How to train for your first sprint triathlon

In short: a sprint triathlon is a 750 m swim, 20 km on the bike and a 5 km run. If you can already swim 200 m, ride for 30 minutes and run for 20 minutes, a 12-week plan of about four to six hours a week is enough for most beginners. Build up gradually (base, build, peak, taper), train each sport twice a week, add “brick” sessions where you run straight off the bike, and practise your transitions before race day.

The distances

Most people start with a sprint: long enough to be a real challenge, short enough to train for alongside a job and a life.

Where to start

You don’t need to be fit in all three sports, but a base helps. A good starting point is being able to:

• swim 200 m without stopping (any stroke),
• ride for 30 minutes,
• run for 20 minutes, or run-walk it.

If swimming is your weak spot, as it is for many beginners, start there: a few lessons on technique save more time than any amount of fitness.

How to structure 12 weeks

Training is usually built in phases:

1. Base (weeks 1–3): easy, regular sessions in all three sports. The aim is consistency, not speed.
2. Build (weeks 4–8): sessions get longer, and some get harder: intervals in the pool, tempo efforts on the bike, a weekly brick.
3. Peak (weeks 9–10): race-like sessions, including a full rehearsal of transitions.
4. Taper (weeks 11–12): cut the volume so you arrive fresh, but keep a little intensity so your legs stay sharp.

A typical week has two swims, two rides, two runs and at least one full rest day, which comes to roughly four to six hours. Most of it should feel easy; the gains come from the hard sessions only if you recover from them.

Bricks: running on bike legs

The first kilometre of the run after the bike feels strange: your legs are heavy and your pace is off. The cure is the brick session, a ride followed straight away by a short run. Start with 10 minutes of running after a ride and build from there. Doing a brick every week or two in the build phase takes most of the shock out of race day.

Transitions

Time in transition counts toward your result, and a calm, practised T1 (swim to bike) and T2 (bike to run) saves minutes and stress.

• Lay out your kit in the order you’ll use it.
• Practise putting on your helmet before touching the bike, and taking it off only after racking it.
• Elastic laces and a race belt for your number make T2 almost instant.
• Rehearse both transitions at least once at race pace.

Open water

If the race swim is in a lake or the sea, get into open water before race day if you can, ideally with a group or a lifeguard. Practise sighting (lifting your eyes every few strokes to see where you’re going) and starting among other swimmers. The water temperature also decides whether you’ll want a wetsuit.

Race week

• Nothing new on race day: no new shoes, food or kit.
• Check your bike, pump the tyres and know the course.
• Start the swim and bike at a pace that feels too easy. You can always speed up on the run.

Training for it with Kiito

Kiito is a private training app for iPhone and Apple Watch, for running, cycling, hiking, swimming and triathlon.

• A 12-week first-triathlon plan. “Beginner — First Triathlon” follows the base, build, peak and taper phases above, at about 4–6 hours a week, and ends with a sprint race. There are also Sprint, Olympic, 70.3 and full-distance plans, plus brick-focused plans.
• Plans fit your week. Pick the days you train and the plan reshapes around them, keeping the most important sessions first: races and bricks, then intervals, then the long sessions. You can move or skip a single workout.
• Guided workouts. Run, bike and brick sessions are guided step by step (warm-up, intervals, recoveries, cool-down) with live heart-rate, pace or power targets and voice cues like “Rep 3 of 6”.
• Race and brick modes on the iPhone. The triathlon race mode takes you leg by leg, swim, T1, bike, T2, run, timing each transition, and saves the whole race with its splits. A brick mode does bike, T2, run.
• Apple Watch. Record rides, runs, walks, hikes and pool swims (25 or 50 m lengths) on the Watch alone, or let the Watch mirror a workout run from the iPhone, which also records the GPS route.
• Fitness and fatigue. Analytics show fitness, fatigue and form, time in zones and race predictions. In an adaptive plan, Apple’s on-device AI can suggest changes to an upcoming week, which you accept or reject one by one.

Recording, maps, routes and triathlon recording in Go are free. The five-stage race and brick flows in Plan → Multisport currently require Kiito Pro, alongside training plans, guided workouts and analytics. Kiito’s data stays on your device, with no account and no cloud sync.

Common questions