How to Train for a Sprint Triathlon

Training for a Sprint Triathlon is an exciting thing!  Along with the excitement that comes from embarking on a journey like this, athletes may feel overwhelmed if they’ve never trained for a triathlon or multisport event before.  But there’s good news!  Training for a Sprint Triathlon honestly isn’t as intimidating as it may seem.  By giving yourself enough time to prepare, thoughtfully considering each element of the race, and being consistent in your training, you will be more than ready to tackle a Sprint Triathlon.

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https://www.fullcircleendurance.com/blog/how-to-train-for-a-sprint-triathlon 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening
• 0:16 Start at the Very Beginning
• 0:51 What is a Sprint Triathlon?
• 2:26 What Gear & Equipment Do You Need to Train for a Sprint Triathlon?
• 5:59 How Do You Train for a Sprint Triathlon?
• 10:10 How Much Time Do You Need to Train for a Sprint Triathlon?
• 12:03 The Bottom Line
• 12:34 Closing

Transcript

(0:04 - 0:22)
Hello and welcome to the Full Circle Podcast, your source for insights into the science and art of endurance sports training and racing. I'm your host, Coach Laura Henry. So you have decided that you want to train for a sprint triathlon.

(0:22 - 0:43)
Hooray! Triathlon is a wonderful sport with so many benefits. There's a fun community of athletes, decreased injury potential due to the built-in cross training that triathlon provides, and increases in overall fitness. But how do you prepare to do a sprint triathlon? In the eternal words of Julie Andrews when she portrayed Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

(0:44 - 0:55)
Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. What is a sprint triathlon? A sprint triathlon is a multi-sport event.

(0:56 - 6:27)
Multi-sport events are endurance events or races that consist of two or more sports within the same event. A sprint triathlon consists of swimming, cycling, and running, in that order. Each of these individual components is referred to as a discipline or a leg of the race. 

Distances of sprint triathlons can vary, but the most widely accepted standardized distance for a sprint triathlon is a 750 meter swim, a 20 kilometer bike, and a 5 kilometer run. This totals 25.75 kilometers or 16 miles for the entire event. In addition to the three sports that are contained within a sprint triathlon, athletes need to transition from one sport to the next. 

Athletes store their gear and any necessary supplies for a sprint triathlon within a defined boundary called a transition area. The transition area is not a part of any of the legs of the triathlon, so it is not part of the swim course, the bike course, or the run course. In a sprint triathlon, there are two transitions. 

The first, called transition one, is in between the swim and the bike legs, and the second, called transition two, is in between the bike and the run legs. Along with the time spent swimming, biking, and running, the time in transition does count toward an athlete's overall total race time. An athlete's total final time in a sprint triathlon is comprised of the swim time, plus transition one time, plus bike time, plus transition two time, plus run time. 

With three different sports and disciplines that you need to contend with within a sprint triathlon, you might think that you need a lot of gear in order to be able to train for and race at a sprint triathlon. However, the list of what you need to train for a sprint triathlon is actually, perhaps surprisingly, short. Here is what is necessary to train for and complete a sprint triathlon. 

Goggles, a bathing suit, a bicycle helmet, a bicycle, any kind of bicycle, a water bottle, and a pair of running shoes. That's a total of six items. Some races may require additional equipment. 

For instance, the rules at some races do not allow a bare toe or so on the bike in the run, so athletes must have a shirt to wear for those legs. But this is the list of what is necessary in most race situations. Seasoned and experienced triathletes may disagree with this list. 

In fact, some of them have, to my face, disagreed with my opinion on this and declare other items in addition to these items to be quote-unquote essential. However, I maintain that anything else not included on this list is nice to have. It is not necessary or essential. 

Even if a particular piece of gear is really nice to have or an athlete has gotten used to using it, that does not necessarily make it essential. Here are just some of the items that commonly make it onto the nice to have list when training for a sprint triathlon. A GPS device, preferably with structured workout capabilities and navigation features. 

A heart rate monitor. A wetsuit. A tri-kit, which is a special type of apparel that is specifically designed to be worn for all three legs of a triathlon. 

Cycling shorts. A power meter. A hat or a visor. 

Sunscreen. Sunglasses. Nose plugs. 

Ear plugs. The list could go on and on, but those are just some of the common items that a lot of athletes will add onto the nice to have list, or as I mentioned earlier, they may even deem some of these to be essential. But when you really break it down, what you actually need in order to physically complete a triathlon is only the six items I mentioned earlier. 

The goggles. The bathing suit. The bicycle helmet. 

Any kind of bicycle. A water bottle. And running shoes. 

Distinguishing between essential gear items and nice to have gear items is really important because doing so highlights the fact that while triathlon certainly does require more gear than other sports, such as running, the barrier to entry is not as high as some people might imagine or as high as some people make it out to be. For example, I did my first triathlon using those six essential gear items plus bicycle shorts, a shirt, and socks. So I had a total of nine gear items and I was able to train very successfully and happily for that race. 

I have seen other triathletes borrow a bike or borrow a bicycle helmet. You don't need to have tons of gear. Triathletes are notoriously big gear heads, meaning they like a lot of equipment. 

And since social media has risen in popularity, people see what other people are doing and they get kind of caught up in this, oh, this is what real triathletes have. So I must need to get that too. False friends, false. 

We just need to do the essentials when we're trying something out for the first time. And then if we like it, then we can think about investing in other pieces of gear. That would be my advice. 

I don't want to ever advise athletes to spend tons of money on something that they're not even sure they're going to like yet. I say work with what you have, borrow things if you don't own them, like a bicycle and see if you even like it. And if you do, then start to make investments and choices about what other gear items you might choose to have beyond the essentials. 

Trying to determine the best way to train for a sprint triathlon can definitely be confusing and or intimidating. And this is especially true for athletes who are new to the sport of triathlon, but truly training for a sprint triathlon is not as complicated as one might imagine it to be. I generally recommend that athletes try to swim, bike, and run twice each in a training week, meaning that they complete two swim training workouts, two bike training workouts, and two run training workouts for a total of six workouts.

(6:28 - 7:02)
These workouts do not need to be particularly long. Consistently and frequently getting in swimming, biking, and running sessions is the objective here. Starting with just 15 to 20 minutes of each discipline is perfectly okay. 

From there, you can build your training week over week and you can gradually increase the total duration of each workout that you're doing and therefore the total amount of time that you are training in a week so that by the time race day comes, you have built up to the durations or the distances that you will be doing in the race. But you can start where you are, you can start very small. Remember, the point of training is to have you ready on race day.

(7:02 - 9:05)
When you start training, you're not necessarily ready and that's the whole point of training is to help you get ready. So you can slowly and progressively build from really small, really short duration workouts that feel very doable to you and build those up gradually over the course of your training plan. After you have a bit of consistency under your belt, you should add in short brick workouts. 

Brick workouts are workouts that include two or more disciplines without stopping in between them. In triathlon training, brick workouts typically are swim to bike or bike to run. Using the example of bike to run, you complete a bike workout. 

Then as quickly as you can, you transition to running after finishing your bike workout. Brick workouts do not need to be particularly long. The main objective here is to practice what it feels like to transition from one discipline or one leg to the other. 

So for instance, you could add on a short 5 to 10 minute run to one of your bike rides to get a feel for what running off the bike feels like. When you incorporate brick workouts, it's also a really good idea to practice transition. Lay out your gear the same way you would in the transition area at a race so you can get used to that layout, as well as taking your gear from a designated place like that. 

The more you practice this process, the more confident, smooth, and quicker you'll be when you navigate transition in both training and in your race. If your race is taking place in open water, such as a lake, a river, a pond, or the ocean, and you have access to open water where you live or where you train, I strongly recommend that you start incorporating open water swims into your weekly training four to six weeks after you begin a sprint triathlon training plan. Open water is much different than swimming in a pool, and it's important to get used to what swimming in a living body of water feels like and how to keep yourself oriented and swimming in a straight line while you are in open water. 

In order to do that, you'll want to practice sighting. Sighting is when you look up from your swimming stroke to identify your surroundings and guide the direction that you're swimming in, which ideally should be straight or at least toward where you want to go. If you're going to be wearing a wetsuit, it's also important to get used to the fit and feel of a wetsuit while you're swimming.

(9:05 - 13:19)
Wetsuits can feel restrictive and they can make your breathing feel a little bit different, so if you've never worn one before, it's really a good idea to practice in it so you get used to the sensation of swimming with a wetsuit on. A sprint triathlon is a relatively short endurance event. Finish times range from 55 to 75 minutes for elite athletes and average one and a half to two hours for age group athletes, but that doesn't mean that you can skip or neglect fueling and hydration during a sprint triathlon. 

You'll want to practice executing a fueling and hydration plan in training that is based on your individual needs, including your sweat rate. Sufficient fueling and hydration is really important to assure that you recover well from your workouts, which enables you to feel and perform well in subsequent workouts, which then helps you actually adapt to the stimulus, the training, that you're imposing on your body and workouts, which is what makes you stronger and fitter over time. Once race day comes, you'll want to implement the fueling and hydration plan that you've tested in training and the plan that you know works best for you. 

Doing so will ensure that you're able to feel as strong and as good as possible on race day throughout the entire race, from the start line to the finish line. The amount of time that it takes to train for a sprint triathlon can vary, and this is true of any endurance sport. It depends on a variety of factors, including but not limited to what your current fitness level is, how much experience you have with each discipline in a sprint triathlon, your prior injury history, etc. 

Generally speaking, I recommend that athletes new to endurance sports or new to the sport of triathlon plan for at least 16 weeks of training prior to the sprint triathlon race date. This may seem excessive or long at face value, but once you get training, truly 16 weeks is not as long as it appears. I have seen time and time again how at least 16 weeks of training really helps athletes, especially those that are new to the sport, feel confident and well prepared come race day. 

Planning for 16 or more weeks of training allows for time buffers in case things don't happen as expected. My experience as both an endurance coach and as an endurance athlete has taught me that things rarely, if ever, go the way we want or expect. It is better to plan for more time than we think we quote unquote need. 

If everything does go well, then we reap the benefits of the extra time and we are that much more prepared come race day. But if things do not go as expected, which again is the more probable scenario, based on my experience, you might get sick, have a rough patch at work, or something else can happen that disrupts your ability to train. You will then have time buffers that allow for you to take that time away from training without significantly compromising your readiness for race day. 

Athletes who have prior experience in swimming, cycling, and or running can plan for less time around 10 to 12 weeks to train for a sprint triathlon. But honestly, even athletes with experience in one or more of the triathlon disciplines benefit from longer lead times and time buffers in training. So even for experienced athletes, I recommend taking an appropriate amount of time, not the least amount of time possible or that you can get away with, quote unquote. 

Training for a sprint triathlon might seem overwhelming or like a lot, but when you break it down, it honestly isn't as intimidating as it might appear at face value. If you're seeking assistance with training for a sprint triathlon, we can help you with one-on-one consultations, individualized coaching, custom built training plans, or prebuilt training plans. By thoughtfully considering each element of a triathlon, putting in the work and stacking a bunch of individual pieces together over a 12 to 20 week time period, you will be well prepared to take on a sprint triathlon with strength and a smile. 

That was another episode of the full circle podcast. Subscribe to the full circle podcast wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. If you'd like what you listen to, please be sure to leave us a rating and review as this goes a long way in helping us reach others. 

The thoughts and opinions expressed on the full circle podcast are those of the individual. As always, we'd love to hear from you and we value your feedback. Please send us an email at podcast at full circle endurance.com or visit us at full circle endurance.com backslash podcast. 

To find training plans, see what other coaching services we offer, or to join our community, please visit fullcircleendurance.com. I'm coach Laura Henry, thanks for listening.