Tri Bikes Blog

History of Triathlons – What is a Triathlon?

Triathlons are quickly becoming one of the most popular endeavors for athletes and non-athletes alike. Shows like MTV’s “Made” and NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” feature out of shape and overweight stars whose motivation for getting back in shape is to complete a triathlon.

Maybe you’ve been thinking of completing a triathlon as well and are wondering to yourself, “How Does a Triathlon Work?”

Triathlon gets its name from the combination of three sports. First conceived as the brainchild of Don Shanahan and Jack Johnstone a triathlon traditionally consists of swimming, biking and running. The first triathlon took place in San Diego, California as a “wierd event” to that was designed to even up the race field of runners…allowing people who were better swimmers and bikers (including the founders) to complete on a more even level with the pure runners in the Mission Bay track club. The group of friends designed a course that consisted of a 6 mile brun, 5 mile bike and 500 yards of swimming.

Four years later, two of the participants in the Mission Bay Triathlon organized the first triathlon in the now epinonymous town of Kona, Hawaii. While only about thirty participants completed that initial event at Mission Bay, thousands of people compete annually in the Kona Ironman Triathlon every year, not to mention countless races of all distances across the USA and around the world.

One of the most popular types of triathlon is a sprint triathlon which consists of a 400m swim (1/4 mile), a 10 mile bike and a 3 mile run. The exact distances vary from one venue to the next, but they are all within this neighborhood. If you are someone who exercises a few times a week in your sport, be it swimming, biking or running, you could probably complete a sprint triathlon without much (additional) training at all.

Not to say that you don’t NEED to train…by all means you should! The point is that there are triathlons for everyone from complete beginners to experienced endurance athletes. As athletes gain experience and confidence, they may want to proceed to longer distances, including the “Olympic Distance Triathlon” and the “Half Iron” Distance Triathlon.

When you are ready to get serious about triathlon training you may want to consider a Triathlon Bicycle which is optimized for the cycling portion of triathlon, helping you ride as fast as possible while keeping your legs fresh for the run at the end.

Source: Triathlon History
Got questions? Feel free to leave a comment about this post and I’ll get right back to you as soon as I can!