Blame it on the San Diego Track Club which in 1974 held the world's first triathlon event on Fiesta Island, a bad-smelling stretch of sand located at the east end of San Diego's Mission Bay. Everyone else does!
Triathlon is an inelegant name for an event which comprises three (no surprise there) athletic disciplines all rolled into one. Of course, the founders of this sport could have taken three of the track & field events which make up the pentathlon, heptathlon or decathlon. But no, that would have been tooconventional for the San Diego Track Club. So, instead of (perhaps) throwing a javelin, then running 400 meters and finally doing the long jump, we test our upper and lower bodies rather differently
SWIM - For many people this is the most daunting bit, since most triathlons are held in open water where visibility is often poor, there are no black lines along the bottom and close-quarters swimming can be terrifying. Longer-distance swims can result in huge losses in body heat and purpose-made wetsuits are now common. The best swimmers complain that the swim element of the overall distance is too short, since they are invariably caught by the rest of the field as the race goes on.
BIKE - The great thing about riding a bike is that it's fun! Well, we remember it that way since we werekids, right? But training for a specific distance is somehow not the same. Most of us survive - even enjoy - our first triathlon riding the kind of machine we would have ridden at college, or even a mountain bike. But swapping that comfort for the speed and lightweight features of road racing tyres has its cost. A literal pain in the bum. Most often-heard muttering after a 7-hour bike leg for one's first Ironman "Keep the damn thing - I don't ever want to see it again!”"
RUN - That most natural form of human motion, running, turns into a real challenge in the triathlon. Why? Because even the best runners never forget that awful trussed-up like a turkey feeling in their quads when they finally get to dismount the bike and begin running. "What happened to my legs?" And you know what? They spend the rest of their training days trying to find the answer.
THE DISTANCES – The race distances of triathlon including Junior Triathlon, Sprint Distance, Olympic Distance, Long Course, Ironman Distance. Another sport derived from triathlon is Aquathon and Duathlon.
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