Triathlon? What's all that about then?

If you are asking yourself this question, then where have you been?!  Triathlon is the UKs fastest growing sport and consists of three (the name is a bit of a giveaway) sporting disciplines  - swimming, cycling and running.

It has been an Olympic Sport since the 2000 Olympics held in Sydney, and there are various level as which you can compete, for example some of the more widely known distances are:

• SuperSprint - generally 200-400m pool or open water swim; 10km bike; 2.5 km run
• Sprint  - generally 400m pool swim or 750m open water swim; 20km bike; 5km run
• Standard (or Classic or Olympic)- 1500m open water swim; 40km bike; 10km run
• Half Ironman (or 70.3) - 1.2 mile open water swim; 56 mile bike; 13.1 mile run
• Full Ironman -  2.4 mile open water swim; 112 mile bike; 26.2 mile run

Many of the larger and well-known Triathlons (e.g. London, Windsor, etc,) keep to these distances, but many smaller triathlon events have their own distances, e.g. Helston triathlon is 400m pool swim; 16.5 mile bike and 3.5 mile run - note the mixing of metric and imperial measures - this is quite normal so you'll just have to get used to it!

Click on a link for the guides for each section: