I'm a 70.3 and Ironman Athlete and I did a Sprint Tri. Loved and Hated it.
What do you do when your racing season is coming to a close? There's no real available middle to long distance triathlons less and you've got a client that loves a Sprint Tri and keeps telling you it's the way to go.
Well the way I went was entering the One Pace Sprint Triathlon on 6th September 2026 about 2.5 weeks before the date.
For the last countless years (I'm old), I've raced exclusively over the 70.3, T100 and Ironman distance races. I can't remember the last time I'd done an Olympic Distance race, let alone a Sprint one.
Like a lot of people getting in to the sport for the first time, I started my first 3 years racing Sprint and Olympic distance as I built up to my first Ironman. I raced them for years after as I perversely enjoyed the pace, intensity and mental challenge in brought.
This race only confirmed my thoughts which should be no surprise. The physiological demands are completely different. The mental challenge is an attack on your fortitude. Sprint Triathlon is a different sport almost compared to Ironman.
Here are my thoughts.
The Event
I was going to say 'the day of the event' but really it was a just morning. This is an important first point to make and it's one of the nice things about the race distance. The time spent at race HQ and racing is much shorter and therefore takes up far less of your day. Without getting into the nitty gritty of my times - I was done pretty quickly and home for lunch having left after a reasonable wake time of 6am.
There was no travel the day before, a 4am alarm and breakfast earlier enough before the race to be digested. I woke up at a normal time, had a normal breakfast. I arrived around an hour before my race and was honestly stood around waiting like a lemon.
The other benefit is the simplicity of the race and the kit. Wetsuit, googles, anti-chafe. Bike, helmet and tri bike shoes. Run shoes. Race Belt. 1 bottle, 1 gel. That was it. Packing took less than 10mins. It also meant setting up transition took moments. It wasn't bag after bag, check after check, find your hook, find your other one. It felt pure - the complexity lied in the race not the logistics.
The Race
I don't have an abundance of swim pace gears so relatively my swims end up being very near to each in average pace regardless of the distance. The swim course was a single out and back loop with a cut through under a bridge. 750m is a manageable distance for a lot of people which is why the distance and the Super Sprint distance appeal to newcomers to the sport. It's also short enough for the fast folk to really go after it. Some definitely did. I focussed on some technical cues I've been trying to add in my pool training. My swim was fine.
The bike was 4 laps and at Dorney Lake, it's head wind to tailwind. So it was about being as aero as I could be into wind and with a little over target race power intensity to then keep effort high but with some recovery. I had a particular power target and time in mind and rode well. I was nervous about combining a hard bike into a hard run and took a conservative approach to the bike relatively.
The start of the run was awful. I'd done no brick at all other than when racing earlier in the season. The first 500m or so were pure torture. Trying to hit a target pace on heavy legs was no fun and the headwind added in to the mix made for a frightening start. I really questioned my life choices over that first 1.3k to the turn around point. Coming back on the first of two loops and I settled. It was hard but felt sustainable. The second lap really began to hurt and around the 3km mark my left calf started to tighten. A minor adjustement to stride was made to manage it. Around 4km, I realised the run course was going to be long and had a target time I had been running to in mind. The difference between 5km and 5.13km when you are on that fine line of blowing up is a horrible, horrible place. I rallied and got done not much under the target.
My immediate thoughts after were very sweary. It is honestly a completely different beast of the race. See middle and long distance are a purely aerobic, durability, energy management and mental comfort challenge. Can you stay within yourself and keep energy there for the duration? It wears but there's little pain. Just a quiet fatiguing....until it might be done. Sprint triathlon is like a Tasmanian Devil. It is right in your face and at you. It's an endeavour of hard work at approaching threshold or even above. It is a race distance built on lactate, maximal aerobic capacity, energy expenditure and mental strength. You push hard for the duration - your limits at the mad to severe end of the intensity spectrum. This isn't medium. The fatigue pokes you in the eye and asks if you have what it takes.
I hated it. It was SO out of my comfort zone. Not an intensity I had trained for. Not a race distance I had any recent experience for. And yet..... I bloody loved it too. It was a reminder to the racing I'd done before and started with. It was a race full of a whole range of participants - truly inclusive. I saw a Brompton, a MTB and a shopper basket! I felt stupid on a TT bike with a disc wheel. It was a reminder that there is also speed in this sport. For years of managing pwoer and pace to the high Z2 / low z3 area to z4 and more than dipping in to z5. Moderate into Mad
The result ended up speaking for itself. 47(ish) participants. Third for me. Maybe there's some life and speed left in this body still. One thing is for certain... I'll be racing Sprint Triathlons in 2027.
If you want to get started on your future training and racing goals and are ready to work with me, then either find me on my socials @cm_endurance or drop me a contact message through the website.
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