Advice from a three-time Ironman triathlete

As shared by D (he sits in the pod next to me me at work and is a great inspiration and quick on the advice as he watches me get ready to jump into the world of triathleticismistics)

I shop mostly at Sports Basement in the Presidio - www.sportsbasement.com - It's got everything you need to do a triathlon, the people are great, and there's plenty of parking so lots of groups start their weekend rides/runs there. Most clubs also get 10% off of everything in the store, and at almost every local event you can find 15% or 20% off coupons for the store.

I'm a member of GGTC - www.ggtc.org - So I use that site to reach members, and there's a reasonably active discussion list as well. I'm not a member of SF Tri, but I've heard good things about them. Also, Linda is or was a member of Silicon Valley tri.

Most of the races I do are listed on active.com. All of the bigs ones are definitely there and you can find them with a search by location or date range.

There's a company called TriCalifornia that puts on Escape from Alcatraz, and a few other races of note... www.tricalifornia.com . Wild Flower is quite the event, but I wouldn't recommend Treasure Island.

J&A Productions also does some cool races. I've done the San Jose Intl Tri (SJIT) and it was well run. I may do it again this year. ... www.japroductions.com/home.html

Slowtwitch.com is an infamous triathlon site... and the forum there is very active and some of the people are incredibly knowledgeable about triathlon. Searching the forum you'll find answers to all kinds of useful stuff. I will warn you though that the people that post there can be incredibly... ummm... sarcastic? But, there is a lot of expertise on that forum, and it's worth checking out once in awhile.
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?forum=1

Also, I'll tell you the one thing that I told Thomas today... "NOTHING new on race day". That means no new clothing, no new equipment. If you have to buy anything new, make sure you use it in training in the weeks leading up to the race! And also... no new food. Breakfast the day of the race should be the same thing you eat for breakfast before a long training day, whatever works for you. Heck, most of the people I know even have a standard dinner that they eat the night before a race just to make sure they don't get an upset stomach the morning of the event.