Things I learned - Leave your shoes on your bike

* Leave your bike shoes on the bike

All last season I thought that there were advantages to putting your bike shoes on while you were not moving. I didn't think that you lost that much time and that running with shoes on through rough dirt would make up for it. It also gave me a chance to clean any sand off my feet before I put my shoes on.

I've learned now that every second you are moving forward, even if it's not very fast because you are putting shoes on, you are still moving in a forward direction. This also applies to when you are getting off the bike. If you have to spend time messing with your shoes while you are not moving, you are wasting precious seconds.

Also I haven't had that many problems with dirt in my shoes. I think the worst was during a beach race and it wasn't that bad.

The biggest reason that I waited so long in my season to do this is that I had to get new shoes, ones that would not interfere with the operation of my bike. In time gained this one has been huge. There were more than a few races that I was behind someone coming out of the water and then never saw them again after I got on the bike.

The differences between triathlon bike shoes and regular bike shoes is that the velcro opens in the opposite direction and most tri shoes only have one strap.