Here are some tips to help you get through the swim calmly and quickly:

• Get in the water at least 5-10 minutes before you start and warm up a bit. If the water is cold, warm, choppy, etc, you want to be prepared for it before you start racing.
• Seed yourself according to your swim ability. If you’re a newer or a weak swimmer, seed yourself toward the back and/or outside of your wave.  Stronger swimmers should take the “prime” spots at the front and/or inside.
• If you’re at all nervous, wait 10-20 seconds before you start swimming! Let the rest of the swimmers get a bit of a head start, and then start your race.  The few seconds won’t make a difference in your time, and will give you a lot of peace of mind as you swim.
• If the water is cold, make sure you put your face in the water before the race starts. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to warm up, but sometimes this is not possible.  Flinging yourself headfirst into 65 degree water can take your breath away, so find a way to get your face wet before you start!
• Look for a draft. While swimming in a triathlon, drafting is legal.  It gives you anywhere from a 5-20% increase in speed.  Swim immediately behind another swimmer to maximize your draft–get your hands as close to their toes as you can (but don’t touch)!
• If you get kicked or swatted, do NOT retaliate. They didn’t do it on purpose.  Getting pissed will only screw up *your* race.  Contact during the swim is par for the course.  Keep moving forward!
• Breathe away from any surf or harsh sunlight you encounter. This is where your bilateral breathing in training gets put to good use!  If surf is coming from your left side, breathe on your right (and vice versa).
• Sight every 6-12 strokes. Don’t lift your head out of the water more than is necessary to get a quick glimpse of the next buoy.  Don’t sight too often (sighting slows you down) but don’t delay your sighting more than every 12 strokes or so, as you may end up swimming off course.
• Know how to do a “dolphin dive,” and execute it in shallow water. Dolphin diving, or performing a shallow dive in thigh-deep water, is faster than swimming or walking.  Do several dolphin dives as you start (if it’s a beach start) and exit the water.
• Get out of the water SLOWLY. The transition from swimming (in a horizontal position) to running to your bike (in a vertical position) is very stressful.  Even though you’re racing, it’s worth an extra second to shed the dizziness and disorientation that comes from this switch in body position.

1. The shorter the TT, the longer the warm-up. This is very important.  The high efforts needed in a short TT mean that your body has to be ready to go hard, right from the start.  A thorough warm-up helps to prepare your body for the sudden onset of lactic acid accumulation, and has other benefits (such as raising your heart rate, getting the blood flowing, and increasing your mental focus).  For a short TT, include at LEAST 30 minutes of pedaling before the race (perhaps an hour or more, depending on your speed and your personal needs).  For a longer TT, it depends on the distance.  a 100 mile TT requires minimal warm-up, but a 40k TT requires a similar warm-up to a 10 mile TT.
2. Include several race-pace or faster accelerations. For shorter time trials, saving your aerobic endurance for the race itself is less important, so include more intervals at race pace or faster.  The intervals do not need to be very long (30-90 seconds is a good target), and include an adequate recovery interval.  For longer TTs, use fewer intervals and a slightly longer duration (perhaps 90-120 seconds).  Try to accomplish your last interval within 10-15 minutes of your start time.
3. Use a bike trainer for your warm-up. This will allow you to concentrate on putting out the correct efforts for the duration of your warm-up.  Riding the course is always a good idea, but that should have been taken care of before race day, and not during your warm-up.  On the trainer, you can easily make any last-minute adjustments to your bike and have easy access to all of your pre-race nutrition, as well.
4. Stay warm. If you’re TTing on a cool day, wear plenty of (but not too much) clothing during your warm-up, and consider pushing the easy parts of your warm-up a bit harder.  You want to hit the starting line with the blood and sweat already flowing.  (If it’s a hot day, the opposite applies–keep cool and take your warm-up a bit easier.)
5. This one’s not technically related to your warm-up, but pump up your tires to the correct pressure. Most riders do not require more than 120psi in their tires.  If the road conditions are absolutely perfect, then higher pressures are MAYBE ok, depending on circumstances, but overinflated tires can actually *increase* the rolling resistance of your tire.  Use 10% more pressure in the rear tire than the front, and use 10-20% less air pressure if it’s raining or the roads are wet.  When using your race tire on the trainer, use 20% more pressure than normal.  Then, when you’re done using the trainer, deflate and then re-inflate your tire to the correct pressure.
6. Intimidate your competition. This may include grunting a lot, panting, sweating profusely, wearing dark sunglasses on a cloudy day, keeping a stone face during your hard intervals, wearing a jersey with a skull and crossbones on it, using a disc wheel with a skull and crossbones on it and strutting around wearing your aero helmet for no reason.