How Long Does it take to Develop Reasonable Performance in Triathlons?

Really can't say, Tom.

All I can say, generally, is that in a given year/season, one can train to go a fair bit farther, OR a fair bit faster. But not both.

Tom...not sure why you're asking such a vague question.

I'd be interested in your response, and your rationale.

While I vote for about a year, I think your sample person isn't "average": she's already athletically-experienced and has a background in all three sports. I think the year would give her a chance to consolidate her experience and learn good tri-related technique and tactics, but she already has an advantage over someone who would be starting from scratch in at least one of the three.

Highly doubtful.

By my calculation, that's Thursday, September 18th, 2014.  And depending what time zone you're in, that could be 5:20 am PST, or 8:20 am EST.  Assuming we're considering the goal complete when Ms. Smith crosses the line, the race would have to start around 2:25 am PST, or 5:25 am EST.

Unless there is a huge triathlon boom, I seriously doubt we're going to see Thursday races starting that early in the morning.

I hope I didn't need to use red here...

I love how much work you put into that!

It does kind of seem like a consensus is forming at the one year mark.

I'd put my guess around that mark too, but with some racing experience in there too.

I think it's interesting that this theme... this type of question is so common on triathlon forums but seems to be a tough one to answer well.

-Or maybe not. There does seem to be a convergeance on the amount of time required in the poll.

Interesting.

Haha!  Nope, not needed. 

Maybe never...

She could read this thread http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=438320&start=1 and get too discouraged by her body type and quit.

Wait a minute...didn't you put a whole bunch of time forumlating your original answer?  Surely it was not a shot in the dark.  I just figured you were doing some long division on a piece of scratch paper and made a mistake.

if that half mary she ran was in 1:25, then she could do it tomorrow.  If the HM was 3:25, then it's gonna' be 3 years.

the swim experience will make things easy tho'.

I'd argue there's no way to tell at all, it will depend completely on the individual.  It could be a month, it could be never.

My first event was The Rookie Tri here in Austin in May of 2005.  I was 37.  I had no background in cycling or swimming.  I had been running regularly for a couple of years but had never done anything longer than a 10k and that only twice.  In the 5 months before the race I did a total of 42k yards of swimming, 480 miles of biking, and 126 miles of running.  Most of that was in the last 2 months and even then I only averaged 2050 yards of swimming, 6 miles running, and 26 miles biking per week.

That race was a super sprint, 300 meter swim, 11.1 mile bike, and 2 mile run.  I finished 8th out of 43 in the M35-39 AG and 63rd out of 486 overall.  A few weeks later, with no training in the interim, I did my first Oly and finished 54th out of 137 in the AG and 237 out of 1027 overall.  Both are quite a bit better than Ms. Smith's goal of MOP.

I don't bring this up to brag, but just to point out that I'm lucky.  While I'm probably never going to be on the top of the podium and a KQ slot is probably forever out of my reach except through sheer will and attrition, I can be front of the middle or back of the front with relative ease.  Others may train twice as much as I did initially just to be able to finish and will never break into the top 50%.

My wife is pretty close to Tom's example.  She did her first triathlon two years ago at the age of 31.  She is 5'4" at 125lbs.  Her "sport" in HS was Marching Band.  Prior to her triathlon she had taken up running as a post-pregnancy get back in shape program.  She had done a series of 5ks and two half-marys.  Her times in the half mary was about a 1:56.  She had done one long charity ride prior but was otherwise a recreational cyclists.  She took up swimming in order to train for the Oly.

After 6-months of training she finished the Oly in 3hours flat but would likely have done better had she not taken 5 minutes (!) for each of her transitions (I still give her grief about that today) and had she not caught her cousin on the run at which she slowed down to his pace to help pace him to the finish.

I forgot to mention that Mrs. Smith is also a contributor to this forum. Here are some of her questions:

1. I've swam in the pool, how do I get adjusted to open water swimming? I'm scared.

2. What bike should I buy. I have a Trek 520 touring bike. Given my goals, do I need another bike?

3. How often should I run (at first)? I haven't run since a 1/2 Marathon last November.

4. My saddle hurts after 2 hours. What should I do?

5. Will I get overtrained if I train 6-8 workouts a week?

6. What should I eat in the race?

7. I read a lot of comments about coaches, power meters, heart monitors- do I need those things?

I've got nothing for your new list of questions, but I just wanted to say that I'm very close to Ms. Smith's stats: 40, high school swim experience, more running experience (2 full marys) but zero bike experience other than very casual around town riding. I started tri training in January. I'd like to finish MOP in my AG at my Oly in two weeks, and I think I've got a pretty decent shot at it. I'll keep you posted. 

The one thing I'll add is that already having the swim under control is a huge head start on someone who doesn't.

It would depend an enormous amount on background and overall condition? I mean, you could be a terrible swimmer and an excellent cyclist or runner and come into this and have one of those sports carry you to MOP status.

What is her time and training commitment? Can she afford coaching?

For your hypothetical athlete, we can assume she can swim, so it's a matter of training rather than learning form. She can also run and bike in excess of Oly distance, so again it's more about triathlon focused training rather than learning basic skills.

I would say six months of structured training with coaching.

You just made me feel a whole lot better with that statement.  I didn't know why my improvement seemed to be going at a snail's pace but I've been improving BOTH distance and speed at the same time (increased to an Oly from a Sprint since January and have gone from 12mm to 10mm on the run and 12MPH to 14.5 MPH on the bike), but am doing both slower than other people seem to.  Maybe this is why my progress is slower, because I'm making progress in both ends so I should expect half the progress in each as I go

I second it depends on her half Mary Time.

1. Buy a wet suit and practice in fresh water.

2. Yes a good road bike and a TT bike. 

3. Run everyday increase by 10-15% a week.

4. Ride more, check fit, buy a new saddle.

5. No

6. Not much, try in training to see what works, remember you need to save room for the beer afterwards.

7. Coach why not you can learn something from everyone.  Just remember some peoples opinion is worth more than others.  Power Meters, Heart Rate Monitors, GPS watches are all just tools to help you get to your goal.  They can provide motivation, hours of sleepless nights trying to over analyis the data and great sources of conversation with others.  If you can start with a GPS watch heart rate combo.

Purchase order

Googles

Wetsuit

GPS watch/heartrate

good well fitted road bike

clip on aero bars

Last point of advice, don't try your first triathlon with the intention of placing somewhere, do it to finish and have fun otherwise it might take you 17 years to try it again.  The 17 year furlow for me will end on June 2nd, Good luck. 

For training:

For racing:

Love it!