A few weeks ago, I did my first triathlon. In this article, I briefly want to share my experiences.
How it all came about
Back in the day, in high school, I was super unathletic and had no sporting ambitions whatsoever. Later, during my first semesters at university, I developed a taste for running and weight training and even though I’m definitely far from pro in any of these, I’d consider myself decently sporty today.
Last winter, I sat together with a friend and we had this spontaneous idea of signing up for a triathlon - just for the challenge. None of us have had any touching points with triathlon before, but we knew there was going to be one very close by in September – ten months to go. We decided to sign up and agreed on starting to train together more or less regularly until then.
A bit later, we realized it would probably be helpful to already get some practice before the big event, so we signed up for another triathlon that was going to be happening in July. But that one was only “sprint distance”, which is half of the official “Olympic distance” in each discipline. 750 m swimming, 20 km biking and 5 km running sounded doable.
Training phase
We didn’t take things too seriously, so we also didn’t bother to search for an actual, proper exercise plan. But we knew that the swimming part was going to be toughest for both of us. I started to teach myself crawl swimming (people told me this was a must-have for a triathlon) from YouTube videos and practiced it at the university’s swimming pool – which was free for employees every Wednesday morning. Over time, I somewhat got the hang of it – even though my technique still leaves a lot of room for improvement, even today.
My friend and I met more or less regularly every week to either go for a swim or a run – just to develop some routine. When the public outdoor swimming pools opened in spring, I additionally went there every Friday morning before work. In hindsight, this was a super nice and rewarding habit, not least because I was often one of only three or four people (mostly retirees) in the pool.
Even though swimming for 30 or even 60 laps was still excessively exhausting for me, I saw myself becoming better and better over time. Then it was July and the first challenge was just around the corner.
The first test
The Mühlacker Triathlon took place on July 20th, 2025. I was quite nervous on our way there. I never did all three disciplines combined during training. Each individual one was very doable at that point, but I had quite a bit of respect of doing all of them one after the other.
The event itself was super inspiring! Although the whole experience was somewhat overwhelming for newbies like us, it was a very thrilling and captivating vibe. There were a crazy number of sporty people, from beginners to pros, and everybody was super friendly and welcoming.
The swimming part was – unsurprisingly – quite tough for me. I only ever swam in the clean, confined swimming pool, so swimming in the (quite dirty) Enz river, surrounded by hundreds of other athletes and with poor visibility, was definitely a challenge. Luckily, 750 m are not that much, so it went by fairly quickly.
Despite the route was quite a climb, cycling was most fun for me. And the weather was just perfect. The subsequent running part took quite some effort during the first kilometers, but eventually was fun as well.
I finished 104th with a total time after 1h 44m – which is a lot better than I had expected, especially since I didn’t have very high ambitions and my primary goal was to make it to the finish line.
All in all: definitely would recommend, definitely will do again!
The big event
After the “practice” round, I felt a lot more confident for the upcoming “real” event. But I also had a lot of respect: the sprint distance wasn’t exactly a walk in the park and this was going to be double the thing – 1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling, 10 km running. Unfortunately, my friend had an accident and got hurt two weeks before the event, so I was going to have to take this challenge all by myself.
The morning of September 14th 2025 – the day of this year’s Albtal Triathlon – was a cold one. I was freezing and shivering in my trisuit while waiting for the starting signal. The Buchtzig lake’s water wasn’t particularly warm either (20° C, iirc). However, I immediately didn’t feel cold anymore when the adrenaline rushed through my body the moment I got into the water.
Again, swimming was toughest for me. In fact, it was pure torture. After about half the distance I was close to a mental breakdown in the dirty, cold water. But I managed to get through it. When I got out, I felt weirdly dizzy for quite a while. Only after the first few kilometers on the bike, I was fully back to reality again.
But then it started to become fun! The cycling route involved a total of 800 m of altitude, so it was quite demanding and my legs were hurting like crazy. But racing through the woods of the northern Black Forest among hundreds of other highly motivated athletes gave me enough of a push to ignore all the pain. This rush continued throughout the subsequent 10k of running.
When I crossed the finish line, I was totally overwhelmed by feelings. I felt incredibly exhausted, relieved, extremely proud and much more – all at once. I was happy to see my friends waiting for at the finish line. They gave me mental support through the entire race and were proud of me too.
Some stats
- Rank: 167 (see results)
- Total time:
- Swimming: 0:39:52 h (2:39 min/100m)
- Cycling: 1:39:18 h (23.9 km/h)
- Running: 50:28 h (5:02 min/km)
- Top speed: 66.5 km/h
- Average heart rate: 114 bpm
- Total calories: 1169 kcal
- Total expected sweat: 1491 ml (😄)
I’m still undecided whether I’ll do an Olympic triathlon again. But I’m definitely looking forward to the next challenge – whatever it will be!
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