Conquer Every Type of Triathlon Swim Start

TriDot Podcast Episode 305

Conquer Every Type of Triathlon Swim Start

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Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. Today I have Coach Joanna Nami, the lead coach of Team JoJo, and Coach Ryan Tibball, the lead coach of Triple T Racing. They are joining us to talk about the very beginning of every triathlon event. We're talking about swim starts—how to have a smooth swim start no matter what type of swim start it is. I'm Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people, and captain of the middle of the pack. We treat the show like any good workout. We'll start with a warmup question, settle into our main set conversation, and then wind things down by having our coaches answer an audience question on the cooldown. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: This is the TriDot Podcast, the triathlon show that brings you world-class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warmup.

Andrew Harley: The more you race, the more experiences you have getting both in and out of the water on race day. Sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes there are hiccups, sometimes it's an extra interesting moment for one reason or another. Coach Jo, Coach Ryan, for our warmup question today, what is your personal favorite race day memory that is tied to entering or exiting the water?

Joanna Nami: This was a tie for me. I'll make them quick. My first IRONMAN was the full in Coeur d'Alene like 15, 16 years ago. And I was standing with one of my best friends, Suzette Schutze, as we're standing on the beach—you know, mask, dart, and it's like a 10-minute countdown. She said, and I turned to her and look—because the women are in pink caps, the men are in green. And I look at Suzette and she's like a big sister to me. And I'm like, "Where are the women?" She says, "We ARE the women." And there were so few. And then she grabbed my arm and we ran.

Second story was, I think the inaugural IRONMAN Texas 2011 mass start. They would not sound the horn until all 3,000 athletes were in the water. And there were a lot of people afraid. So we treaded water. I don't remember exactly how long, but I think it was around 30 minutes. But I was hanging onto a kayak like chest-to-back with athletes all along the kayaks. And there's a young guy next to me and I turn around and he has a beach ball and he's sitting on this beach ball like holding it against his chest—and a lot of people back then in mass starts used to blow up beach balls and launch them into the water. And he looks at me and he goes, "Get on my back." And so at this point, I'm on the back of some 20-year-old kid hanging on for life, and then they blow the horn. He's like, "You can get off now." So those were interesting days when the mass... Those were a little bit different.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, exactly the kind of story I hoped to get here. Exactly the kind of thing I wanted to cover in this episode. Every swim start is different, right? Whether it's rolling or... Anyway, great stories there from Coach Jo. I had the privilege of watching you, Coach Jo, at your swim start for your first Kona IRONMAN World Championship, treading water out there off Dig Me Beach. And then the cannon went and we were like, "Go Jo, go Jo." I was on the pier not racing, so a little easier for me than you. Coach Ryan, what is your favorite memory from a swim start or swim exit?

Ryan Tibball: Well, you know, it's actually right along the same lines as Coach Jo. I mean, I look back into my triathlon career at IRONMAN Arizona mass swim start. And yes, very much like you, Jo, but fortunately I had my own built-in beach ball because I was wearing a wetsuit. It was frigidly cold, but yet we had to wait for 2,500-plus athletes to get in the water. And I pride myself on being pretty decent at swimming, so I'm getting up there and I see those kayaks just drawing that imaginary line. And yes, we're still treading water in our wetsuits, and then just trying to find the best way to relax until everybody gets in the water. I even got a picture of that, which is really nice to have. Just looking at it, and when the cannon goes off, the water just looked like it starts boiling. It's amazing. And I miss those days, I really do.

But I have to talk about the exit though, and that happened in the same event, which was a very memorable thing. When I got out of that water—because again, like I said, it was frigid water, it was 62 degrees. That's cold. And I get out of the water and I'm actually hypothermic and I'm shivering uncontrollably. And as I'm getting out and I've got my wetsuit stripped down, I am just shaking going into—trying to get to the changing tent—and a volunteer goes, "Hey, are you okay?" And I go, "I can't stop shaking." And immediately she yells, "MEDIC!" And immediately I take off and start running away from her as quickly as I could because I wasn't about to stop my first IRONMAN there. And I did proceed to sit in the changing tent for about 20 minutes. So that's been my longest on record T1 ever, just to try to warm up. So I mean, great. It's a memory that I repeat to my athletes often.

Andrew Harley: So I have to give the swim exit of Escape from Alcatraz a shout-out. You would think the swim entrance would be the big memory, but no for me. I was so in my head, scared of getting eaten by a shark in San Francisco Bay. When I got to that beach, I've never been more relieved and excited in my entire life than when my feet hit that sand and I was just big grin the rest of the race. I didn't get eaten by a shark. Hooray!

We're going to throw this question out to our audience like we always do. This is going to go out on the "I am TriDot" Facebook group. It's also going to go out in the TriDot Community hub for our athletes that are there. Let us know from all the swim starts and swim exits you've experienced, which one was the most memorable for you. Can't wait to see what you guys have to say!

Announcer: Let's go.

Main Set

Andrew Harley: On to our main set, where Coach Jo and Coach Ryan are going to coach us. They're going to teach us, no matter what type of swim start we have, how to have a smooth swim start, how to set ourselves up just to have a great rest of the race, how to deal with the anxiety or the physical things that go along with that type of swim start.

And coaches, before we kind of roll through each different type of swim start that an athlete might face in their next race, I just kind of want to know overall: how much does the type of start our event has affect our overall race? Does it have a big impact on what races we should choose next? If we know we're better at a certain swim start than others, is it really just negligible? Once we're swimming, we're swimming. Should an athlete consider when they go to register for a race what the type of start is going to be? What do you guys think about this, Coach Ryan?

Ryan Tibball: Absolutely. I mean, you know, you've got ocean swim starts, you've got river swim starts, you got lake swim starts. Some people are afraid of the Loch Ness monster in that lake. And so they may not choose to be in a lake setting. It's like, you know what, there's no sharks—I'm totally happy. Yeah, I'm thinking about it.

But I mean, game planning. Yeah. Knowing exactly what race you're going to be registering for and game planning, that is essential. It really is absolutely essential. Knowing your race and being comfortable and hopefully reducing any anxieties or those kinds of things—it sets the tone of your day, essentially.

And absolutely, if you're comfortable with your swim setting, whether it's a mass start, wave start, whatever it is, or time trial start, again, maybe you don't like a lot of people around you. And so you might not choose that particular race. You might choose a race where you go, "Hey, I know we're going in one at a time or three at a time, that's fine. I just don't want 50 people around me in one place."

And then understanding that again, going—we may talk more about this—age group starts with the waves. And again, you know, as I already mentioned with the single or a few at a time.

But secondly, should athletes consider the type of start before registering? Yeah, you really should. I mentioned about ocean swims versus lake swims versus river swims. And maybe some people fear the river because of currents and they're like, "Okay, you know what, like California, for example, IRONMAN California or Oregon have great currents." So it's up to you whether you want to embrace that current or not.

But again, addressing these things is absolutely essential. And that's what experienced coaches can help—really discern those challenges and really overcome those challenges and conquer those fears that you might have. For sure.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I think early in your triathlon career, or if you have a certain swim fear, right, it might be avoiding a certain type of swim or a certain type of swim start that maybe intimidates you. But I think as you're in the sport for a while and you get more and more comfortable in the open water environment, you kind of flip the coin and you can say, "Okay, what type of swim start have I not experienced yet?" Right? And these days especially, so many races have moved to a rolling start. And so it's like, "Okay, who still has a mass start? I haven't done that yet. Let me try it."

I've done some river swims, but I've never done a race with like a big current that pulls you down the river. So maybe I'll look for that in a future race just to experience that, right? And try something a little bit different.

I haven't done a race like IRONMAN Texas. I know there's a 70.3 in Austria where you're swimming down a canal with just massive crowd support on both sides. Like, that sounds kind of cool. Maybe I'll look for that in a future triathlon experience. So yeah, definitely flipping the coin.

There's looking at what race should I do based on, "Oh, I have a certain fear or a certain aversion to a certain type of swim start." You can also seek out races with certain types of swim starts just to vary up your triathlon experience. Coach Jo, anything here from you? As your athletes are looking at the races, how much does the swim start affect the rest of your race?

Joanna Nami: I think it greatly affects the rest of your race. Not only the type of swim start, but the planning and preparation for that swim start will affect more.

A lot of times we can't get away from a certain race that we really want to do—like our families from Wisconsin or our home base races, Texas. And so we really love the bike and run portions of that race. So we're gonna need to do that swim sometimes.

We can decide on races sometimes based on swim start, and then sometimes we need to prepare ourselves for that swim start, no matter what it is.

And one thing I think about often—and this doesn't have to just do with triathlon—but whenever we have an event early in the day, say you are biking and you almost wreck or you almost get sideswiped in your car, your anxiety level, your nervous system goes to a 10 or a 20 immediately. You feel the effects of that the rest of the day. It's the same with a swim start that you're not prepared for or have practiced. You'll send yourself into that extreme anxiety state often, and then that kind of trickles through the rest of your day. It sets the tone for what the race is going to be. So a lot of people come to me now that I have a lake at my house to work on: "How can I get over this initial fear?" And we're going to get into that.

Andrew and Ryan, I know later into the podcast, but the initial preparation and how I'm going to set the tone of my race, starting with the swim start, starts early that morning when you get up. It actually starts during your training and how you prep for that start. But it does start in the hours—two hours before that race. Let me set the tone for what I'm about to do.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And Jo, let's go ahead and talk about that now. I know I've got it a little bit further down on our runsheet, but no matter what the type of swim start is, right, there are some swim starts that can have extra anxiety because maybe you have a mass start and you're scared of that contact, or maybe it's a rolling start but you're jumping off of something like a ferry into San Francisco Bay and that has you worked up. So there are some swim starts that, because of the nature of the swim, can lead to anxiety. But then there's obviously just some people that anytime they're jumping into an open water swim environment, they have anxiety. So whatever the case may be, if an athlete feels anxious, how can we deal with those feelings? How can we—I don't want to say eliminate, because maybe that's not the goal—how can we mitigate the impact that has on the rest of our race?

Joanna Nami: I would say I have some old faithful techniques that I have used with athletes in the past and had them practice. What I've realized, probably in the last couple of years, is that there are multiple techniques that you can use and it really varies based on the athlete. It's going to be based on their swim experience, their race experience. How do we eliminate some of that anxiety? Or we're all going to be nervous. That's a given. You're always going to have nerves. But how do we eliminate some of that? And it is truly exposure and practice.

I cannot emphasize enough how much open water swimming—if you swim five pool workouts a week, that is not going to translate to us entering into the open water and how we deal with swimming in open water.

And so I have my athletes practice what I call the 10 minutes before they enter the open water swim. A lot of them do the box breathing that I've mentioned five million times on podcasts. You know, if you Google box breathing, that is a technique I use for flying. I used it in an MRI machine last week.

There are techniques that really will calm the nervous system, but I have other athletes that are too nervous to even get in a rhythm of the box breathing. And in that case, we figure out what song, what Bible verse, what mantra, what works for them.

And that is something that I make them write it down and make them text it to me. And then as we're going into an open water swim to practice, I'm looking at them and I'm like, "Are you singing it? Are you doing it?"

And when you practice your calming techniques, you're much more likely on race day to implement them and be more successful at being at a calmer level when you enter the water.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I'm usually pretty comfortable swimming in open water. A few exceptions like San Francisco Bay, that I've already joked about four times in this one episode.

But what I always try to remind myself on any swim start—because like my IRONMAN, for example, my very first full distance IRONMAN, I was very nervous before getting in the water, right? That's a huge undertaking you're about to do for the first time. And I just always try to remind myself: "Okay, be nervous. You're going to be nervous, you're going to feel anxious, you're going to have those feelings. But once you're in the water and you swam those first 50 yards, 50 meters, a hundred yards, a hundred meters. Okay, be nervous during that, but then settle in because you know how to swim. You built fitness for this event. You know how to swim. Once you're out there and you're actually doing the thing, you're going to settle down."

And so when I'm nervous at the swim start, I try to remind myself: "Okay, yeah, you're a little nervous now. It's okay. In a hundred yards, those nerves are going to be gone and you're going to be on autopilot doing what you know how to do."

Joanna Nami: And I'll tell them, when you hit that water, I want you to smile and think about how grateful you are that you've made it to this point. When you turn—I'm always telling them—turn nerves into excitement. When you, before you hit that water, it'll be nerves. When you hit that water, it's now excitement and being grateful. When you start thinking about that, the nerves subside and you feel better.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Love that. Okay, let's get to the heart of this episode. I really just wanted the two of you to walk us through what we should be thinking about, how we should approach each type of swim start an athlete might encounter. And we won't run through every sub-scenario, right? Like a rolling start into a lake, a rolling start into a pool, a rolling start into... We're going to talk about rolling starts, and we'll cover some of the different things that might happen.

But if there's something we miss, there's a swim start type that we miss and I didn't think of it, Jo didn't think of it, and Ryan didn't think of it—hats off to you at home for thinking of it. You're invited to be a producer at the TriDot podcast.

Moving forward, we think we have all the big categories covered here, so let's get into it and see what our athletes need to know about each type of swim start the three of us could think of. And the first one I want to talk about is a rolling start jumping into the water. So a rolling start is obviously where the athletes are in a long line, right? And just a few at a time or even one at a time are entering the water. And in this case, we're talking about jumping into the water regardless of what that type of body of water is. Coach Jo, what do you tell an athlete about having a smooth start in this type of swim start?

Joanna Nami : So this is a conversation that I do have a lot. Ryan probably does too. With races like Texas 70.3 where you are going off a dock. There are tons of IRONMAN races where you're jumping off a dock.

And that's very scary, especially for those that are adult-onset swimmers who are newer to IRONMAN racing and newer to open water swimming. I tell them you need to do what you are most comfortable with. That means sitting down and shimmying into the water off the dock. That is fine.

It can be very intimidating to jump off a dock. You don't know how far the water is down. Have you had that experience in Alcatraz, Andrew?

And it's like, that's a very intimidating swim start. So if it means sitting down makes you feel more comfortable jumping in that way, that's totally fine.

I also think it's important, and Ryan will probably touch on this because I think it's the main concept here: when you are self-seeding in a rolling start, you want to put yourself in the right spot. If you are seeding yourself at under an hour in an IRONMAN race, you'll be up there with some big dogs. It's going to be very intimidating jumping off a dock and swimming.

In that situation, it is very customary that IRONMAN athletes swim faster than they do and will self-seed much faster than they are. So we have that situation of not getting behind too many slow people, but seeding ourselves aggressively enough that we're in the right group. So I'll tee that up to Ryan. He can talk to you more about jumping off the dock.

Ryan Tibball: Oh, yeah. I think footing has to be a strong consideration. You're running and jumping off of something, some surface. You better one, be very familiar with it, and go check that out before race day happens.

And getting up there, it's like, hey, because I've known many athletes that have literally slipped and fallen and actually ended their day without even starting their race. I mean, barely starting the race.

And so being very careful, this is not the time to be, "Hey, I'm gonna Usain Bolt off this dock here today." We're gonna be very calm and like Jo said, I like what she said. Hey, if you have to sit down, sit down and then jump in. I've seen athletes do that and there's nothing wrong with that.

Again, you're setting the tone for your day. You might as well do it the way you planned it and want to do it. So that is my absolute guidance on that.

And running in is like be very, very conscious and very controlled in your entry into the water to begin with.

One thing that I encourage athletes to do: a lot of us don't have access to a dock or something to practice. I harp on practicing and being exposed to what your race scenario is going to look like. Sometimes you have to improvise, and if you only have access to the pool, then you're going to need to visualize. Close your eyes 100%, stand at the edge of that pool. Visualize stepping off. Do that 10 times. Do it over the last six weeks of your training for a race, you're going to have that same feeling.

If you can visualize it off the pool as you do when you're standing on that dock, you're going to be like, "I've done this. I'm not going to get hurt. I'm going to be fine." But we have to sometimes improvise with where we're training to get that feeling.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And Jo, you can take the next step, right. You can practice that jump in the pool. You can jump into the pool off the side of the pool, visualizing that river, that lake, that body of water. And then lean forward, put your goggles down and start swimming. Right? Because that's part of it too. It's that first time where you're pitching your body forward horizontally, knowing people are coming behind you, getting your goggles under there and starting your motion. And the more you can practice that with that visualization piece. Yeah. That sometimes that's as close as you can get to simulating the race day experience. But it will go a long way. Ryan, go ahead.

Ryan Tibball: I like what you said there too. You mentioned the goggles. We hadn't talked about that yet. Real quick. But jumping into the water, let me go ahead and tell you, you're not putting your goggle straps underneath your swim cap. I mean, you have a good chance you could lose them.

And if you're one to put the straps over your swim cap, then it's a great idea as you're jumping in, hold on to your goggles, hold on to your face and put your hands over those goggles so you don't lose them. Because I have also seen that happen many, many times. And an athlete ends up having to swim the entire course without goggles on. And that's no fun. So just to add to that.

Andrew Harley: Have you guys seen athletes hold their nose?

Ryan & Joanna: Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yep.

Ryan Tibball: Or hold your goggles. I've seen athletes hold their goggles while they step off to prevent them from flying off.

But the nose thing, you have to do what makes you comfortable. There's no shame in this race. You have to kind of give up that you're worried about what people think of you or what you look like. You do your thing.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Yep. And some rolling starts are pretty calm and there's just one or two athletes jumping in at a time. Some it can be as wide as four or five jumping in at the same time. And so I'll also say, or there's obviously Alcatraz where it's just a mass of people off of two exits of a boat. And that's the extreme end of the spectrum. But either way, I want to remind people: don't let anybody rush you. I mean, don't get up there and stop. But get up there. Take the second you need to pick the spot. If you don't see a clean spot of water, wait for a second until you see a clean spot of water. Don't put yourself in a bad situation because you feel the pressure of athletes around you. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself and enter that water cleanly.

And you can also, if you're not averse to contact, you just want to get in the water and start swimming—sure, go for the middle. But if you know you're averse to contact, position yourself on the far right or far left. You can kind of jump out into the side and have more room to space yourself out from the other people jumping into the water. So that's my little coaching bit here.

Andrew Harley: There's also rolling starts where—and again, a rolling start is just everybody's jumping into the water, entering the water a few at a time as opposed to everybody—and it's a little bit different when you're not jumping into the water, you're running into the water because now you're elevating your heart rate, you got some distance to cover. Instead of that contact happening at the jumping point, the contact with the shoulders-to-shoulders is happening as you're running.

What do we need to know to have a smooth experience with a rolling start where we're running into the water?

Joanna Nami: Oh, these are my least favorite.

Andrew Harley: Are they?

Joanna Nami: I have like total paranoia about rolling an ankle, cutting my foot. And people take off. Like, I mean like they're doing a 50-yard dash. I'm like, this is the beginning of an IRONMAN. I mean like, cool your jets.

What I would say is if you can practice that entrance, please take the opportunity to. Because most of the time you don't know. I mean, you can't visually see where the ground's going to leave you, how far out you're going to be able to have contact when you—if you can practice running into the lake, running into the ocean and then doing the dive in, you're going to be much more comfortable on race day. But yeah, you need to be aware. Ryan talked about slipping off the dock. It's the same thing as that.

You want to be very cautious as you're taking those steps. You don't want to trip and faceplant on the beach before you even began the race. Most of the full IRONMANs allow for a practice swim.

I just did Frankfurt a couple weeks ago in Germany. Definitely went out. That was a beach entrance into a lake. But I practiced that entrance because I had no idea what the ground was going to feel like. Is there going to be rocks? Is there going to be shells? And I wanted to know for sure. And there was some stuff on the ground.

So in that case, on race day, I made it a point to kind of cautiously jog into the water. And though there were people running faster than me, I didn't care. That's what made me feel comfortable and knew was going to set me up for a better swim.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. So with the rolling start where we're running into the water, an interesting decision an athlete needs to make is how far into the water do you let yourself get before you leave your feet and start swimming? And Joanna, maybe along those lines, if it's a rougher surface, you're going to be motivated to start swimming sooner, I'm sure.

How quickly does the water get deep is a factor here. But Ryan, what is an athlete need to consider in terms of the smoothest, best possible way for making that transition from being on our feet, running forward to being horizontal and swimming. When does that happen?

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, this starts from the second they send you off. I think, one, our heart rate's already elevated before we can get in the water. We're ready to race. We're amped up and, again, as we've kind of alluded to, you take your time getting in if you are really accustomed and very comfortable for it, and then you can run into there. But just keep in mind your heart rate is going to get elevated if you decide to sprint into the water.

Now, once you're—again, if you're walking into the water and taking your time, you're going to keep yourself calmer, and get going. And once you get to a point where basically if the water is reaching up close to you just above your knees, that's the point where you start to consider, "Okay, let's get horizontal."

Let's get horizontal and let's get moving and start swimming and relax into your stroke and start singing the Dory song. I—honestly, guys, that is one of my favorite songs. I just start singing that in my head because it works. It keeps me calm.

Andrew Harley: Makes you happy. Keeps you calm.

Ryan Tibball: It does. It's my—you just made you guys smile too. So I mean, that's the point. It's, but again, getting into there and if you are an aggressive starter, I mean, yes, when that water gets to that level again, just above the knees, it's time to launch yourself into it and get to swimming and finding your path and getting your—hey, maybe get on somebody's feet and where you can get the draft going too.

Those are great opportunities to start looking for those other athletes that are around you that maybe you can start your draft right off the bat. And that's another consideration as you're running into the water. So yeah, fun stuff. Running in. I do like it. I am one of those that will start to run. I do get the run going. It's just I like running, so it feels good to me. So I'm opposite of Jo, I guess.

Joanna Nami: So Ryan, I am 50 years old now, but I do love that you talked about that, because the number one question I often get from athletes when we're talking about saving time—for very competitive athletes—is the rule of thumb is you will swim faster than you will walk or jog in water. So you want to be swimming as much of the time as you can.

So when Ryan said, "Yeah, it gets near the knee, you need to get horizontal, you need to get into your flat swim position." Same with the exit. You want to stay swimming as long as you can because you will expend a lot of energy if you stand up too fast and try to run this thing out. You will be exhausted coming out of the water going into T1.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I really like that point as well. The other thing Ryan mentioned that is a great point here as we're talking about rolling starts: a lot of races have switched to rolling starts. Right? I mean, this is—you're both nodding your head. I think this is the most common swim start type in triathlon.

Whether it's your local sprint and Olympic with a pool swim or a lake, it just for safety reasons, it spreads the field out. It gives the safety personnel just a few athletes at a time. As the train of athletes is swimming by to keep an eye on, it eliminates just all this chaos and contact at the start. And so there are still other types of starts, but the rolling start largely is the number one format in triathlon.

And once you get rolling, kind of like what Ryan said, in a rolling start, there isn't as much this jockeying for position that happens because you're only getting into the water a few athletes at a time. And if you're seeding yourself correctly, like Coach Jo mentioned, you really just enter the water with a group of athletes. You enter the water with and you just kind of find some feet and you stay behind them. If someone's going a little too slow, you kind of go around them. If someone's going too fast, they're going to go around you.

But for the most part, you're kind of just entering this long—Jeff Booher, TriDot CEO, has referred to it as a processional. Really for the rest of the race, you just kind of enter this long line of a processional that goes around the course and you get out and you move on to the bike. So once you're actually in the swim, it's a much calmer experience than a mass start, which we'll talk about in a second, or a wave start.

But what from you guys as coaches? Coach Jo, what does an athlete need to be thinking about once they get horizontal? They start swimming. They're looking around at the athletes around them. How do we need to start positioning ourselves for the rest of the swim to go smoothly?

Joanna Nami: So I have my athletes break down a swim, usually into quarters. A full IRONMAN swim. It may be different for some athletes. I may have them break it down more.

I usually have them set the alarm on their watch for 500 meters initially as they're entering the water. Our first concept is we're going to get as flat as possible. We're going to swim not aggressively but strongly to hold our space.

But I have them always, for the first 500, breathe to their natural side every stroke. Even if they say, "I'm more comfortable bilateral breathing. I get in a rhythm." I said, "That's fine. But the first 500, I want you breathing every stroke because you are on edge, your nerves are high, and I want you to start immediately mastering the inhale and exhale, full exhale." The only way to do that is to get in a rhythm of breathing to your natural side.

And the moment your mouth goes underwater, every time you're doing that slow steeple bubbles or that slow exhale, that's going to calm you and set you into a rhythm that sets you up for a great swim.

Once they, as they're proceeding through their swim at every 500 meters, usually that alarm goes off and I'm having them switch their focus point. And that's dependent on the athlete. Sometimes that might be form, sometimes that might be kicking harder, sometimes that might be sighting if they tend to drift from one side to the other. But it's really important to plan the swim as much as you plan the bike and the run.

And most people don't.

They're just like, "The swim is the shortest part of the race. I'm just going to get it done and then I can start my day."

And like we just mentioned and Ryan talked about it, it'll set the tone for the rest of the day, and you'll feel so much more confident and so much smarter overall that you really mastered your race if you really practice and plan out that swim.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, very good. I love that. So lots of good stuff there about the rolling start. Right. Whether you're jumping into the water or wading into the water, get horizontal as soon as you can, seed yourself correctly, and then have a smooth swim. Let's move on to wave starts. This is kind of the next big category. And a wave start is when you are starting at the same time as a group of people. It's usually your age group or maybe a couple age groups wrapped into one. And there's a couple of different ways to do a wave start. We're gonna go through each one.

And so let's first talk about a wave start where you are treading water until the gun goes off. Coach Jo, you kind of shared some stories along these lines in your warmup answer. So talk to us about a wave start, treading water until the gun goes off.

Joanna Nami: Right? Yeah, I was before talking about more of a mass start of 3,000. But now, the championship races, our wave starts, as in Kona, like the two times that I've done that race. You can be out there for quite a bit and you're watching these other waves go off, which raises your nerves because you're like, "Whoa. They're really taking some time between launching these waves."

So if we're talking about treading water in a wave start for competitive athletes, you like a wave start. You like to know where the people around you are. There's nothing worse than your tracker. When you're watching the IM tracker and you think you finished here and then six more athletes come in that started way later in the race.

So as far as that wave start, competitive athletes like to be around the athletes that they're competing against. I think we get into this later, but we can talk about it a little bit.

And I know Ryan's going to have some input on this: as you're treading water. Him and I have done this for a long, long time, and we've had those races where you tread it for quite a while. That's a thing that can be practiced. That's the thing that you should think about. If you know you're going into a world championship race, then maybe you need to get out there in the open water and tread for 20 minutes.

What are the techniques you're going to use during that 10, 15, 20 minutes where you don't get nervous and start to panic and freak out? For me, I use the time as warmup. I know that they'll say, "Ladies, you have five minutes till the gun goes off."

I will take that five minutes and you'll see me backstroke it out of the group and swim it back, backstroke it out, swim it back. I'm going to use it to warm up. I'm going to use it to loosen up as well.

And there's something very calming for a lot of athletes to get on their back and just take deep breaths and relax versus just doing egg beater with your legs during the treading and wearing yourself down. So it's better to breaststroke, backstroke, sidestroke, just swim out a little bit, swim back. The time will go faster and then you'll be more warmed up to start.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I've never thought of practicing that treading water first. And that's so interesting.

I've had two local Olympic distance races where it was a wave start and—at the time of recording this podcast, I'm 37 now. When I first started in triathlon, I was in my late 20s and early 30s. And very often the young men go first because they assume the young men are going to be fastest and they want to get the young men out of the way. And so I've had two treading water starts where my age group was the first one to go.

And so they get you out there and then, yeah, you just kind of have to—even at the local level where there's a couple dozen athletes at most, you can tread water for a while because they're getting all the other age groups lined up and whatever. And you just kind of—yeah, you do burn some candles just sitting there, egg beating your legs.

And I tried to just look around and enjoy it and start chit-chatting with some of the guys around me to just get my mind off what was about to happen. But yeah, I never considered practicing that, getting in open water and just practicing staying in the spot. How does my body feel after 10 minutes of doing it this way or doing it that way? Very interesting. Coach Jo Ryan.

What would you tell an athlete in terms of positioning yourself in the group here for a mass start or for a wave start? Again, sometimes this, if it's a local race, might be 10 people next to you, this might be a hundred people next to you, depending on the event. But what do we need to think about in terms of where to place ourselves for a wave start?

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, you need to be real with yourself first off. You got to know what—is swimming your strength or is swimming your weakness? And I mean, are you strong there and positioning yourself in a big wave?

If you're not a strong swimmer, don't put yourself up in the front line of that wave.

And number two is, consider: do you really like people around you from the get-go? And if you don't, then also position yourself towards the back of that wave. And again, it just—anything to help reduce those anxieties and calm you down. Positioning is so important and so we know again, fast swimmer. And you're like, "Hey, I don't mind people around me and I don't mind the boxing match that's going to ensue right after you take off because you will get hit." I mean, I often reflect on a video. I think it was Clif Bar. So you can go YouTube that. And I think a lot of pugil sticks. The guy running into the water and he's getting beat up—well, guess what? That happens. That's real.

And again, if you want to position yourself and you're used to that kind of situation and you're fast enough to tolerate those things, put yourself up front. If you don't really, consider just putting yourself towards the back of the group and just being more comfortable with where you want to be, where you want to belong. And I will add to it. It's like I like what Jo said. Those are all great things that I have done where floating. I'll get on my back and learn to float on my back. So maybe you can practice that in the pool too.

If you're expecting a wave start, mass—wave start in the water, floating, get on your back and save those legs because you will burn matches if you don't. And I've done that many, many times. So just to add to this whole wave start treading water situation.

Andrew Harley: So there's other wave starts and—no, we'll talk about those too.

Joanna Nami: One thing I wanted to add, Andrew, was—and I think I finally, after like 20 years of racing, mastered it in Frankfurt—was I was standing on the beach. This was a rolling start, but it would work for a wave start as well. And I started eyeing around me: who looks like Michael Phelps, who looks like Katie Ledecky. I'm going to get behind that swimmer. I don't know if I really found that swimmer. There was one guy I was eyeing and I was like, "Oh, he's going to tear it up like I know he's going to." And I want to save as much energy as possible on this full IRONMAN swim.

And I am going to stay in his bubbles, I am going to see his big feet and I'm going to stay in his bubbles and he's going to pull me to the end of the swim. And it was the first time—this is just a side note—that I stayed in men's bubbles because there were very few women. It was a 15% female race. I stayed in the bubbles and I sighted twice in a full IRONMAN race. I made myself stay down. I knew that if I had bubbles in front of me and people around me, I was in the right spot.

So my point on this is that if you are treading water, you have some time there, do a few sights, relax. But look around you. You know who the swimmers are. A lot of times they'll be the ones in the bathing suits who choose to wear nothing else. Those are the swimmers, and you start off right behind them. Let them save you some energy. Let them pull you along and you draft on them.

Andrew Harley: That is bonkers. Twice in one IRONMAN sighting. That is bonkers. And at that race, Jo, you qualified for Kona, so it worked out for you. Congratulations. So excited for you to go back to the Big Island.

Joanna Nami: Yes.

Andrew Harley: Great. Lots of good stuff there. On a wave start, where we're treading water until the gun goes off. Another form of a wave start, and I've done this once, actually, is where you're holding onto a wall, or maybe it's a dock, maybe it's a pier. But you're in water. It's a wave start. You're all going to start at once with your age group or similar, and you're holding on to something until the gun goes off. So you're pushing off a wall as opposed to treading water and then going. Maybe not that different. But I wanted to bring it up. Coach Ryan, is there anything different you would tell an athlete about that kind of start?

Ryan Tibball: I could kind of use what Jo just said. You kind of eyeball who's—as you're walking along. And I've done this where holding onto a wall. I've done it once at USAT Nationals, and you can look around and go, "Hmm, I'm gonna follow that guy."

Most people are, you know, be honest with you. They're not going to follow me. I'm the littlest guy in the group most nine times out of 10. So I've done this. I remember holding onto the wall and having that conversation and looking at the guys next to me. And I mean, you could see them reaching out with that front arm, getting ready to take off. And I swear it was three feet longer than mine. And I was like, "Wow, okay." And I remember two of them having a conversation saying, "Hey, yeah, I guess we'll see these guys later."

And sure enough, I mean, they just left me in the wakes, and I was like, "Okay, so I didn't pick the right guys to be next to, apparently." And but again, it's like, just give yourself that space. It goes back to that.

And if you want to be on the end, you can kind of—ends, you can look and see your course and go, "Hmm, okay, I want to be over here. I want a straight shot towards that or I'm going to angle myself a little bit," just to see how it goes. So lining yourself up along that dock's edge can be a little strategic at times. But again, when as soon as it goes off, do you determine: do you want to jump out there with everybody or do you want to let them take off and you'll just kind of cruise along behind everyone at that point? And so that's another consideration.

If you're not a strong swimmer, just don't bolt off there and just let them go, let them clear the water for you and then get going yourself if you're a weaker swimmer. And those are considerations when holding onto a dock, all in the same line together.

Andrew Harley: Okay, we've got three more swim start types to talk about here on the episode. The next one is a wave start where we're running into the water. So we've talked about running into the water already as part of a rolling start. In a rolling start, you might be running next to two or three people. In a wave start running in, you might be running next to 10 to 40 people. It really just depends on the event. If we're running into the water with that many people, is there anything else we need to consider that we didn't talk about with the rolling start version of running into the water? Coach Ryan?

Ryan Tibball: I think we've really touched on it quite a bit here with the bigger groups. Just putting yourself and lining yourself up and when you're running into the water, it's like, where's your strength at? And it's not your run because you're starting to swim first.

So again, position yourself in such a way that you know what, you may be a strong runner, but swimming might be your weakest thing. So just let everyone go to keep yourself calm. We've said this many times already throughout this podcast. The goal is keep your heart rate down because again, as soon as you get in the water, it's not going to get any lower from then on end. And so running into the water is just like, do it safely, do it right.

And with the waves of people, it's like you may just again position yourself so that, hey, there's—you're not boxing people on the dry land before you get in and get wet. So I think that's a big consideration.

And again, if you are the super competitive guy, then get up front because you don't want to be stuck in the middle and get up front and run into that water and obviously get into your groove immediately, as soon as you can.

So you've got options depending upon your skills, but really be honest with yourself and consider your skill level in the water in general and line yourself up and start appropriately, whether it's in a wave start in particular.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I've done this a couple times, always at a local sprint or Olympic where we're running down a beach into the water. I've done that in Texas lakes. I've done that on the Florida coast.

And what I did not realize, what I didn't think about the first time I did this is when you're running into the water and you've got people around you, you might be very close to those people, and you start entering the water, you get to where you're about knee deep in the water, everybody starts to lay forwards to begin their swim.

Well, those people that were right next to you, right in front of you, right behind you—and we all fit in that amount of space vertically while running—are now laying down and taking up 5 feet horizontal space instead of 1 foot horizontal space.

And so I've got a couple guys right in front of me and I see them, their body language, they're starting to go forward. I start going forward. Well, I land on their backs and their legs because, whereas I just assumed I would have free water, there was now a body there.

And so you have to think about, like, either letting the people in front of you get horizontal and get away before you lay horizontal and get away, or you got to kind of like dive to their left or their right so that you're not landing on their butt and legs. I just, I didn't think about that as I'm running in right behind somebody else. You got to consider, "Okay, we all fit vertically, but how are we going to fit when we all try to get horizontal at the same exact time?" So position yourself accordingly with that in mind. Jo, anything else to add here? A wave start running into the water?

Joanna Nami: No, I think y'all had great points on all of that. I think we've covered most everything there.

Andrew Harley: Well, Jo, take us into a wave start jumping into the water.

Joanna Nami: I think we talked a lot about all the situations that can occur with jumping in the water. One thing I'd like to talk about as far as a wave start, when you're talking about, "These are the women 45 to 49," or "These are the men 30 to 34." One thing I talk about with my athletes is you've got to avoid being distracted by the competitors around you.

You have trained and practiced all of these scenarios for what you're going to do for your race. You can only control what you do. If you start to look around, get distracted, focus on the guy who's doing asymmetrical arm swings, whatever, you start to lose that focus on what you planned for that moment.

What do you need in that moment? Do you need to sit down and jump off the dock?

This plays itself throughout the entire race. I talk to my athletes about the full distance and coming back to the center, coming back to the focus and saying, "I practiced these things for my race. I'm not going to worry about what the people around me are doing. I'm only going to control what I'm doing."

And when I say that plays itself throughout the race, I always add that on here: that may be, I need to get back to where I feel focused and I feel comfortable during that race.

So whether you're jumping off the dock, whether you're running into the beach, what can distract you from that focus point often is competitors in your age group if you're a competitive athlete. But again, I have to do that with myself. I have to remind myself as I was running—as I'm treading water in Kona and starting off with hundreds of women in my age group, I can't worry about what they're about to do, and I can't base my race or my performance on what they're about to do. I can only focus on what I practiced and what I planned. And when you do that, you're going to be the most successful for yourself in that race.

Andrew Harley: Absolutely love that, Jo. Yeah, thanks for that add. And the final category we can talk about, and we've teased it a couple times. Maybe there's some stuff to add here. Maybe there's not some stuff to add here. There are races left. It's not as common, but there are races left with a mass start where everybody starts at the same time. That's in the race. I have done this once. It was my very first 70.3, 70.3 New Zealand in 2018, I believe was the year. Very similar to a wave start, except way more people. So is there anything else that an athlete needs to know if they do have a race coming up that is a mass start? Coach Ryan.

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, bring your boxing gloves. But no, seriously, the odds go way up for full contact swimming. But at the same time, but seriously, it comes back to what we've talked about already. A lot of in the positioning yourself appropriately. And I would also add this and we—I don't know if we've mentioned it yet, but friends. Many times you might be racing with friends and if this is a mass start and chances are you may be hanging out with your friends. And again, anything that's going to help calm you, make friends.

In fact, make friends in the mass because if you're sitting there treading water, you might as well talk to them because it's going to be hopefully less likely that they decide to punch you when the gun goes off. So those are things. But again, it comes back to positioning. Position yourself appropriately in those big, big mass starts and be prepared to be hit because it's gonna happen, guys. It's gonna happen. And the biggest thing you can think about is don't panic when you get hit. Just know that you just became friends with somebody else real quick.

Yeah. Don't take it personal because you got touched. So. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm sure Jo probably got something to add to this part, but that's what I got right there.

Joanna Nami: Yeah. So I think the first five IRONMANs I did were mass starts. Two of those were Texas and extremely crowded. And thinking that I'm such a badass swimmer that I'm going to position myself up there with all the men. The three things I would say about mass starts are what Ryan has said many times and very, very important is to position yourself correctly.

If you are not a fast swimmer, do not get up there with aggressive, a lot of aggressive male swimmers.

Secondly, you need to start off just as we talked about with any other scenario. I would say the same thing as breathing to your natural side, making sure you set yourself up to be calm because this is going to be a more nerve-wracking situation as far as contact with other swimmers. You are, like Ryan said, going to experience a tremendous amount more contact. I've had an earring ripped out. I've had, I've been, a black eye. All of these things that occurred in Texas, we used to have scratch marks down our arms when we would come out of the swim.

And not to scare people, but people will ask me, "Well, what did you do in those situations?" And my situation was I literally like under my breath or out loud, I'll say "reset," I'll say "reset." And it like triggers my brain to say I'm okay, I'm not unconscious, I'm okay. Reset, refocus, get back to what you know what to do.

And when I say that to myself, it kind of takes the sting off of something that's just happened because we all are going to have, and this can be throughout the whole race—we're all going to have situations where we go down on the bike or we twist an ankle on the run. It's kind of where you have to stop for a second and say "I'm okay." And now I'm going to get going and get back to my focus points.

Cooldown:

Andrew Harley: On to the cooldown of the show where I have one question from a member of the audience for you guys to answer and then we'll call it a day. TriDot Ambassador Joshua Keane wants to know: what is the highest dot score that you can get? Does it stop at 100? So this is interesting. Athletes that train with TriDot, they have a swim dot, a bike dot and a run dot score. It's a score of how fit you are across all three disciplines and it informs TriDot of what your training zones need to be, where your opportunities for improvement are across the swim, bike and run. Coach Ryan, what's the highest dot someone can get?

Ryan Tibball: Okay, I'll give you two answers. First answer is, yeah, if you have a coach, sometimes I give out the 110%. But no, the real answer is a hundred. Yes, absolutely. And be honest, having that hundred score, that is awesome. That means you are top of the world. You have—you are a world class athlete. And I just say, again, you're equalized against everyone against in the—you continue to develop your fitness and you maintain your fitness. Again, you can see those dot scores continue to climb as you get older. They don't drop necessarily. So keep that in mind. But yes, you can absolutely get a hundred. 100 is max, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you look at it. I mean that's just saying you're the best and the best of the best. And number one, that's it.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Jeff Booher has talked about this on some of our early episodes of the TriDot podcast. But the swim, bike, run dot, the whole TriDot system, that scoring system is based off some research done by a famous run coach named Jack Daniels. Not related to the alcohol, but related to the running Jack Daniels. And he had a fitness measurement scale called the V dot system. And it was a zero to 70 or maybe it was 40 to something. The 70. It maxed out at 70. I'm almost 100% sure on that.

And so Jeff was aware of that research and it was nothing but true research that went into the makings of TriDot and just tweaked the scale to be a little bit more understandable for the average person. I think most of us are used to being graded on a 0 to 100 scale.

So yeah, a 0 is you're crawling out there on course and 100 is you're a world record caliber athlete in that discipline. So me, for example, right now I'm at 71 run dot, I'm a 64 swim dot and a 67 bike dot. And so TriDot knows I have room for improvement on the swim and the bike relative to the run and the—the highest score I've seen just, just to get to what Josh is asking about here, the highest score I've seen because we'll talk with athletes at the races sometimes. What's your highest dot score? There's a TriDot coach who was a collegiate swimmer who I know was a 91 swim dot. And so somebody that's that level, like I swam at a collegiate major university level in college is a 91 as a swim dot. Do you guys know, top of your head, what's the highest dot you've seen in one of the athletes you coach? You don't have to name names or anything, but I want to say 80s. I think there's, I've had some swimmers that were maybe in the low 80s. I haven't seen, I don't think I've seen higher than that.

Joanna Nami: You know, and just what you said, Andrew, I think it leaves itself that there's always room for improvement even with your most elite cyclists or elite swimmers. One thing I would add is that one thing I harp on with my athletes is they'll get fixated on that dot score. And I'll say that's great. This shows that we have room to improve your bike fitness or your run fitness or your swim fitness. But I want your prep game and your nutrition game and all of those things to be as strong as that fitness game.

Because when it comes to executing an endurance race, whether it's half IRONMAN, Olympic distance or full IRONMAN, if you don't have that nutrition game and that strategy as to how you're going to enter the water, all of these things as strong as your dot score there, it's not going to matter. So I like that. It's a motivator. It is a really, really good motivator to have the scoring system. Yes, it is. It's been very helpful to me.

But on the same note, I want athletes to work with a coach or work with a friend or work with somebody to be as prepared for all of the elements of race day strategy.

Andrew Harley: Last thing I'll say here, while we're talking about the dot scores, it is on a curve. And so yeah, increasing your score from an 81 to an 82 is a massive deal like that. That's a big step up in fitness. When you're newer to the sports and you're growing, you might jump in one training cycle from being a 38 to a 45. And so a lot of people, when they really get into the sport at first they're seeing these huge improvements and all of a sudden, they're in the 60s, 70s and 80s and finding those dots, they're only gaining by one or two each time. That's normal. That's very, very normal. The higher you get on the scale, the harder it is to continue climbing on the scale. So, yeah, Josh, hopefully that answers your question. Great question about the dot scores.

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