You’re in. Now what?

So you have entered the 2XU Triathlon Series. Race 1 is Sunday 6 December at Elwood Park, which from today is about thirteen weeks away.

If your first reaction was excitement and your second was “hang on, what have I actually done”, that is the normal order. Almost everyone lining up at their first race felt exactly that. This is not a training program and there is nothing here you have to start doing tonight. It is simply the answer to the question everybody has at this point: what happens now, and what does the day actually look like?

First, what you actually entered

The Series runs three distances at each race, and they are genuinely different events. Check which one you are in, because it changes almost nothing about how you prepare and everything about how it feels.

Read those numbers again and notice something. Even the Sprint swim is 500 metres. If you can swim twenty laps of a twenty five metre pool, stopping whenever you like, you can already cover the distance. That is usually the thing people are most worried about, and it is usually the thing they are closest to already being able to do.

What the day actually looks like

Nobody tells first timers this part, and it is the part that makes people nervous. Here is the whole day, in order.

The whole thing, for Fun Tri, takes most people somewhere around forty minutes. It is over faster than you expect.

What you need, and what you honestly do not

This is where families spend money they did not need to spend, so let us be blunt about it.

What you need

• A bike that works. Any bike. A mountain bike, a hybrid, an old road bike from the shed. Get it checked at a bike shop once between now and December, and check the tyres, the brakes and the handlebar end plugs yourself the week before. More on that below, because it is the one that ruins mornings.
• A helmet that fits and is not cracked. This one is not negotiable, you will not be allowed to start without it.
• Bathers you can move in, and shoes you can run in.
• A towel to mark your spot in transition. There is a whole article coming about that towel.

What you do not need

• A triathlon bike. Nobody at their first race needs one, and plenty of people at their tenth do not have one.
• A wetsuit. Wetsuits are optional at every distance, never required. In Tri Kids the organisers would rather the young ones did not wear one, because peeling a wetsuit off is the slowest, most frustrating part of the day. In Fun Tri about half the field wears one. If you do not own one, enter anyway and swim in bathers.
• A tri suit, race wheels, an aero helmet or a bike computer. All lovely. None of them will make your first race better.

Two more dates worth putting in your phone right now. Entry prices go up from midday on Wednesday 2 December, and entries close at 4pm on Friday 4 December, or earlier if the race sells out. Races in this series do sell out.

Thirteen weeks, three blocks

You do not need a training program to finish your first triathlon. You need to have swum, ridden and run recently enough that none of the three is a shock. That is genuinely it. So think of the time between now and December in three blocks, and only ever worry about the block you are in.

September: just move, three times a week

One swim, one ride, one run. Any length. Twenty minutes counts. The only thing that matters this month is that all three become normal again. If you already play a sport, that sport counts as one of them.

October: get comfortable with your race distance

Once a fortnight, do one of the three legs at close to your race distance, at whatever pace lets you talk while you do it. Not fast. Just the distance, so your body knows it is not a surprise.

November: put them together, and practise the bits between

This is the month to ride and then run straight afterwards, even if the run is only five minutes. The first time you do it your legs feel like someone else’s, and the second time they do not. Do it twice and you have removed the strangest feeling in the sport.

This is also the month to lay a towel down next to your bike at home and practise getting from wet to riding, and from riding to running. That is the part we will come back to in a few weeks.

Race week: do less

Short and easy, or nothing at all. Nothing you do in the last week will make you faster, and plenty of it can make you tired. Sleep, eat normally, check your bike, and go and enjoy it.

Who we are, and why we are writing to you

We are Tri Alliance. We have been coaching triathletes in Melbourne since 2007, from people who have never swum a lap to athletes racing overseas, and we squad at Elwood, St Kilda and Sandringham, which are the three beaches this series races on. Every 2XU Triathlon Series race day, we are there.

There is nothing to buy here. We will send you a few things between now and December that we think genuinely help a first timer, starting with the planner below, and if at some point you want to train with people rather than on your own, you will know where we are.

Your next four races, while you are here

• Race 1, Elwood, Sunday 6 December
• Race 2, St Kilda, Sunday 10 January
• Race 3, Sandringham, Sunday 7 February
• Race 4, Elwood, Sunday 28 February
• Race 5, St Kilda, Sunday 11 April

Most people who do Race 1 do at least one more. Consider yourself warned.

Get the “Now to 6 December” planner

One page. The countdown week by week, what to pack, and the race morning order so nobody in your family has to remember it. Print it and stick it on the fridge. Tell us where to send it and it lands in your inbox within seconds.

First name

Email address

Asking us for the planner means you are happy for Tri Alliance to send you our training emails: coaching tips, session ideas, squad and event news. We send about twice a month, one click unsubscribes, and we never pass your address to anyone else.

Race dates, distances, entry cut off, late fee, one day licence prices and the wetsuit rules checked against 2xutriathlonseries.com.au on 29 August 2026. Photograph from the 2XU Triathlon Series library, used as a Series partner.