Help a new guy?

If you are in Birmingham, look up vulcan tri team... they are you local tri team and do a great job helping new people. also look up team magic, they are from your town and put on races and beginner stuff all over the south.. Faye and Teresa are awesome

About and hour and a half north of you, in Hunstville, there is a sprint triathlon that is a great race, the Rocketman.

You don't really have to know much about tris to do one and, like you said, sifting thru all the details to find some very basic stuff is a tough. 

So here are the basics.

Triathlons come in a variet of shapes and sizes.  The most common distances are sprints (1/4 mile swim, 10 mile bike, 5k run), Olymicpic distance (1k swim, 25k bike, 10k run), Ironman (2.4 m / 112 m / 26.2 m) and half ironman.  There are lots of variations of distance and the order of the events.  Swims can be in swimming pools, lakes, rivers or oceans.  Typically the swim is first, the bike leg is second and the run is third but for shorter triathlons they sometimes will vary the order of this. 

To get started:

1.  Find a local sprint triatlon

2.  Make sure you can easily swim the distance.

3.  Make sure you can easily bike the distance.

4.  Make sure you can easily run the distance.

5.  Do a couple of "BRICKs" where you bike the distance, then get off you bike, put on your running shoes as quickly as you can and run the distance.

6.  Show up with your goggles, bike, biking shoes, helmet, running shoes and manybe a towell and a bunch of other crap you think you need but really don't.  Check in at the registration table and get you goodie bag.  Then just do what everyone else is doing - hang bike on the rack, air up your tires, arrage shoes and socks on towel, figure out what shirt you're gonna run in and bike in, put you race numbers on your bike, shirt etc per the instuctions they will give you when they give you your numbers.  Listen to the pre-race instructions and rules, read whatever info might be in the goodie back.  Not to worry at the race as there will be tons of volunteers - many of whom are veteren traiathletes - helping you and answering questions.  There will be lots of first timers just like you wondering around in a fog looking like they are lost.

Eventually the race officials will call all the racers together for last minute reminders, course info, safety issues, etc and you will either start as one big group, in age-group 'waves' or as individuals on like a 2 or 3 second interval.  You will likely be given a timing chip in your race bag or when check in that you will either put on your shoe or on an ankle bracelet.  This will track your time throug the course.

So you jump in the water and swim.  Take a moment to look around on the swim and take in the event.  For me, this is my favorite part of doing a triathlon!  The pre-race anxiety just melts away.  Just look up and see the sea of swim caps (those are provided in your goodie bag or at registration).  Be sure to also look up frequently and make sure you're headed in the right direction so you don't end up swimming a lot further than is necessary.  

Follow the herd in the water to the exit point.  There will be volenteers helping you get out of the water and directing you to the transition ares or "T1" as they call it here.  So take off your goggles and swim cap, put on your biking shirt and biking shoes, put on your helmet and fasten the chin strap and push your bike to the designated bike mount point.  Then just ride.  You will see $5,000 triathlon bikes and you will see $79 Wal-mart specials....pretty much anything that you can pedal.

As you come back to the second transition (T2) - usually the same place as the first tranisition - you get off your bike, walk your bike to your spot and rack it.  Take off your helmet and shoes and put on your running shoes, socks if you want them and running shirt is you want to change shirts. 

The head out and run!  There will be volunteers all along the course providing water, gatorade, power bars or gels, sometimes cookies or candy.  There will also be race officails and safety people all along the course.  If the swim is in a lake, river or ocean (open water swim) there will be volunteers in kayaks there to help swimmer who have problems.  You can generally hang onto the marker buoys in the water and the kayaks if you need to take a breather but you can't make 'forward progress' while hanging on a boat.  But if you can't easily swim the distance, you should not be out there.  It swimming the distance really wipes you out then biking and running afterwards is gonna suck.

So you run the course and as you come back to finish line there will be hundreds of spectators cheering you on and telling you how awesome you are and lying to you about how good you look.  You will smile and thank them and feel like you've just summited Mt Everest!

After the race there will be food and drink and you can eat pizza and drink some beer and ice cream and bagels. 

And probably on the drive home you will think how much fun that was and come home and search the internet for your next race!

Hope this helps.  Didn't mean to get so long winded but I'm not sure I could give the basics in less words. 

The only 'advice' I'll give is 'don't stress about it'.  It's just a race!  It's not like you're stroming the beach at Normandy.  It's supposed to be fun not a source of stress or anxiety.  So enjoy the participation.  Competition may or may not ever come depending on what kind of athlete you want to be.  Some people train really hard and some are genetically blessed and some both...others, niether.   I'm a 'neither'....a back-of-packer who's mission is life is to populate the back of the pack so the middle-of-the-packers feel good about themselves becasue someone is behind them!  :-)

~Mike