How fit do I need to be to do a triathlon?
Triathlons are one of the most gruelling mass participation events – one sport just isn’t enough – yet still more people sign up for them year after year. How fit do you actually need to be to do one? Are all triathletes the lean endurance machines we see on social media? In this article, Coach Philip looks at how fit you really need to be to do a triathlon.
If you are thinking about signing up for a triathlon as something you have wanted to do for a while, or if it is something you have just signed up for and don’t know where to start, this article aims to calm any nerves and simplify your aims.
Basic competency skills needed for triathlon
Before we talk about fitness, we need to discuss the basic skills you will need. Triathlons of any distance mean you need to be able to swim and ride a bike! The more confidence you have in each discipline, the easier it will be to complete or compete in one! Being able to swim or ride a bike may be the limiter for many people to the sport. Therefore, spending some time becoming efficient and these sports will really help. Running isn’t included here because running skills aren’t often the limiting part of running. Injuries or dislike of running is more likely to be the reason that stops you from heading out the door. With the right motivation and training plans, those can be overcome. Before we talk about fitness requirements, make sure you are happy swimming 100m in the pool and riding a bike for 10-15 minutes. If you can’t, then it will be tricky to follow any specific training plan.
What is the minimum required fitness?
Triathlons can take anything from 30 minutes to 17 hours (and more), depending on the distance you intend to race. This is an important consideration you need to make beyond just “how do I swim, bike and run the distance?” You have to be able to merge the three sports together, which will take a long longer than doing them individually.
There are five traditional race distances broken down into short-course and long-course. Short-course describes three races which are all broken down from the Olympic or standard distance race: a 1.5km swim, 40km bike and a 10km run. A sprint distance race is half that, and a super sprint distance is half that again. The shorter races often have pool-based swims that make them more accessible to those who don’t want to head out into the open water.
The longer distances are based on the IRONMAN distance: 3.8km swim, 180km bike and a 42.2km marathon. The 70.3 or middle distance is half those distances.
Clearly, you will need different fitness levels for each of these distances, but often that changes with the individual. For example, the fastest 70.3 distance athletes may take the same time as the slower standard distance athletes over their respective races. There is no “one size fits all approach” to each event.
So a lot of the time, the question you need to answer is, can you exercise for the duration you expect to be doing the triathlon? This is probably going to be limited more by how much time you have to train in a day or in the week. You can work out how many hours it is sensible to train while balancing life.
Most people signing up for a triathlon already have a level of training that they could do. You may be exercising in the gym three times a week or playing football with friends. This should give you a gauge of where your general fitness will take you. If you are happy playing a 90-minute match, then you are probably OK to race for about an hour or so. If you doing a 30-minute gym class regularly, you can probably do a super sprint triathlon.
How much do you need to "jump" in fitness?
The real question, though, is how much can you stretch yourself to do. If you can play football for 90 minutes, perhaps a sprint distance triathlon won’t require much more general fitness. However, jumping up to IRONMAN may be a bridge too far.
As you move from short to long-distance racing, you rely less on your general fitness and more on your triathlon-specific fitness. As we have alluded to, this depends on your athletic history. If you used to race marathons, you might have enough general fitness to step up quite easily to the 70.3 distance event. Whereas, if you go to the gym for half an hour most days, you may be able to step into a super sprint or sprint distance event more easily. This general level of preparedness is what sets your training level up. Thereafter, you need to be more sport-specific and train for the event you are doing.
If you are looking to race an event competitively, then you want that specific training fitness to bring you very close to the fitness demands of the event. Whereas, if you are just looking to get a finishers medal, you can rely on some grit, determination and general fitness to get you to the finish line even if you are not fully prepared for it. For many people, this is approached by completing the individual distances as training sessions before the event. So swimming 1.5km, cycling 40km and running 10km before a standard distance event gives you confidence that you can complete the distance.
This can be successful for short-distance athletes, but for longer distances, this approach leads to a significant training load and actually impair your success at the main event.
So what is a realistic step up in fitness? This comes back to how much time you can commit to training. If you can allocate a significant amount of focus to training, then the answer lies more in the specific requirements of the event. For example, an IRONMAN needs an allocation of training time to cycling for over 100 miles. Will you be able to fit in regular long bike rides? If you are prone to injuries, then increasing running distance may be a bad choice.
Instead of giving an absolute answer that works every time, the answer is more about what you feel is a challenge but not too unattainable. For your first triathlon, given the complexity of three sports, training and racing, maybe reign the expectations in a little bit so you have a really positive experience. Nevertheless, make sure you choose something that is a big enough challenge for you and you are excited by.
How does training load impact training plans?
Most people will struggle to complete their event within their main aims, not because of lack of fitness but because of overtraining and injury. As a result, it is imperative to build slowly and err on the side of “less is more”.
For example, many marathon plans build up to an 18-mile run, a 20-mile run and a 22-mile run in the final few weeks of preparation. Most Physio clinics are busiest 5-6 weeks before a marathon because the culmination of the training load is too much, and people end up hurting themselves. Being injury free makes it much easier to run a marathon than racing with a niggle! But if you compound the marathon training plan with swimming and running plans for the individual disciplines, you will likely overload your body and run a higher risk of injury. Fitness is both specific to the individual discipline and generalised across the three sports. Riding your bike will also improve your cardiovascular system and mean you are also improving your running and swimming economy. You can use the three sports effectively to train for one another.
With many people signing up for the longer distances in their first year of racing, it can be worth backing off and choosing a shorter distance, doing it well and adding to your layer of fitness for the subsequent season. Even our IRONMAN training plans build gently with the understanding that the athletes have a good general level of fitness so as to avoid injury. We also offer pre-season plans to help with that too.
How fast do you want to go?
Ultimately, how fit you need to be to complete a triathlon depends on how fast you want to go. Triathletes come in all shapes and sizes; very few are the racing snakes you see on social media or TV. However, the most important fitness to train is usually your mind. If you are determined to complete your goal and sensibly prepare for the event, you will most likely achieve your goals, and often, this is where a coach can help you navigate all of that in a busy life.
Philip is the founder of Tri Training Harder LLP. He’s a British Triathlon Level 3 coach, and has been coaching for over a decade and is involved with mentoring and developing other coaches.
Philip has have coached athletes to European and World AG wins, elite racing, many Kona qualifications, IRONMAN podiums and AG wins.
Alongside the conventional development through many CPD courses, he has also been fortunate enough to work alongside experts in the fields of Physiotherapy, Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition, Psychology, Biomechanics, Sports Medicine. Putting this knowledge into practice he has worked with thousands of athletes to various degrees, from training camps in Portugal and around Europe, clinics in the UK and online coaching.
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