What's the shortest triathlon?

If you want to give triathlon a go, but worried about your fitness, the super-sprint or 'starter' triathlon is the shortest recognised distance, but there are other options as well says Matt Baird.

Published: March 1, 2019 at 9:28 am

The shortest form of triathlon at an event is generally the super-sprint distance triathlon or what can be called the ‘Starter Triathlon’.

Held at a wide number of beginner-friendly races, a super-sprint triathlon involves the following:

Swim: 400m

Bike: 10km

Run: 2.5km

You can also find Try-a-Tri/Starter Tri races, often with an open-water swim at the start of the race. At the Castle Triathlon Series events, for example, the Starter Tri consists of:

Swim: 200m

Bike: 15km

Run: 2km

There are, however, triathlons that can be shorter than the above distances, including the nationwide GoTri events created by British Triathlon. These will invariably start with a pool swim and an example format is:

Swim: 100m (four lengths of the pool)

Bike: 5km

Run: 1km

If you want to increase your race distance from the above formats, the next challenge would be the sprint-distance triathlon. These involve the below distances and often include an open-water swim at the beginning of the race instead of a pool swim.

Swim: 750m

Bike: 20km

Run: 5km

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