Run Bike Swim Approach

I've done a few of these before.

Go fairly easy on the run, no need to push really hard.

Build up on the bike, start the bike at 70% and build up to like 80-90%

Don't go and blow yourself up though, the 400m is a lot harder than it sounds if you do it last. It normally ends when you get out of the pool. At our race, there was someone looking at the numbers on our arm and he was giving the time recorder person the time when you hit the final wall.

Hope this helps

I did a reverse tri a few week ago. Some advice I have has already been said. Don't go all out on the run. You will have fresh legs and might feel like being a rabbit but save it for the bike. The first part of the swim is the worst-trying to find your arms (seriously), find some kind of rhythm, and oh yeah BREATHE!!!

Your time usually stops when you touch the final wall. Same as above, someone was calling out race numbers to someone taking the times.

Have a blast. I will do the Dog Days Triathlon again next year. It is a refreshing, different race.

My one reverse tri didn't end until you got out of the pool and crossed a finish line. There's no one way these things are run...check with the organizers if you want precise detail.

Personally, I went out and hammered the run (like you, that's my strength), about 20 sec. off my open 5K PR--knowing that the swim was going to be pretty much nothing--and had a podium finish in my AG...but the bike was only like 10 miles, so it really is a function of how long your bike segment will be, IMO. Long ride, then, yeah, you have to hold something back on the run.

Not sure I'll ever do a reverse tri again...tends to negate run preparation a bit (esp. for those with a strong finishing kick) and--judging from the one I did and race reports from numerous others--the swims are always a bit of a hash...you almost inevitably have to move from lane to lane so it's kind of the worst of both worlds: it's a pool swim without being able to do quick turns at the same time that you don't get to build a rhythm like you would in an OWS of comparable distance.

The one sort of good thing I saw was that there's no starting scrum like in most traditional tri swim wave starts...yet I still had some a-hole literally climb over me at a lane transition.