What Triathlon Has Taught Me: From My First Triathlon to the World Championships

Several years ago, I signed up for my first triathlon.

I knew how to swim, could run and could ride a bike well enough. But I didn’t really know how to be a triathlete. I learned by Googling things, asking questions, listening to other athletes and, mostly, figuring it out along the way.

Since then, triathlon has taken me much further than I ever expected — from local races to Age Group Nationals, World Championships, my first 70.3 and, most recently, another World Championship race in Spain.

Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about training and racing, but even more about myself. Now that I’ve wrapped up Worlds, I wanted to share a few of the biggest lessons I’ve learned.

1. You Don’t Have to Know Everything Before You Start

This might be the biggest lesson of all. When I first started, there were so many things I didn’t understand: What’s a brick? How do you fuel a bike ride? What belongs in transition? How do you swim in open water? What gear do you actually need?

There seemed to be an endless amount to learn, but you don’t need to know everything before you start.

You learn by doing. Your first race won’t be perfect, and you’ll probably make mistakes that make you laugh later. That’s part of becoming a triathlete.

You don’t need to feel ready to start. You just need to start.

2. You Don’t Need All the Gear

Triathlon has a reputation for being an expensive sport, and it certainly can be. But you don’t need the fanciest bike, newest watch or every piece of equipment you’ve seen on Instagram to get started.

My first bike wasn’t a dream triathlon bike. I gradually upgraded my equipment as I became more invested in the sport. The most important piece of equipment is the one that gets you to the starting line. Everything else can come later.

3. Consistency Beats Perfection

I’ve had weeks when training felt amazing and others when it absolutely didn’t. Sometimes life gets busy, you’re tired, a workout doesn’t go as planned or you simply don’t feel like training.

One workout doesn’t make you a triathlete, and one missed workout doesn’t undo your fitness. The biggest gains come from showing up over and over again.

Consistency matters more than having a perfect training week.

4. Easy Days Actually Matter

When I first started training, it was easy to think that a hard workout was automatically a good workout. The harder you worked, the fitter you’d become. Right? Not quite.

I’ve learned that some of the most important workouts are the ones that feel almost too easy. Easy aerobic work allows you to build endurance while managing fatigue, and recovery allows your body to absorb the training.

You don’t get better simply because you worked harder. You get better because you trained, recovered and adapted.

5. You Can’t Control Race Day

This might be one of the hardest lessons for a competitive athlete. You can control your training, nutrition, equipment and preparation, but you can’t control the weather, water temperature, wind, other athletes or exactly how your body feels that morning.

I’ve raced in wind, heat, rain and conditions that were very different from what I expected. I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing you can do is accept what you have that day and race accordingly.

You don’t always get the race you planned for. You get the race that’s in front of you.

6. Bad Races Are Part of the Process

Some of my biggest lessons have come from races that didn’t go the way I wanted. It’s easy to focus on the result — the time, the place or the missed goal — but a disappointing race can teach you things a great race never will.

Maybe you learn that you need to practice in the wind, discover that you didn’t fuel enough or realize you put too much pressure on yourself. Or maybe you simply learn that you can have a bad day and still get to the finish line.

Not every race needs to be a personal best to be valuable.

7. Stop Trying to Have the Perfect Race

This one took me a while to learn. It’s easy to create a list of everything that needs to go right: the perfect training block, taper, swim, bike, nutrition and run. But that’s a lot of pressure to put on one morning.

Eventually, I learned to focus more on showing up and racing with whatever I have that day. Some days you have it; some days you don’t. That’s okay.

The goal isn’t to control every variable. It’s to execute what you can and adapt to what you can’t.

8. Triathlon Is About More Than Getting Faster

I love racing, setting goals and seeing what I’m capable of. But the longer I’ve been in this sport, the more I’ve realized that the things I remember most aren’t always my times.

They’re the friends I made, the race weekends, the transition-area conversations, cheering for other athletes, traveling somewhere new and standing at a starting line with people who have spent months working toward the same goal.

Those things are what make me want to keep coming back.

9. The Community Is One of the Best Parts

One of my favorite things about triathlon is how willing people are to help each other. Triathletes will talk to complete strangers about bikes, fueling, training, race courses and wetsuits as if they’ve known each other for years.

I’ve experienced that support as a beginner, competitive athlete and spectator. It’s one of the reasons I created TriYourWay in the first place. I spent a lot of time figuring things out on my own, and I wanted to create the resource I would have loved to have when I started.

If something I’ve written makes someone else’s first triathlon feel a little less intimidating, that’s a pretty great outcome.

10. You Don’t Always Need Another Goal

This might be the hardest lesson for a triathlete. There’s always another race, distance, PR, qualification or championship. Goals are a huge part of what makes endurance sports so rewarding, but it’s also okay to step back and ask:

Am I still enjoying this?

Sometimes the answer is a bigger goal. Sometimes it’s a smaller one. Sometimes it’s simply wanting to swim, bike and run because you enjoy doing it.

You don’t have to constantly prove that you’re getting better.

From My First Triathlon to Worlds

When I look back at the person who signed up for that first triathlon, I don’t think she could have imagined where the sport would take her. I’ve raced distances I never expected to race, competed at Nationals and Worlds, completed two 70.3’s, traveled for races and made friendships I wouldn’t have otherwise.

And now I’ve raced at the World Championships again - Of course, I was excited to race, but I also wanted to take a moment afterward to appreciate the journey that got me there. The most important part wasn’t actually the World Championship starting line. It was everything that happened between the first one and this one: the workouts before work, long rides, bad races, good races, training ruts, lessons, friends, early mornings and the moments when I wondered whether all the work was worth it.

Then there were the moments when I knew it absolutely was.

Why TriYourWay?

When I started triathlon, I was essentially self-taught. I figured things out one question at a time, and eventually realized I had accumulated a lot of information that could help someone else avoid some of the same confusion.

That’s what TriYourWay has always been about: not being the fastest, having all the answers or pretending there’s one perfect way to do triathlon, but helping another person figure out their way.

I’ve written about training plans, nutrition, strength, recovery, gear, open-water swimming, race day and all the little things that can make triathlon feel overwhelming when you’re just starting out.

Now that I’ve returned from Worlds, it feels like the right time to bring this chapter of the blog to a close. But I don’t really think of it as an ending. I’m taking everything I’ve learned — and everything I’ve written here — and turning it into something that can live on as a beginner’s guide to triathlon.

Something for the person Googling “What do I need for my first triathlon?” The person wondering if they’re fit enough to start. The person staring at their first training plan and wondering what a brick workout is. The person standing at the edge of a lake wondering why they thought this was a good idea.

And hopefully, the person who crosses their first finish line and realizes:

I can actually do this.

To the Next Beginner

If you’re reading this because you’re thinking about doing your first triathlon, here’s what I’d tell you: You don’t need to be an expert, have the perfect bike, figure everything out or train like a professional.

You just need to be willing to start, learn along the way and find what works for you. There will be hard days, great days and probably at least one moment when you wonder why you signed up.

And then you’ll cross that finish line and understand why we keep coming back.

See you at the start line.