Triathlon Basics

Triathlon is your race!

            A triathlete can be anyone: a neighbor, your 5 year-old, a grandma or grandpa, a co-worker and of course, you!  Training for a triathlon may seem intimidating but truthfully, all you need is about four to five hours to exercise a week, which is something everyone should be doing anyway.   Having a triathlon as a goal will encourage you to vary your training and recruit a wide variety of muscles and movement patterns.  Upon training for and completing in a triathlon I am certain you find yourself an even more well rounded pursuer of health and wellness.

There are so many different races ranging from an hour long sprint triathlon to the ultra-distance long course races.  You can race on and off-road and even indoors during the winter indoors or out on the snow. 

You say you can’t swim!

            I don’t have a lot of sympathy for this excuse.  Everyone can learn how to swim and become proficient at this dynamic form of exercise.   If you watch the Ironman race in Hawaii, you will see athletes swimming 2.4 miles without legs, some without sight or you may even see a 60 year old man pulling his physically challenged son on a raft in the water behind him.

Swimming comes very natural for some but for those who find swimming more difficult, it is usually a question of balance, buoyancy and breathing.  Every human body is naturally buoyant.  All we need to do is to use the weight of our heavy head to balance our lower body up and over the buoyant air cavities in our thorax.  So keep the head down low and your body floating effortlessly in the water.  Learning how to breathe by rotating to the side without lifting our head will allow you to keep this efficient head position.  When breathing you must be sure to expire all of the CO2 concentrated air out by blowing bubbles underwater before you rotate to pull air in, otherwise you may not get enough oxygen in.  From here it is just a matter of developing propulsion but at least you no longer have to worry about staying afloat or breathing!

If wetsuits are allowed in your race and the water temperature is below 74 degrees, you should really obtain a triathlon specific wetsuit.  As a rule wetsuits make every swimmer faster and really improve buoyancy for inexperienced swimmers.  Make sure you practice in your wetsuit and get comfortable with the fit because they can be restrictive in the chest and arms. 

What is with all the crazy hi-tech bikes?

            Along with triathlon came a whole new class of bikes.  Although many bikes are well over $5,000 dollars, you can spend around $500 on a road bike and get the same triathlon excitement.  In fact I am pretty certain you could but some of the best cyclists in triathlon on a $500 road bike with clip-on aero bars and they would still have some of the fastest bike splits in the race. 

            I mentioned aerobars; these little innovations were first made popular when Greg LeMond used them and won a time trial by a huge margin the Tour de France to give him the overall victory.  Since then triathlon have adopted and embraced these extensions that clip on to our handle bars and streamline our position by reducing frontal area.  If your position is set up properly, you can gain over 2 mph with these inventions.  Make sure you are comfortable and safe cycling with aerobars before entering a race or you could cause yourself and others harm.

            Get a good bike fit and get comfortable on the road.  A good fit should address your body type, riding style, racing goals, experience, flexibility, and equipment.  Comfort on the road involves handling corners, negotiating obstacles, holding a straight line, and riding among traffic and other cyclists.

            As far as bike fitness for a triathlon; be sure to train adequately to handle the distance of your event and even ten miles longer.  Having this extra distance under your belt will give you more confidence and super compensate your aerobic engine.  You also need to do intervals in your training because even if your goal is “just to finish” all the adrenaline on race day will give you a push and you want to make sure you are trained to handle it!

Running after all that!

            It may seam intimidating at first but you will be amazed how quickly your body adapts to this stress.  Side cramps, rubbery or heavy legs are all part of the training process and racing experience.  Side cramps are usually a result of over stressed diagram because of an irregular breathing pattern or body position.  If you experience a side cramp, try protruding your chest forward and opening up your abdominals while forcing a large exhale.  Heavy rubbery legs are just a result trying to run on fatigued muscles and your legs trying to mimic the cycling motion.  Experience will train your body to recruit running specific muscles sooner and gain more bike-to-run specific endurance. 

            All you need to do is start running more off the bike.  A weekly run right after a bike should be sufficient.  You don’t even need to run that far 15-20 minutes after a 40-60minute bike will work wonders.  The expert tip; finish your bike at your goal race and start your run at your goal race pace.

A little about the race distances

The typical triathlon order involves swimming, biking and then running.  However, when you start varying distances you end up with a quite a variety of races.  Sprint triathlons are usually the shortest races involving a 500-800meter swim, 20 kilometer run and a 5K run.  The most popular and standardized race is the Olympic distance race which involves a 1500 meter swim, 40 kilometer bike and a 10 kilometer run.  There are quite a few races that fall in between these two distances and as matter of fact, Life Time Fitness used a distance that involved a 1200meter swim a 34 kilometer bike and an 8 kilometer run for years. 

Races longer than Olympic distance are referred to as long course races.  These races can involve a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13.1mile run and even double this distance.   The ultra-distant 2.4mile swim, 112mile bike and 26.2 mile run became popular on the shores of Hawaii almost 30 years ago when a group of endurance enthusiasts were debating about which long distance event on Oahu was the most challenging; the Waikiki rough water swim, the bike around Oahu, or the Honolulu marathon.  When someone said, “how about all three together!” a whole new triathlon era was born.  Yes, there are longer races and like so many other things in our world, if you build the highest building or make the world’s biggest hamburger someone else will always build one higher or bigger.

When picking your race distance, be sensitive to your current fitness level, strengths and your allotted training time.  My very first year racing I remember thinking a sprint race was too short to bother with because I was training quite a bit.  However, later I discovered that a shorter race is not any easier; it was just faster!

Why can elites draft in Olympic Triathlon competitions?

            This is a very common question that once stirred up lots of strong feelings and opinions for many triathlon enthusiasts.  Once you think about the situation in depth, you can gain an understanding as to why they allow drafting in the Olympics.

            Let’s start with the start format for all racing.  Most elite waves of a triathlon start at the same time.  This is important for keeping the races spectator friendly.  A time trial start where an athlete goes off every 10-20 seconds would leave the spectators clueless as to who is leading the race. Drafting is allowed in the swim for every style of triathlon racing and it allows for slower swimmers to drag right behind stronger swimmers.  Drafting in the swim results in a huge bunch of swimmers exiting the water together in every elite wave.

When you have 50 athletes getting out of the water together, it becomes an officiating nightmare to create a very long train of cyclists separated by three bike lengths while they are all jockeying for position.  Instead with drafting allowed, you have a large group of athletes working together at a fast pace with attacks and counter attacks being launched by stronger cyclists every now and then.  This makes for a very exciting dynamic racing and allows for a small group to work together and possibly break away.

Once you get to the run, it becomes anyone’s race and as long as you are in the front or near the front off the bike with good energy you have a shot to exploit your running strength and take the win.

            There are many Olympic distance races that do not involve drafting but they are usually limited to smaller fields and super challenging bike courses.

That’s a wrap!

            Hopefully I provided you with some light triathlon info, maybe even encouraged you to toe the start line or gave you few simple ideas to enhance your overall triathlon experience.

Thank your volunteers,

Coach Jared

Date modified: 5/7/2009