I am new to triathlon and have a few questions I am hoping someone on here may be able to answer. I have completed only a couple of sprint distance triathlons at this point, but I have done well and seem to be improving rapidly as I have been training as a triathelete for a few months now. I come from a running background where I was a regionally competative runner (31high 10K's, 14high 5k's). As a runner I occasionally recieved entry fee and travel compensation to some midsize road races in the area, as well as free shoes/shorts/singlets from my running club. I was wondering how I might go about trying to obtain such things as a triathlete (entry fees, maybe some free equipment)? What kind of times for Olympic and Sprint distance triathlons would put someone at this level? Would I be out of line looking for these things with times of approx 1:03 & 2:05 for the sprint and olympic distances respectively? I've heard that it is possible to obtain some kind of professional triathelete liscense. What would the benifit of this be? Also where might I find a listing of prize money races? I'm sorry if I totally don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just assuming its similar to running, but I may be way off.

Thanks