Hey what's up triathletes, Taren here. If you are a complete beginner in triathlon and
you're wondering what type of gear you should buy, stick around because I am going to give
you the 10 essential pieces of triathlon gear to get you started.
I'm going to preface this entire list of gear by starting off and saying what we're looking
to do is just get you started in triathlons, not to get you to the tippy-top of the best
gear that you can possibly get. It's just to get you going, get you comfortable in the
sport, and keeping injury free.
I think there are 3 pieces of essential swim gear that you need to get, and the goal of
this swim gear is to get you in the pool and just get you comfortable with swimming. For
starters, you need a pair of goggles. Some of the most basic sets of goggles out there
are actually some of the best. This means that you can get a pair of goggles for under
10 bucks called Socket Rockets that are really cheap but really effective. Essentially a
Socket Rocket is what's called a Swedish goggle, but it's got a little bit of rubber on the
inside of the socket so it isn't digging into your eye quite so much. These cost anywhere
between about 5 and 10 dollars. After 7 years of doing triathlons and being given and reviewing
many sets of goggles, these cheap Socket Rockets are still the goggles that I use day to day.
The second essential piece of swim gear that you need is a pair of trunks. Not everyone
is born comfortable in a speedo. You'll get there. I got there. Most people typically
start of using what's called jammers, basically long, tight shorts that keep you from dragging
a lot in the pool. Rinse these out immediately after you get out of the water every single
day in the showers, and they'll last for a few years.
The third essential piece of swim gear that I think everyone needs is a pull boy. A pull
boy won't necessarily make you faster or better swimmer, but what a pull boy will do is it
will make your legs float up to the water and it will make swimming easier. This is
going to give you incentive to swim a little bit longer, swim a little more regularly.
I kid you not, the first few months coming back into swimming, they aren't going to be
fun. My first day back in swimming it took me an hour to swim 14 laps and I coughed chlorine
for 2 days.
Now getting onto the bike. I'm going to start this off by saying that I recommend you use
whatever bike you have available to you. Maybe it's just something that's a mountain bike
in your garage, maybe it's your buddy's road bike, or maybe you can buy something for 2
or 3 hundred dollars. Certainly don't go out and buy anything new because at this point
you're just getting comfortable in the sport. Once you get to the point that you know you're
committed to doing triathlon, then we can talk about getting into a proper bike, but
until that point, stay stingy my friends.
The fourth essential piece of triathlon gear and the first piece of bike gear that you
need is a helmet. I don't really need to explain this, do I? Just get a basic helmet, don't
worry about aerodynamics or venting or all the super sonic things that helmets are coming
out with these days. Just get a helmet that fits right with 2 fingers of room over top
of your eyes, and snug enough so that even if the strap isn't clipped in, the helmet
doesn't flop around on you.
The next thing you'll need for getting going in the cycling aspect of triathlon is a pair
of triathlon shorts and a cycling jersey. Triathlon shorts are just like regular bike
shorts that you would get in a cycling store, but the pad on the inside next to your nether
regions is a little bit smaller than on cycling shorts, so you can still use these shorts
when you hop off the bike and you're got to run. They also typically have pockets in the
back cozied up next to your bum so that you can store all the nutrition back there that
you'll need during the triathlon. I recommend getting a cycling jersey because a cycling
jersey with sleeves and pockets in the back can double as a triathlon jersey. A triathlon
jersey that's really, really tight and sleeveless can't really double as a cycling jersey. You'll
look a little bit silly out there.
The next think you'll need to get going in the cycling aspect is a pair of clip on aero-bars.
Remember that bike that bike that I first talked about? 80% of your drag that you're
going to be battling as you're going on the bike isn't coming from the bike actually.
It's coming from your body. A pair of clip on arrow bars will get you as low and out
of the wind as much as possible, making you a lot faster and it'll be easier to ride.
The last thing that you need to get going in cycling isn't actually a piece of gear
at all. Go into the local bike shop that specializes in bike fitting and get yourself a proper
bike fit. Get everything sized up on the bike to be as aerodynamic as possible within your
body's limitations. If your bike set up is not quite right, you're probably going to
be causing yourself injury and it's not going to be nearly as comfortable, potentially making
you injured and certainly making it less enjoyable.
Now to get you going in the running aspect of triathlon, the main goal here is to get
you started comfortably without injury. That injury is a really big part, especially in
running. The first thing that you need is obviously running shoes. Personally I would
recommend the Hoka Clifton 3s which I've reviewed. These aren't excellent race shoes, these aren't
excellent trail shoes, these are excellent road shoes, but they're really, really good
all-around shoes. They're light, they're springy, they don't have a huge heel but they're also
really, really cushioned so they work for people who have heel striking tendencies or
people who have really good mid-foot striking tendencies. You'll know what those mean eventually,
I promise. They're average priced but they last a really long time, and because they're
very cushioned they're going to keep your body a little bit fresher and less beat down
as you start running.
The next thing you need is a running watch. Personally I use the Garmin 920XT, this is
the gold standard of triathlon watches. That said, it's hundreds of dollars. You don't
really need to spend all that money. The purpose of a a triathlon watch is really just to hold
yourself back from going too far. Week to week you should really only be increasing
your training volume by about 10%, so going either 10% faster or 10% longer. Having that
watch will hold you back from doing more damage than you should be doing, and being able to
recover from.
The tenth and final thing that you need to get started in triathlon is an injury prevention
kit. As you start working out you are going to have a lot of aches and pains. This is
normal. It's going to go away, I promise, but as you start developing those aches and
pains they aren't going to go away on their own. You typically have to work them out.
You can't always be going to a massage every couple of days so having things like foam
rollers, rolling pins ... not rolling pins, I don't know what these are called ... rolling
sticks? We'll go with rolling sticks, and the little balls of death to help you work
out all of those muscle aches and pains, niggles they're called. If you can address those before
they turn into injuries, you're going to be able to keep going and get to that first race
of yours.
There you have it, those are 10 purchases that I think that every beginner triathlete
needs to make when they start training for their first triathlon. I'll put a link in
the description below to a lot of these products that you can find on Amazon, and I've gone
through amazon to find a nice balance of what is a good bang for your buck and what's good
quality. As always, if you have any questions about triathlon training, by all means hit
me up in the comments before and I might feature you, answering your question on an edition
of Triathlon Taren Q&A. As always triathletes, happy and hard training out there and good
luck in your next triathlon.