Are you considering competing in the Rage Triathlon in Nevada? If so, this blog will help you decide and be better prepared if you choose to take it on. I am sharing my pre-race prep, nutrition strategies, tips about the race, and experience of the course to help you know what to expect.
In this blog you’ll find:
- Pre-Race Prep details (nutrition, packet-pick up, course recon)
- Race Day Experience Recap:
- Race Morning Prep
- Swim
- Bike
- Run
- Final results & recap
You’ll notice some “nutrition notes” throughout because nutrition is considered the fourth discipline of triathlon. Without quality nutrition, you can perform poorly, bonk, or even fail to finish a race. I share what I eat and drink, not because it works for everyone, but as examples of things you could try and to inspire your own ideas.
Rage Triathlon – A Little Background
Getting to Rage was no easy feat for me and my husband!
In early 2020 my husband and I signed up for the Rage Triathlon at Lake Mead in Nevada. About a month later it was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions. After a frustrating experience with BBSC Triathlon saying they wouldn’t give refunds, they eventually allowed us to transfer our registration by one year. In April of 2021, the race was cancelled again without clear reason, so we had to ask for our registration to be transferred one more year. Despite a rocky start, we were excited about the unique course and new scenery for a race.
Pre-Race Prep
Unlike most races I’ve done, Rage Triathlon offered no pre-race course talk or instruction. Just course maps on the website and a last-minute email saying they’d changed the course. Not exactly what you want to have to deal with two days before the race, but we spent some time figuring out the course and what to expect so we’d be well-prepared. We made sure to check out the weather, water temperature, wind speeds, and other people’s YouTube videos and race reviews. I would recommend you check these things before a race to anticipate any possible problems.
The Thursday before the race we drove from Los Angeles to Boulder City, Nevada, where we rented an Air BnB about 10 minutes from Lake Mead where the triathlon takes place. We like to arrive 1-2 days early for an out-of-town race to ensure plenty of time to prepare without added stress. We spent the evening settling in and getting to bed early since two nights before the race is when you want to get as much sleep as possible! I like to take doTERRA Serenity Softgels before bed to help me sleep more soundly.
Day Before Race Day Details
Friday morning we went to The Coffee Cup for a big breakfast of pancakes and eggs to start fueling with plenty of carbohydrates. Then we headed to the course so we could get a feel of layout, transition area, and check out the water temperature. Note that Lake Mead is in a national park, so it costs $25 to get in. The lady at the guard station told us we’d have to pay the next day for the race, so we might as well purchase that day. Turns out she was wrong! When we showed up the next morning, no guard was on site and no payment required. So, if checking out the course ahead of time isn’t important to you, you can skip that and save the money. I personally like getting there to scope things out because it helps settle my nerves when I know what to anticipate.
After driving the course (more on the course later), our afternoon was spent shopping for Nike running sleeves for the bike in case of being freezing coming out of the water (I’m a baby in cold water). The temperature was going to be in the 60’s in the morning so I was prepared to start feeling chilly and warm up near the end of the bike. Then we prepared our bags with everything we needed for race day.
We also went to packet pick up at a local bike shop to get our numbers for bikes and helmets, timing straps and t-shirts. I prefer getting these things the day before to get numbers on our bikes and helmets without added stress in the morning. Note that this race charges $10 for day-of packet pick up to discourage it, and they only allotted about three hours in the evening for packet pick up.
While we were there, they told us they would have water buckets to rinse off our feet after the swim since the new course layout included a 0.8 mile run uphill to T1! Those buckets did not end up being there on race day, which we were not happy about since you run on sand and have to put dirty feet into socks and shoes. Not exactly professional when a company promises something and doesn’t deliver, especially when it could be the difference between race comfort and pain.
Nutiriton Note: The rest of the day we focused on eating more carbohydrates, some protein and a little fat. We ate very few vegetables, fruit or fibrous foods to avoid any race day stomach issues. Our breakfast was large, followed by lunch of sandwiches with chicken, snacks of high-carb energy bars (Clif and Luna bars), and a smaller dinner of fairly bland rice and chicken. This seemed to work well for us, both to avoid bathroom trips as well as to help increase hunger in the morning. I typically struggle a lot to eat on race morning, so being hungry at 4am definitely helped!
Rage Triathlon Race Day Review
After a typical night of not sleeping well due to nerves, my 4am alarm was almost welcome after the torture of trying to sleep!
Pre-Race Breakfast
Nutrition Note: I tried a new, simpler breakfast this race because I can never get much down race morning due to nerves. I ate a slice of sourdough bread with peanut butter, banana and honey along with a cup of decaf coffee, oat milk, and a scoop or Ryze Superfoods coffee. Ryze coffee has mushrooms that help with calm energy, focus and endurance as well as immune support. This makes it great for race day, plus it’s low on caffeine (code Holly15 gets you a 15% discount!). I chose this for my morning coffee to save the high caffeine intake for just before the race.
Race Set-Up
We arrived at Lake Mead at about 5:30am as the sun was coming up. The location was gorgeous in general, but the lake definitely provided a warm welcome at sunrise! Parking was convenient and less than a 5-minute walk from transition.
It was a smaller race, so there was plenty of space in the transition area. This had the warmest, friendliest vibe of any race I’ve done so far. All of the girls I was “parked” next to I saw multiple times throughout the race and we even cheered each other on, which made it so much more fun.
Nutrition Note: Around 6:30am I downed three shots of Nespresso I’d made previously to get my caffeine boost, then we headed with our swim gear to the water. On the way down I also ate two Clif Bloks for an extra hit of sugar and small amount of caffeine right before the race. Caffeine kicks in at about 30 minutes and reaches a peak around one hour, so I waited to take the majority of my caffeine as late as possible. Also note that for performance, 6mg per kg of bodyweight caffeine is ideal, taken slightly spread out rather than all at once.
The weird part with the new course they established just days before the race was that from the swim exit you had to run almost 1 mile to get to T1. They set up a separate transition area right by the water to allow for taking off wetsuits, googles, etc.
At the beach, we set up our mini stations there with a plastic bag they’d given us, towels for wiping feet, and tennis shoes. I normally hop on my bike without socks, but this time I chose to wear socks since we’d be running a mile and I wanted to avoid blisters. I also brought a small water bottle so I could take a sip of water during transition as I usually come out of the water with a dry throat. Since we’d be running for a while, I also brought some Clif Bloks to put into my triathlon suit post-swim so I could eat one during transition to help keep my energy up.
Rage Triathlon Swim
We got into the water about 10 minutes before the race started to see how it felt and to get a mini warm-up. I would always suggest doing this because you can feel the water temp, get your blood flowing, and make sure your goggles are fitting right.
This beach and water entry is really rocky. They did have mats to walk in and out on, but during practice I didn’t know they were there so it was really tough to get in and out. I scraped up my feet fairly decently, but luckily I didn’t feel it at all until long after the race was done. Definitely be careful there! The water, according to the weather app the day before, was around 67 degrees. I don’t know if that was exact, but it felt accurate, which means it was cold but not miserable.
The calm, very clear water made this one of the nicest and easiest swims I’ve ever done. Although I think the calmness and small group of women competing actually made me go slower because I was so comfortable without thrashing or waves. My swim time was slower than I’d expected despite perfect conditions. When I exited about 30 minutes later, my feet felt numb. After rather slowly getting my wetsuit off and struggling to wipe dirt off my feet, I tossed all of my belongings into the plastic bag and took off.
T1/Run Part 1
This was the strange part of the race and unlike anything I’ve done so far. Transition was just less than 1 mile uphill on pavement, so I think my T1 time was about 12 minutes. However, they actually counted this as part of the run, which meant the actual run after the bike was only 5 miles. Unfortunately, they never actually stated that clearly in the race course info! Luckily, a girl next to me had said she thought that’s what she’d heard they were doing, so I had that in my mind later on the run – otherwise I would have been very confused and possibly ran longer than needed (which I think some people did).
My feet were totally numb from the cold water as I ran until about two minutes away from the second part of T1. The benefit of this long transition was it gave me time to sip some water, take a Clif Blok, and put on arm sleeves for the bike. The sleeves ended up working well during the bike to keep me warm as well as protect my arms from the sun.
Rage Triathlon Bike
The bike starts on a fairly steep but short uphill, after which you quickly go downhill for maybe half a mile before going uphill again. From there, the bike is rolling hills, but mostly a steady incline. I had prepared for really tough hills, but I would say they really weren’t too bad – just hard enough to be challenging, but not so hard your legs are on fire (depending on your speed).
The road was great, almost no holes or areas to worry about flat tires and we had no wind. The only part I hated about this bike course was their choice of turnaround point. You fly down a steep downhill, then quickly have to put on the breaks and turn a sharp corner to go back uphill. My husband actually missed it his first time and went straight up the next hill. I hope they change that in the future because SO many people had chains fall off and it honestly isn’t very safe. I did fine on my first time, but my second loop I also dropped my chain. That cost me probably 3-4 minutes because I had to fix it, then realized my gears were still too hard, so I had to get back off and fix the gears, then struggled to get going up the brutal hill. After my setback, my gears didn’t sound right heading back, which made me nervous about going too fast or doing too much shifting. I also lost a CO2 cartridge and was hearing clinking on my bike where my remaining CO2 cartridge was. Mentally, this all threw me off and I wanted to be cautious on the ride back, which I think cost me some time because I became more focused on getting back with my bike intact rather than going as fast as I could. This was a let-down because I later discovered it cost me 4th place in the overall women’s race!
One other note is that the road is not closed to traffic in this race. Not too many cars come through, but there were far more than expected and many of them were flying through, which was a bit scary. Riders need to stay right because you don’t own the road in this race. Aside from that, however, the bike ride is quite nice. I did take short moments here and there to check out the view and enjoy the lovely scenery.
Nutrition Note: For this race I put most of my nutrition in my water bottle. I put a heaping serving of NutraBio SuperCarb, which was about 30 grams, plus half a packet of Liquid IV energy. However, I never drink my whole bottle because too much liquid give me stomach issues, so I also put Clif Bloks in my bag and ate about three of those. I use all of these small amounts of caffeine and carbs to help keep me energized for the run. Overall I probably took in about 20-25 grams of carbs and about 35-40 mg caffeine on the bike.
T2
I happily made it back with chain still intact in about 1:40, which was the time I was anticipating, so I was happy about that. I took off my arm sleeves since it had warmed up quite a bit at that point, then headed out to the run in under two minutes.
Rage Triathlon Run
The run out from transition was quick and mostly flat with a very subtle incline. I started off at a solid pace, then decided to back off a bit to make sure I could maintain a good pace without bonking. The run was on all paved and cement pathways and was pretty much a breeze except for one steep but short uphill. About a mile in, you have to go uphill to get onto a different running path and it felt hard at that point with tired legs! I lost time there, but returning for the second loop is slightly downhill, so on both loops I picked up the speed on that section to help make up some time.
Nutrition Note: During the run I only ate one Clif Blok because my stomach felt off, which always happens when I race. But I wanted to make sure to get something in for energy, so I just took that and made sure to drink small sips of water regularly. There were several water stations, so if you didn’t have any water with you, you’d probably be okay. I had my own water bottle and used the aid stations to pour the water over myself to keep my temperature down.
It was really nice to have a 5-mile run instead of 6.2 to finish things off. Mentally it was so much more attainable and it made it easier to pick up the pace at the end. I finished the run in 42 minutes, a bit slower than anticipated, but I knew I was doing well for my age group so I didn’t need to push it to the extreme and my motivation was lacking.
Results and Final Thoughts
I ended up winning my age group by about five minutes which I was very happy about and came in 5th out of all women. As mentioned, I did realize later that had my chain not dropped, I would have gotten 4th place because I missed out by one minute. However, that also goes to show you how important transition times can be since I could have made up some time there or even on the run if I had pushed a bit harder. But I was very happy with my placing and felt decent about my overall effort and performance.
While I wouldn’t mind doing the course again to see if I could improve, I’m not sure that I will race with BBSC again. The medals were nice and I got a cool mug as a prize, but we were disappointed with communication and professionalism that larger organizations have. All of their races are also out of state for me. However, as a one-time experience on a great course and pretty location, it’s a good race to try once.
Have you completed this race course? If so, what did you think? Share comments so others can learn from your experience!
