There is plenty of talk around the sport of triathlon about how popular it is has become, and all the newcomers fueling the sport.

But this past week I ran into two different people who said they, “used to do triathlons.” Which got me to wondering, is the sport of triathlon a revolving door? For every newbie, how many are tri leavers?

There are all sorts of reasons why a person might leave the sport of triathlon:

Time commitment – It’s a significant time commitment to train and compete in triathlons, especially the longer-distance triathlons. In terms of time and energy investment, training for an Ironman triathlon is the equivalent of a part-time, even full-time job.

Change of circumstances – Sometimes life circumstances affect your life at a level where you leave the sport of triathlon temporarily or permanently. Some life circumstances might change or re-order your life goals and priorities in a way that bumps triathlon commitments.

Injury – There are some who leave the sport of triathlon as a result of injury. Perhaps they had IB Band surgery, an injury caused by triathlon training, and so they have decided against getting back into it.

Burn out – Some people overdue it, perpetually push their body to the limit, have no off-season, and ignore the basic principles of rest and recovery. Add these people to the list of tri leavers.

Unfulfilled expectations – If your triathlon involvement was a strategy for achieving self-worth or finding a date or outdoing the neighbor you despise and this doesn’t pan out, you might pull the plug on triathlon.

Fear of open water swimming – Some percentage of wannabe triathletes go swim in a lake and say, “No frickin way!”

Family conflict – For some people, the time and energy investment in triathlon becomes a family conflict, and can cause resentment. The divorce rate among professional triathletes is a consideration.

I was recently invited to join iAmTri.com, a social networking site for triathletes.

I am already a member of AthleteFocus.com and Fastloop.com, as well as a few triathlon groups on Facebook, and one triathlon group on CouchSurfing.com.

Which raises the question, what is the value of these kinds of social networking sites for triathletes?

Here are a few benefits of these types of social networking sites for triathletes...

Many triathletes are now in the off-season of their year-round triathlon training plan.

The term “off-season” is somewhat misleading because it seems to sound rather passive and uninspiring. You don’t really associate ideas like growth, progress, and accomplishment with something termed the “off-season.”

But the truth is, what you do this off-season is immensely important and will largely determine your in-season triathlon performance. One way or another, either through improvement or digression, how you handle the next several weeks in your triathlon training is critical.

Something that is “systematic” is characterized by order and planning. A systematic approach means methodically following a fixed plan step by step.

For the triathlete, a systematic approach to training will best enable you to accomplish your goals, while minimizing the risk of injury.

You spend countless miles and hours in the water, on the bike, and pounding the pavement running, training for a triathlon.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of minutes or seconds between one competitor who places in their division, and another competitor who doesn’t. So why squander away time with bad transitions?

It would presumably take hundreds of training hours to lop 2 minutes off your swim time, and yet 1 hour of transition practice would likely take 2 minutes off your transition time.

I just returned home from a triathlon trip; I competed in an Olympic distance triathlon a few hours from where I live.

With it fresh in my mind, what follows are some tips regarding race day of your triathlon, including what to pack and how to prepare the night before the event.

#1  Do I wear underwear?

Okay, here are a few things on the underwear issue.

As you do your bike training, on rides over 50 miles I suggest wearing cycling shorts or bibs, which have pads in the seat to save your rear end. As you can see, they are not cheap. No, you don’t wear underwear beneath the cycling shorts or bibs.

Tri shorts are shorts you can swim, bike, and run in. The seat pads aren’t quite as thick as the cycling shorts, and I often use them on rides under 50 miles. You don’t wear underwear beneath the tri shorts either.

I use running shorts in my training, and most running shorts have an underwear-like liner within them. Most people still wear underwear beneath them.

For a female transitioning from swim to bike in a triathlon event, most females pull their bike/run gear over their suit, as opposed to changing out of their swimsuit. For female triathletes, sometimes the women's swim suit offers very little in the way of chest support. As a solution, some people wear a 2-piece swimsuit with support or wear a tank top that has a built-in bra over your swimsuit during the bike and run.

While we’re at it, I might as well mention Udder Cream, which comes in handy for long bike rides.

Per usual, I was up at 4:30 a.m. this morning. On my long cycling days, I will normally try to hit the streets at daybreak so I can roll through some good mileage before traffic picks up on the streets. (Here are some tips for cycling in traffic.)

I’m a creature of habit and I wake up every morning at 4:30 without an alarm clock. My routine is to brew a pot of coffee, check my emails, get all geared up, and out the door at 5:30 a.m.

I do some things the night before to make it easier on me in the morning -- like fill up my water bottle and Cytomax bottle so they are ready to go in the fridge.

Today’s ride is a little different; it’s a “Rick ride.”

Rick is a good friend of mine who lives nearby, and the one who got me into biking. He once was a competitive cyclist, and even though he doesn’t race much anymore I wouldn’t bet against him if he showed up tomorrow at a local Criterium race and decided to enter.

A “Rick ride” means an intensity ride -- a hard and hilly ride. I’ve done Century rides that were easier than rolling 40 miles with Rick. That’s why you need a Rick -- someone who will help you by pushing you.

I feel very fortunate that I’m able to do some of my bike training with someone who is a much stronger cyclist than I am. I feel a similar way about my Masters Swim class. For most people in that class, swimming is their main deal, and it helps push me to be the best swimmer I can be as a triathlete.

I made 3 colossal mistakes biking with Rick today.

*Warning: I am not a medical doctor. Neither am I astronaut, nuclear physicist, or a Zoo monkey handler. So, anything I say about treating injuries, flying rockets, experimenting with nuclear energy, or adopting a chimpanzee for a pet ...take this into consideration.

Triathletes are especially susceptible to certain injuries because triathlon training and competition pushes the human body to its limits.

The best way to deal with injuries is not to get them, which means incorporating an injury prevention mentality into your training.

Here are some suggestions:

#1  Make injury prevention a focus for off-season training.

#2  When it comes to swimming, focus on developing proper technique. Bad swimming technique leads to unnecessary injuries. I know from personal experience.

#3  Be sure your bike is set up correctly for your body. If your saddle is too low, it will mess with your knees; too high, your hamstring.

#4  Have good running shoes. Many triathletes have shoes fitted just for their feet, which is a good idea. Foot Solutions is one avenue; check and see if there’s a store near you.

#5  Maintain a stretching routine during the season. Here are three stretching videos: Stretching: Part 1, Stretching: Part 2, and Stretching: Part 3. To stay faithful to a stretching routine, some triathletes join a yoga class.

#6  Don’t fudge on proper nutrition, recovery, and rest.

Do all you can on the prevention side!

Cycling shoes and clipless pedals allow your feet to be secured into the pedals, so your pedaling motion can utilize both the downward push of your quads and the upward pull of your hamstring.

Like all gear, there are a variety of options to choose from.

The cycling shoes themselves have different components that allow you to “click into” the pedals such as Look pedals and SPD pedals, but the concept is the same.

Here’s some advice on getting started with cycling shoes...

I thought I was a pretty good swimmer until I joined the Masters Swim class at our local YMCA.

There I was - Mr. Triathlon man, ready to show everyone just how triathlony I was! Let's see... there was what looked to be about a 60-something-year-old man, this string-bean thin Asian guy, a woman probably also in her 60s, a couple of other women about my age or maybe a little younger, and this short pale looking dude. So I hopped in the water with my tan, lean triathlon body, ready to show the class what I could do.

Soon after getting in the water, I realized I was in trouble upon discovering that people were expected to know multiple strokes. I knew the freestyle, but that was it (other than the doggy paddle). I thought I could more or less fake the breaststroke. (Heck, I've watched the Olympics, and I can bob my head up and down in the water with the best of them.) Unfortunately, I didn't factor in our teacher being able to see down into the water to catch the idiotic things I was doing with my legs. Busted!

You should have seen what happened when she tried to show me how to do the butterfly. Thank goodness no one was taping this or it might have well become the most watched video on the Internet entitled, "You won't believe this!"

I was so glad when we finally got around to doing the freestyle. Now I was in my element, and ready to demonstrate just how fit I was. I was doing just fine until the drill when we were supposed to do 16 50-meter sprints: 4 sets of 4, with a 15-second recovery between each 50-meter sprint. I was good for about 8 of them, and then I was sucking wind in a major way!

It was humiliating! I didn't realize string-beans and older folks could swim so fast and far. I realized I had a lot to learn and a long way to go.

This past weekend I was out on a 100-mile bike ride, and it started to pour rain.

Part of the route was on a local greenway, and rounding a curve onto a wooded pedestrian bridge my bike slid out from under me and I went down hard on my right shoulder. For a while I just laid there in the downpour, wrenching in pain. I was fine, but what came to mind in that moment was this article that had not yet been written, discussing why doing triathlons are “FUN!”

Admittedly, there will be times when you will question the premise that training and competing in triathlons is “fun.”

Here are some times when I questioned it:

1. Falling over on my bike, getting used to clipless pedals.

2. Swallowing mouthfuls of nasty lake water.

3. Accidentally getting IcyHot in places you really don’t want it.

4. Getting kicked in the head by other swimmers in a tri event.

5. Your first flat tire.

6. Calf cramps with 4 miles left to run.

Just for laughs, listen to Bud Light's Real Men of Genius "Mr. Professional Sports Leg Cramp Rubber Outer":

Go ahead: play it safe, only do things within your comfort zone, minimize risk and don’t expose yourself to the possibility for failure, don’t take on more than you can chew, stay well within your limits and don’t push yourself, and just concede that there are many things you are not capable of and shouldn’t try.

But is that truly “living?”

It sounds more like just getting by or biding your time or living in a rut. Maybe there’s more to you than you think, maybe there’s more to life than you’ve yet experienced, and maybe you have it in you to do things you never dreamed possible.