Realistic goal for sprint triathlon

Realistic goal for your first race, off the couch is to finish.

Realistic goal for your second race, is to improve upon your first race.

There is no one realistic goal time that applies to everyone... you might be able to train for a year and not break 18 MPH on the bike, or you might be able to be in the 20s. Sorry, but it all depends.

Just pick a training plan, stick to it, after a couple of months, get some idea of your swim/bike/run paces, and maybe then you can pick some ballpark times towards which to strive for your first race.

ETA: But I don't recommend trying to hit a time in your first race.  I really don't. 

Edited by newleaf 2007-09-25 8:45 AM

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I know these answers probably sound lame and are not what you are looking for.  But, they are the right answer.   If you start thinking that you absolutely have to be a certain speed, you can end up doing damage and injuring yourself.    So I will agree with the above and say you should just use your first couple sprint races to get accustomed to the sport and have fun.   After that you can start thinking about how fast you should be.   Get a plan, stick to it.   A couple weeks before the race, you will have a good idea of how fast you can realistically finish.   Don't impose arbitrary speed goals on yourself! 

As others said, don't set arbitrary goals. However, I'm a firm believer that, with a little testing, you can figure out realistic time goals, even when it's your first race. An easy (although speculative) way to figure out a good goal is to time yourself in each of the three components of the event separately. How fast can you swim a half-mile (or 500 meters, or whatever the swim portion will be)? How fast can you bike 12 miles on a course of similar terrain? How fast can you run a stand-alone 5k?

My first race back in 2005 was a 500-m swim, 11-mile bike, 5k run. I swam a 500 in the pool at the effort I intended to do in the race and then added about 2 minutes to that to compensate for the fact that I wouldn't have the benefit of pushing off walls in the real race. My race was in Orlando, so I found a relatively flat 12-mile loop and timed myself in that, too. I added about 3 minutes to that time just to be conservative. Did the same thing for the run. Figured in about 8 minutes for total T1 and T2 times and then added them all up to get my goal time. I came in about 4 minutes faster than my goal time, despite having a subpar run.

Best advice I ever got was to give myself a range to meet based upon my goal time as the middle. If I got in that range, I'd be happy, if I got the goal time, I'd be ecstatic, and if I beat it, I would be REALLY ecstatic.

Thanks everybody ! So that's why you don't find any realistic times for first marathons, you shouldn't have them :-)

Okidoki, going for a conservative approach to swim, bike and run speeds to make sure I finish happily. Speeds in function of what's possible during training sessions.

Cheers!
Leo

If you're looking for a goal in terms of time, it depends on your background. Many triathletes come from running or swimming backgrounds and make the transition over to triathlons. True in my case. (Was a runner for over 10 years). So if you are experienced in one or two disciplines than your goal time can come down. If you're a "newbie" to athletics, the low 1:40's sounds pretty good to me!