I ❤️ triathlons

Introduction

In 2006, I took a leap of faith and bought my very first road bike — a sleek Trek 1500 with a Shimano 105 groupset. I’d only ridden mountain bikes before, but something about that classic road bike design caught my eye. My first ride home from the Nella bike shop in downtown Budapest to Móricz Square was a quick 5 km, but I was instantly hooked. I knew I’d made the right decision.

The following year, I stumbled upon Ironman videos on YouTube. I’d played water polo as a teenager, so I knew swimming wouldn't be an issue. I decided I'll do an Ironman!

Race record

In 2008, I completed my first half-Ironman — then, later that same year, I took on the full Ironman distance at the traditional ExtremeMan in Hungary, finishing in 13 hours and 38 minutes. By 2013, I had knocked my time down to 11 hours and 36 minutes.

And that was just the start. Since then, I’ve racked up a total of 56 triathlon finishes:

• 2 full distance (3.8 km swim • 180 km bike • 42 km run)
• 11 half-distance (1.9 km • 90 km • 21 km)
• 25 Olympic distance (1.5 km • 40 km • 10 km)
• 16 sprint distance (0.75 km • 20 km • 5 km)
• 2 relays

2024 was one of the best years so far, with a record of 10 triathlon races:

• 1 half-distance (1.9 km • 90 km • 21 km)
• 4 Olympic distance (1.5 km • 40 km • 10 km)
• 5 sprint distance (0.75 km • 20 km • 5 km)

The chart below shows my annual triathlon racing record:

Using the following normalization, the annual racing distances are more easily compared:

• an olympic is exactly 2 sprints
• a half-ironman is roughly equivalent to 4 sprint distances
• a full ironman is roughly 8 sprints

With that:

Triathlon is the perfect sport for me. I enjoy training for all three disciplines, combined with weightlifting sessions in the gym. Unlike soccer or basketball, doing straight line runs in triathlons does not put significant strain on my ankles, so I'm relatively injury-free. As the record shows, over time I realized that doing shorter distances (sprint and olympic) is the best way to get the dopamine hit of racing, without punishing my body too much with the half and full distance races.

Current racing gear

Triathlon is a very technical sport, with lots of equipment going into each training session and race. It starts with the bag: triathlon involves at least 2 shoes, towels, etc, and we have to be able to carry this to the transition area on the bike. So we need a specialized big bag for this. A few years ago, I found the perfect bag, the Orca transition bag (Amazon):

The most important piece of gear is the triathlon suit, which we wear across all 3 disciplines (swim, bike, run), so we don't have to change. I settled on the Synergy triathlon suit (Amazon), one piece usually lasts me about a season, and I always have multiple ones in rotation (I also wear these suits for training):

The second most important piece of gear is the watch. I've tried many GPS watches, and finally found the perfect one: the Garmin Enduro (Amazon). It goes 50 days with one charge, is simple to use, and has dedicated modes for swim, bike, run and combined triathlon races (it also times transitions). It's the perfect watch for triathletes.

For the swim, I use big Arena facemask-style goggles (Amazon), these give me fewer problems with uncomfortable pressure on my face during long swims:

My current bike is a Cervelo P5 with a Shimano Ultegra groupset:

I've settled on Fizik cycling shoes (Amazon), they're comfortable, look great and last long:

For running shoes, I've settled on Puma's Foreverrun Nitro (Amazon) series:

This is what I typically look like on racing day, triathlon suit matches the bike 😊:

Conclusion

It’s been an incredible journey, and I hope to reach 100 races before I turn 50!