10 Rules You Need To Know Before You First Triathlon | Race Tips For Beginners

Published on January 9th 2018

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You spent all this time training hard, putting in the hours, so the last thing you want to do is get disqualified. Make sure you know the rules ahead of race day. Because it's amazing, even the obvious ones can suddenly slip your mind when you have the added stress of the competition. Subscribe to GTN: http://gtn.io/SubscribetoGTN Check out the GTN Shop: http://gtn.io/5- In non-drafting races, you must keep the set distance behind the bike in front of you, but when it comes to the swim, there are no drafting rules. You're allowed to get as close to the swimmer in front and basically, the closer you get, the more advantage you'll have. That leads us on to the drafting rule and it's pretty clear in most races, but make sure you go to the race briefing as sometimes the distance can vary, but something that isn't always as clear and that's the time which you have in order to drop back if you've been overtaken. So say it's a 12 metre drafting race and you have five seconds, an athlete overtakes you, you then have to make it to 12 metres behind them within that five seconds. In the cycling, make sure that when you overtake, you always overtake from the outside. So if you're doing a race in the UK, we'd cycle on the left, that means you overtake on the right. And check the rules, even when overtaking, you quite often have to stay within the white line in the middle. If you're going out for a training ride, or riding with your club, you wouldn't dream of taking a gel out of your pocket, eating it, and then throwing it on the roadside, so the same goes for race day. Make sure you know where the drop zones are and you can leave your litter in these areas. And if you do drop your litter outside of it, it's a violation, and you can quite often be disqualified. In most big races, and definitely in Kona, you'd be hard pressed to find a bike that's not a time-trial bike. So in non-drafting races, there are no rules as to what you can ride. So if you've got a bike sat in your garage, you have no excuse, why not go and do your first triathlon. Staying with the bike, and this was actually a common mistake, even if you do know the rules inside and out, it's the helmet. Make sure when you come into T1, the first thing you do is put your helmet on. You're not allowed to remove your bike until your helmet is securely done up. And the same comes when you're coming back into T2. Run in with your bike. Keep your helmet on until your bike's securely racked and then you can remove your helmet and off you go. Now this rule is an obvious one, but just make sure you know the course markers. So different races will have different colour buoys. Make sure you know on the swim which side you've got to be of them, and the same for the bike and the run. Transition areas are different in every race, so make sure you've checked it out beforehand. If you'd like to contribute captions and video info in your language, here's the link 👍 http://gtn.io/60 Music: Epidemic Sound Watch more on GTN... 📹 Triathlon Jargon Buster - http://gtn.io/TriJargon 📹 Unwritten Rules Of Triathlon - http://gtn.io/7UnwrittenRules