Nobody trains for transitions. Everybody loses time in them. It's the only part of a triathlon where you can get faster this week without being any fitter, and most of us still treat it like a pit stop we'll figure out on the day.
What a minute is made of
Take T1 apart and it's rarely one big mistake. It's six small ones. The run from the water to your bike. The wetsuit stuck on a heel. Goggles and cap in your hands with nowhere to put them. The helmet strap you fumble because your fingers are cold. A sock you decided you needed. The jog to the mount line in cleats.
T2 is shorter and simpler, so the losses are smaller and more irritating: racking the bike in the wrong row, laces instead of elastic, a race belt you forgot to clip on, a gel you stop to open.
Some of the time is fixed. The run through a long transition area is the same for everyone and you can't train it away. The rest is handling, and handling is practice.
It helps to know which kind of slow you are. Watch a race video of yourself, or ask someone to stand at the fence with a stopwatch. If you're quick through the area but stand still at the rack, it's handling. If you're tidy at the rack but the run in and out takes ages, it's the course, and the only fix is moving faster on your feet.
Making T1 quicker
Start the wetsuit on the way out of the water: zip down, arms out, suit to the waist before you reach the bike. Then one move with your feet at the rack. A little lubricant on the calves helps more than any technique.
Lay out only what you'll use. Helmet upside down on the bars with the straps open, sunglasses inside it, shoes on the bike or on the ground. If you're not sure you need something, you probably don't.
Helmet on and clipped before the bike leaves the rack. That's the rule at almost every race, and a penalty costs more than any time you'd save.
Flying mounts and shoes clipped to the pedals save real seconds, but only if you've done them dozens of times. A crash at the mount line costs far more than the ten seconds you were after. If you haven't practised it, run to the line in your shoes and get on like a normal person.
Making T2 quicker
Elastic laces, a race belt already holding your number, and the run kit on the ground in the order you'll pick it up. Undo the bike shoes in the last few hundred metres if you've practised it, not otherwise.
Walk the transition the evening before or the morning of. Count the rows. Find your rack from the swim exit, from the bike in and from the run out. Losing your bike for twenty seconds is the most common T2 story there is.
Practise it like a session
Ten minutes once a week in the last month before a race is enough. Set your kit out in the garage, do the change three or four times, and time it. Add it to the end of a brick so you practise it tired, because that's how you'll do it on the day.
Keep the routine the same every time: the same layout, the same order, the same spot for the helmet. On race morning your head is full of other things, and the point is that your hands already know what to do without asking it.
Knowing your own numbers
Most results pages list T1 and T2. Write yours down for every race and you'll see quickly whether you have a transition problem or a fitness problem.
LankFit keeps T1 and T2 on each triathlon. If the official times aren't in, it suggests them from the gap between your Strava legs, as a one-click suggestion you check before saving. Your own recorded transitions then go into your projected finish, so the goal you're chasing includes the minutes you really spend in the tent, not a textbook guess.