Triathlon Training - the Road to 70.3

This is a story of how I got serious egg on my face, and how I realised that I need to switch up my training a LOT before the triathlon! I race pedal prix (human powered vehicles) for a team called Reload Racing. Thanks to them, I've had a huge amount of motivation to train, having joined them two years ago as a middling rider, and now pushing the team through as a strong rider. The whole pedal prix scene is incredibly social, and so whilst we are in deadly competition with all our rivals, we are also really friendly. Our team manager Lewy is the kind of guy who will see our closest rival with a mechanical issue, run over, and get their bike working again immediately. He's the reason that our bike is never short of parts, because there is almost no one who Lewy hasn't rescued at some time in the past. One of our main rivals is Unhinged/Underdog. This team is usually about 10 pits away from us, but is just as social and convivial as we are. They usually come 1-2 places...

My triathlon history is a bit patchy. I raced my first triathlon about three years ago, at West Lakes, in South Australia. It was a 'tinman' distance, 300m swim, 21km ride, and a 3km run. I did almost no training, turned up with a road bike, jammers, and goggles, and had a blast. The swim was short enough that I could just power through it (lots of energy, zero style), but then ran into problems. See, I am incredibly short sighted, and at that time, I didn't have glasses. So, I had to run through to transition blind. I remember struggling to get my socks on (I never ride/run without socks!), and then flying through the bike leg. I didn't have any aero bars, so it was just a matter of turning the cranks. Finally, the run was a short 3km lap, at about 5:30/km. I loved it, couldn't wait to do another, but, that was the last tri for six months! I finished in 54:33, coming 34th overall, and 4th in my age group. After that, I gave some intermittent thought to training...