I have been around the sport of triathlon for nearly two decades.   What originally started as a side hustle- me being the DJ and MC for events quickly turned into the chaos of setting up the music, announcing the beginning, the rules, the national anthem jumping in the pool, and doing the race myself!

Triathlons are just to cool not to do!   If you are even thinking of it at all, Jump on in!

 My wife and I have done dozens of triathlons throughout the United States.

 It’s a sport I love.

 To further my street cred, as a sports-based chiropractor, I have worked on thousands of triathletes as well as helped kick off and start hundreds of newbies.

This article is written for people interested in Triathlon or beginners just starting the sport.  I think a few common misconceptions keep many people from trying the sport in the first place, and I want to clear them up.  I wrote cheat sheets for football, soccer, and basketball, so why not one for tris?

I will cover other ideas that I think are often missed while training or are weighed heavier than they should be -disrupting your ability to compete better and have more fun.    Let’s cover these first, as the ability to hack the sport means that you first need to understand where the mistakes are being made.

These problem areas make the sport much more challenging than it should be and are nearly erased when you gain awareness of them.   Much like I do throughout this entire website, allow me to give you some tips and tricks that will enable you to hack a triathlon, gain familiarity/understanding, and give you the ability to replicate success.

 While this article isn’t going to teach you how to become the champion in your age group, it will definitely save you lots of time on your training, money, stress, and perhaps weed out some common mistakes I see with newcomers in the sport.

 Let’s jump to the basics.

Triathlon is made up of Swim Bike and Run.  In that order.   True, there are some fun events that mix stuff up just to keep it unique and fresh but the typical tri is performed in this order.

Misconception #1

Friends and my mom: “This is Chad, he’s an Ironman.”

Me: (shaking hands) ”Hi, I’m Chad, and I am certainly not.”

Triathlon comes in a lot of different distances but is most famous and most often mistaken for Iron Man.

 This is the first and most important idea to clarify early because when I talk to people about trying a triathlon for the first time or simply getting involved with the sport, they often picture the 17-hour grueling insanity that is IronMan.

 Before anything else, get this-

 Iron Man is a triathlon, but

 a Triathlon is not Iron Man.

 There are many different distances, and nobody in their right mind starts out their career and fun in the sport of triathlon with an Ironman.   The Iron Man is the ultra-endurance version and is the same comparison of your local 5K to the Leadville 100-mile Mountain Run.

They just aren’t the same thing.

 Most of the triathlons that I have been involved with are Olympic distance, but there are even shorter ones than that that are called Sprints and super sprints. and I would strongly push you to start out with one of these.   The training will certainly not be 9 months to a year, and the race will be around an hour to 80 minutes.

It’s important you get that point.  I think it is the #2 reason people won’t try them.  It’s also a shame because I can get you ready for a tri in a month or less.

A  local Triathlon put on in your city each weekend typically will have distances set up more like this:

 OK,  just seeing that may look daunting but I’m telling you, you’ve got this.   

 I was a former college football player weighing 240 lb that typically didn’t run more than 40 yards at a time. If I can get into the sport, you can get into this sport    And you should.

#2 mistake –

Yes, there is a swim component.

The swim.  My God, the swim.   It’s the crux of the sport and, more than anything else, what keeps people from trying one.  As I said earlier, I have worked on and trained hundreds of triathletes and, in the process, dealt with hundreds of people who just couldn’t get through the swim.  

 So let’s talk about this because I think there is a huge amount of poor decisions and time wasted because of this portion of the race.

First of all, you should be able to swim. It’s a human thing. so practice.

Before you purchase 50 lessons with an experienced swim coach, just get in the damn pool and practice. Check your local triathlons, but nearly all of the beginner triathlons and short distance Sprints are in a pool. which means you just have to get to one side. If you need to take a little bit of a breather, you can.

 Here’s what I’ve noticed.

You need to just get yourself comfortable in the water prior to taking lessons. I see “over-technical coaching” in every sport but none as obvious as swimming.  

If you’re already nervous about swimming, having somebody come in and give you step-by-step, do this, then this, then this coaching techniques that give you the edge and make you swim more professionally is probably putting the cart before the horse.  

I typically teach swimming as I would golf.   First, before we get into specifics, whack the ball a few times.   Look at a YouTube video for golf first rather than a process similar to putting together a baby crib from Ikea.   Too many steps and too much to think about bombs the process altogether.

I have literally met dozens of people at our local pool and shown them how to swim efficiently for a race.   I think the time for lessons and the lessons themselves are valuable, but they aren’t and shouldn’t be immediate, and it’s one of the big mistakes I see most rookies making.

Do this for your first few races.   Learn to not drown first.  Second, learn to propel a bit.  

 Do yourself a favor and look up an old YouTube video called “total immersion swimming.”

 It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s very relaxing and is a nice easy stroke and idea.

Literally the opposite of stress.  

When I first saw it I couldn’t believe it was real, and experimenting like I do I took it to my local pool.

To set up the experiment,  I swam 300 yards as fast as I possibly could. I was breathing hard. My heart rate was Sky High, and it was adrenaline-fueled, water splashing everywhere, chaotic swim.  Man, I felt FAST!    Exhausted, but fast.   My legs burned so much from kicking I remember wondering how much that would affect my bike and run portion of Tri.

 It took me about 10 minutes to completely recover because it was an all out Max effort.  

This is typically what I see from new swimmers, especially in triathlon.    It’s the start of the race, and they do an all-out Max effort, typically leaving themselves crushed for the rest of the race.

After I recovered, I tried 300 yards again, only this time using the “total immersion” technique.    It was as relaxed as I have ever been in the water, and truly felt like I was moving in slow motion.  I thought I was in the pool for an hour, yet I wasn’t tired in the least.  Quite the opposite, i felt like I used next to zero energy.   Honestly, I thought it was kind of dumb.  Until I checked my watch and saw it was 22 seconds slower than my max-out effort!

 22 seconds!

This is why the swim is problem number 2.

Because if you’re an athlete in a 300 M swim, 22 seconds is colossal!    

Many of us getting involved in Triathlon were high school athletes and have run a 400 meters in track before. We understand that 22 seconds not close, 22 seconds is absolutely in an entirely different category.  It’s getting blown out.   A 50 second 400m is fast – a 1:10 is terrible!

22 seconds is terrible for swimming too, if the race was a 300 M swim.

But it’s not.

It’s the start of a three-tiered race, and the swim, especially in the Sprints, is heavily underweighted.  

Remember, you’re going to have a bike ride and a run following your swim.

 22 seconds is practically insignificant in the course of a triathlon, for non-professionals.  It can be made up by going a quarter mile an hour faster on the bike, which is unnoticeable.   It’s literally peddling six times going down a hill.

You can also makeup 22 seconds on a run and probably can in the first quarter mile.

 if I run a 9-minute mile and you run an 8-minute mile you have made up that 22 seconds approximately three times in the first mile.

 Triathlons also have transition areas.

These are where you put on your running shoes and your bike helmet and gear up for the bike portion.    

What I’m saying is to save the energy and exertion for where it counts!

 I once had trouble putting on my bike shirt after the swim portion. The damn thing wrapped around me like an anaconda, and I was trapped in the transition area for about  3 minutes trying to get my shirt on.    Do you know how difficult it is to get a shirt onto a wet body?    It’s 10 times more difficult if you’re exhausted, heart rate at 180, and panting while your friends are laughing at you for being a goof.

 My buddy Luke swims the 300 about a minute and a half slower than I do.

He ran by me in the transition area, and I called for help.  “Luke, can you help me with a shirt?  I need someone to pull it down from behind so I can get my arm through the hole!”

“Sorry sucka!” he yelled as he threw on a pair of Nike Frees and jumped on his bike with a clocked transition time of most likely 22 seconds.    Meanwhile, I was tapping out, cursing and dislocating my shoulder trying to get one article of clothing on.   His transition was literally 4 minutes faster.   

Do the math.   Hack the sport.  Use strategy.   Triathlon smarter!

I want advice in this article to become meaningful and impactful.    

The swim portion of the Sprint Triathlon is incredibly less valuable than the bike and run portions, so stop spending so much of your training, time, and brain power on the swim component.     “Over-Rated!   Over-Rated”    Save swim perfection for when you level up.

Despite you being scared to swim, you are going to swim no more than 3 minutes slower than the fastest swimmer.    Just for the sake of argument, double that.    Let’s say you swim 6 minutes slower.   Even 6 minutes is incredibly easy to make up on the bike and run portions of the race.

The bike and run portions of the race are a much heavier, weighted, and important part of the race, yet I see beginner spending nearly all of their training time in the pool.    It’s the Fear Factor,  the unknown (almost everybody has biked and ran in their life before), and a huge part of the hype of tri’s.    I’m just saying it’s also the least important.

 if you want to hack a triathlon, make the swim not as important as it is in your head.

 I know we all have the visual of an Olympic or Iron Man race where 400 people start at the same time and are all turning up the water like a great white Feeding Frenzy off the coast of South Africa. There are a million swimmers on top of each other,  crushing each other, pulling on legs, and all around it’s total chaos.

 Your local Saturday Triathlon is nothing like this.

 It is one person in the pool every 10 seconds.

Stop the panic.    It’s all but worthless, and it keeps you from enjoying a sport and competing to the best of your ability.   Panic swimming is a poor choice so make it the easy part.

If I were going to train for a triathlon that was coming up in 3 weeks, I would probably only train in the pool once or twice as I can just spend my time better improving other aspects.

#3 –  Bike or Run.   Pick your poison for training.

Much like the swim being overrated, I think the bike and run are a toss-up for many.  

I’m going to use the run as I talk about how to hack a triathlon because most of us have a pretty good idea of how fast we can run a mile.    If you don’t, get that.  But these lessons are overlapping for both components.    Again, Use math.

The run is where I would find myself in races, typically dropping From the top 10 in the race to the top 100, perhaps even out of the top 10 of my age group and category.

If I’m in a triathlon, I will typically run an 8 to 9-minute mile pace.    It’s at the end of the race, and I’m tired.    That’s not a bad pace, but there are plenty in my age group that will run a 6-minute mile.

 That’s 2 minutes per mile faster than I can go and over the course of three miles makes a difference of 6 minutes.

 In fact, that 6 minutes means they are one mile ahead of me!

 This is where the race is won.  

 If I had to hack the triathlon for myself, I would make myself a better runner. I would keep a better Pace, but it’s hard to do when you’re tired at the end.

 I’ll tell you, I’m a pretty good swimmer, but it is not weighed as heavily. so I typically come out of the swim portion in the top 10 positions overall.    My transition is not great, and I also don’t sweat it a lot. I’m using this time to catch my breath, gain some composure, make a joke with a couple of friends, and start the bike.    

Like my friend Luke, many people have a minimal transition and just Cruise right on through- they grab their bike and go.

Because I’m also a pretty good cyclist, I gear myself up.   I use clip-on shoes. I have a sweet bike jersey that I like to wear, and I give myself just a couple of deep breaths and focus because that’s what sets me up to have a good bike ride.     I tend to hold a pretty good bike pace, and I have a decent bike, so I can keep it at a pretty quick pace.  

I’m not that exceptional, however.   My best bike ride isn’t so far ahead of the bikers behind me that I can hold them off on the run. I typically get passed a lot on the Run.

 if you’re a good runner and compete in 5Ks, you’re going to be a good triathlete.  

#4 You Don’t need to Win to Enjoy the race.

The people who get into triathlons are usually pretty competitive people.   They are the type that wouldn’t join a race unless they wanted to compete at their maximum level and beat other people. That’s just how the majority of people in these things are wired.

My advice to you would be, especially in your early Triathlon career,  just finish a couple of races before you start strategizing.  Complete it, don’t worry about winning it yet.   The night before a triathlon, especially in the early race days, was absolutely wild in my hotel.     My wife is one of these Ultra competitors.

We would have all of our gear laid out throughout the hotel room perfectly.  Then would mentally go through the entire race a thousand times before we actually got there.

 Nikki was fantastic at this because she was a college track star.  She was highly trained in visualization and mental preparation.     She would have everything laid out exactly perfectly, get to race day, and calmly go about setting up her bike and her entire transition area.    This is just one of the really fun things about this sport.    There’s so much going on behind the scenes.

Much of it is hype.   As you’re going through the chaos, please remember.  You’re going to swim.  Then bike, then Run.    It’s easy, and those are the essentials.   The $400 watch, technie sports bra for men, and $290 razor glasses are cool, but in reality, are unnecessary and a waste for a newbie.    It’s money that you will regret spending in your experiment to see if you like this sport.   Swim, Bike, Run.    Just do this.

On bikes…

The bikes, in my opinion, are the coolest part of the sport.  Sure, if you want to ride your mountain bike that’s been in the garage for a while, by all means, start out like that. It’s ok and acceptable.  You’ll definitely stand out as a newbie, but who cares, Race for you and save the money. You won’t be alone.   Most sprints have handfuls of all kinds of different bikes.

But, saying that…get yourself some time on a road bike as soon as you can.  They are amazing.  Like swapping out a Jeep Wrangler for a Ferrari.    Race bikes have an incredible feel, and are exciting to ride, and if you stay with the sport, you need one. The digital computer and metrics will genuinely help you and honestly are part of the sport.  Much like a Ferrari, the bikes are also a status symbol.  So Go ahead and look around the transition area, oohing and ahhing.  It’s cool tech!  The solid wheel time trail machines you hear from a quarter mile away will break your heart on race day and are impressive to see.  I don’t own a time trial bike, however. My motto is, “I’d prefer to work on my engine,” meaning my body, and I remind myself that I’m no pro.  Often.

For our first couple of races, Nikki borrowed a friend’s bike, something I would prioritize in your early career. There’s no reason to go drop $2,000 on a bike that gets you 1 mph faster.    Honestly, just push a little bit harder.  The engine.  That’s most likely why you signed up in the first place.   It’s not that hard to go one mile an hour faster. 

Save the tech geek part of your mind for later if you truly develop a love for the sport.   I think it is only with love and passion that I tell you a $5,000 bike with a weaker athlete doesn’t go as fast as my $600 bike when I’m having fun and the Beastie Boys were bumping the speakers in the transition area.   Sure, the salesman will tell you that over the course of a hundred-mile race that $5,000 bike is going to save you 5 minutes.

 That’s important if you’re a professional athlete. It equates to millions of dollars.

 But you’re only biking 15 miles and you’re not a pro. it’s a $75 entry fee either way, and there are no cash prizes for your race. hold off on the extra $4,925 until you get a better feel for it.

In fact, hold off altogether.

Triathletes are crazy people –  and I say that lovingly.  But because they’re crazy, one of them is selling their bike for about $4,000 less than what they bought it for a year ago.   Buy their used one.   After you’ve “borrowed it” 5x first.

I still race on my 2003 Aluminum Frame Giant road bike.   Yeah, there’s way cooler stuff, and the technology now is so superior to 2 decades ago, but I typically am doing one race per year now, with most of my weekends being dedicated to my kid’s sports.   I’m just not in the market to care that much about 1 mph.

Helmet.  

A 100% absolute must-have.   And it has to be a sanctioned helmet.  No race will let you race without it.    Borrow one from a friend or contact your local tri club if you’re not in the market.   Tri-Guys and girls are technies. They have 4 helmets in their closet, and, more than any other sport – they are happy to share.

Ok, back to the point.   Competitive people.   

If you are a beginner or looking to hack a race, ask yourself the most important and honest question.

“Am I doing my first triathlon ever, with the goal of winning?”

Because you’re not.  

First,  that can’t be your goal if it’s your first race ever. Second, You’re not going to.  So take the pressure off.   Just complete it.  That feels incredible by itself!

Not sure where the race course is going, and you’ve looked at the map 400 times?    Use the advice that I gave everyone back in my early MC days.

“The people out in front of this race that are going for the win have done approximately 50 -100 triathlons before.  Most likely, they had a part in the design, marketing, and sponsorship, and I can pretty much guarantee you they are a part of the local triathlon club that set this all up.   For the many of you, you’re still pretty green.”

“Stop looking at your map for a second and look at me…good…Here’s some advice you can use today. If you get lost- follow the people in front of you.”

Ahhh, the stress is gone.     

Just enjoy the music, race for yourself, against yourself, and gain experience.    Every Triathlon I have ever done in my life was different. 

Many of the exact same courses and annual races were identical, yet despite having done it before, something went differently  Wind, Heat, Flat tire, Help a friend, 20 newcomers drastically underestimating their swim time…  I would never expect one of my kids to be an expert in anything they hadn’t done at least a few dozen times.  You are not an expert yet, either.

it’s about gaining experience first- before trying to figure out and hack it.

 Before you race to win, race for fun.    Race for a sense of accomplishment.   Race for you!

#5   You don’t need all that crap.

 As I’ve mentioned many times over the course of this article, Triathlon tends to have a lot of tech, preparation, and, more than any other sport in my life, unsolicited advice.

Most of the newbies I have seen in triathlons have more gear than seasoned professionals.

Most take more supplements, Gatorades, carbohydrate syrups,  BCAAs,  Gu’s, and protein bars than they need for a sprint.    I certainly did.  In fact, it’s probably a huge part of why I loved the tri’s so much.  The goodie bag at a lot of these races kicks ass!     There’s all kinds of stuff in there.  That’s why the entry fee is so high.   So enjoy this stuff.   But be aware that you don’t need to fill your pockets up with seven Gu packets and have 6 water bottles strapped to your bike and arms for a 14-mile bike race.    

Relax man.   Just enjoy it already.  5 hacks to put you in the race!

So until next time, I’m signing off.   Do yourself a favor and find a local Triathlon and give it a whirl.  You’ve got this!