Transition areas (TA) are an adventure racers best friend and worst enemy at the same time. TA’s are where racers can get dry clothes, warm food, a chair to sit in, race intel, and more. TA’s are also a place were the time ticks by faster than Christmas when you were 12. As time ticks by, so does your advantage (or disadvantage) over the other teams.

I’ve done a little data mining with both editions of the Adventure24 and put together some charts that show some pretty amazing results.

In the 2005 A24, the race was very tight with Adventure Sports Magazine SE beating Racemetrics by a scant 17 minutes. But the graph below tells us even more. If Racemetrics spent the identical amount of time in the transitions areas as ASM SE, they could have won! You’ll also notice a direct correlation between finishing place and time spent in the transition areas. As your place goes down, your time in the TA’s goes up. You’ll notice however that Litespeed is an anomaly to this rule. The reason for this is because they missed a checkpoint which gave them a 3 hour penalty which knocked them from first to third. Had they not received the penalty, they would have won.

While the race was not as close in 2006, the same trend regarding place and time spent at transition areas remains true (charting all five of the 4 person teams). Again, there is one anomaly though. While team Thoughtprocess.net had the second fastest TA times, they traveled inadvertently on a prohibited road and were given a DQ. Had that not happened however, they would have come in second place.

While I’m sure the correlation of place and time spent at TA’s will not always hold true, it did for my samples. So what can you learn from this? You don’t necessarily have to get physically faster to place better. By improving your efficiency in TA’s, you can spend less time on the course and more time at the finish line. If you have any great efficiency tips, share them with everyone else in the comments below.