miles to really get warmed up and feeling good. However this would take about a half hour on a trainer before I was ready to do the race and that feels a little excesive to me.

Any suggestions?

The shorter the race the longer the warmup should be. I would warm-up for a minimum of 30 min with a few hard efforts thrown in. I wouldn't use the trainer unless it was cold out or otherwise not possible to ride on the road.

The shorter the race the longer the warmup should be. I would warm-up for a minimum of 30 min with a few hard efforts thrown in. I wouldn't use the trainer unless it was cold out or otherwise not possible to ride on the road.

My bike will be impounded in the transition area until my turn to ride. I was thinking about riding my other bike on a trainer while my sister swam the first leg of the tri.

I could always ride a bit in the morning before the race but I'd cool down by the time I get to ride. How long do people rest between the warmup and the start of a race usually?

Definitely! Get another bike and ride the trainer until a few minutes before your start. I'd give it about an hour warm up- take yourself through ALL the energy zones. This should give you some extra lactic acid that can be converted back to the aerobic respiration while racing (assuming you've been working on building your VO2 max and lactate threshold), along with keeping the CP/ATP ready to rock and roll when you need that power. It'll also warm up your muscles so they'll be ready for that fast start with the huge demand you're about to place on them.

koffee

An hour is long to warm up. 30 minutes could do it.

A bike on the trainer is best if it's a packed race. You can just set the resistance and crank away. The bottom line: for such a short race, you want to toe up to the start line dripping sweat. On the trainer you can do a few minutes warm up, then start progressively upping the resistance until you almost see stars. Jump off the bike, do a few seconds stretch and get over to your other bike, ready to tear it up. :)

Thanks for the responses... I actually didn't get to do any warm up per se at the event, but this is how it went down and I was very pleased overall.

Since this was a Team Sprint Triathlon for our bikes were required to be in the transition area on the racks during the whole event. Prior to the event I rode my bike from my sisters house to the start/finish area which was just a couple miles, but it gave me an opportunity to spin a little bit and get the blood flowing. However, due to the number of people it would actually be an hour and a half before I would even think about starting off on my cycling segment. I used this event to watch and observe all the other experienced and inexperienced triathletes go through their routines. I witnessed NO cyclist warming up. I guess because those triathletes that were completing all three segments by themselves would already be warmed-up from swimming the first segment. My sister swam the pool event in about 8 minutes after waiting an hour for her turn to jump in. I had a little warm up a couple hours before but none speak of after arriving on site. I did some stretches for my calves, hams and quads the ten minutes before she finished and we had to trade the chip for my segment to begin.

I have been back riding since August after approximately and 18 month couch session and have gained a lot of weight during that time. Since August I have lost about 25lbs and continue to do so, however I'm still a huge clyde at 245 and only 5'8" tall. Based on my group rides and training rides here where I live I expected a 4o-45 minute 12 mile race, depending on the route, weather and how I felt going out.

I had a smooth transition from the hand-off of the chipped leg-band and running the bike to the mounting area. Some of the experienced triathletes that were competing solo and not doing relays kept thier shoes clipped into the pedals and just mounted the bike and slipped into their shoes on the roll out. Very interesting technique. I found the course to be pretty flat throughout with some real small roller hills, but just enough to feel the quads burn on load. I went out the chute with a pretty fast rider in front of me and we were averaging around 24mph for the first mile and a half. I knew I needed to settle down and pace myself as I'd be riding for another half hour or so. I dropped into a rythm and wound up keeping the pace pretty steady throughout and found my Garmin showing sustained speeds of 18-22mph pretty constant throughout. I finished the 12 mile route in 38:40 which was faster than my goal of 40minutes. I averaged 18.1 mph which is a lot faster than most of my actual ride averages of 15.8 or 16.

My brother-in-law picked up the chip from me in the transition area and took off for the 5k run. He finished pretty respectably and we finished at just over an hour for the whole relay. Out of 25 teams we finished 7th overall and I finished 8th out of the cyclist.

After the ride I felt great. I could tell that I had been sucking wind on a few grades during the ride as my lungs had that feeling after a long hard ride.

I think if this would have been just a bicycle race it would have been more appropriate to do a warm up on the trainer just before the race, but due to the organization of the triathlon it would have been really difficult to do this. However, I might have done a little better had I been warmed up from the start. How much would I have gained on my 38:40 time? Who knows? Maybe put us in fifth or sixth place? In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter as we had a blast and this was a great result for my first triathlon event. Next year I'd like to try it solo, but I suck at swimming.

Cheers

An hour is long to warm up. 30 minutes could do it.

A bike on the trainer is best if it's a packed race. You can just set the resistance and crank away. The bottom line: for such a short race, you want to toe up to the start line dripping sweat. On the trainer you can do a few minutes warm up, then start progressively upping the resistance until you almost see stars. Jump off the bike, do a few seconds stretch and get over to your other bike, ready to tear it up. :)

Nah. A good warm up needs to go through the lactate energy system, the CP/ATP system, and the aerobic system. The warm up alone is going to take 20 minutes before you cycle your way through the energy systems. The shorter the time trial, the more time you need in your warm up.

Not like I'm drinking the Lance juice, but I believe Lance's 1999 prologue he won was done in like 8 minutes. He spent a good hour warmiing up and was primed to go on that start line. Just an example....

koffee