No you are not too late but get in the pool pronto!

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Too late at 20 years old? For what...The Olympics?

I'll be 53 in 2 months. I was in varsity soccer and track in high school. I cycled in my 20s, I took up triathlon in my 30s. Back to being mostly a runner in my 50s.

So, I'm going to say "no". But, as I started out with...it depends on what your goals are.

Thanks Thomas, that was the plan. I'd rather swim than have to float!

I'd love to be competitive. I know Olympics is silly but I would love to reach my potential and hopefully compete to a decent level.

It IS probably too late to be a top pro on the draft legal Olympic distance circuit.

All other levels of professional and amateur racing are possible.

Thanks, might as well give it a shot!

There's always a way to be competitive. You need to define the level that you wish to attain. Are you looking to be a competitive professional triathlete, OA Amateur, AG?

And then you need to get wet.

It's a lofty goal but I would really love to get the opportunity to compete internationally. I realise this will be very difficult but am willing to give it everything I've got

Too late? It might be too early. hah.

I picked up triathlon in my mid-20s (now 31). We're both very young in this sport.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Thanks mate, that's reassuring! All the best on your journey!!

A friends father picked up the sport in his late 60's/early 70's (Was an endurance runner beforehand and was told to drop his running amount)
He seems to have done fairly well for himself. (Brian Boyle)

Can you qualify what you mean by ‘competent swimmer’? Any times or background in swimming you can describe to us?

My father took up tri at 55, and competed until he was about 80.

He has a stacked trophy cabinet and was consistently first, second or third in his age group (depending upon whether there were 1, 2 or 3 entrants in his age group).

You’re not too late. The profile for most successful athletes is they start a little later at their sport and they had a wide range of sports they played in their youth. With that being said, focus on swimming right now while you can to the exclusion of really training the bike and run. If you can convince a swim coach to let you join a competitive swim team and get in with the distance/mid-distance freestylers, do it.

Hope this helps and if you have any questions, please let me know.

Tim

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All these replies about "I started at 50"... OP clearly has higher aspirations than MOP AG finisher.

My wife ran sprints in track. She switched to triathlon in 2015 at age 27. Her best high school 5k was 23 minutes. Her best college 5k was 21 minutes. Her best college mile was 6:01. Best 800 was 2:30. But she tore it up in the 60m and 100m hurdles.

She has since taken 5th at US Pro Nationals in the Time Trial and competed at age group worlds in 2018, posting the fastest bike leg in a draft-legal bike race, without drafting. She was the second American finisher overall. She now has hopes of going pro in triathlon and representing Team USA in cycling. Both are realistic. She started endurance sports in earnest at age 27. She's 32 now.

Recommendations:

Ride a lot. Learn to swim. Learn to ride.

Ride group rides with people who can rip your legs off. Race crits. Lose crits. Race cyclocross. Lose there too. Race XC and enduro mountain bike. Lose a whole bunch more. You'll learn a lot by losing.

You're young enough that a HUGE array of skills and experiences will set your ceiling for performance higher in any sport that you eventually choose to specialize in, especially triathonl.

Get beat by middle aged (but very skilled) men on all the technical crit, cyclocross, and xc MTB courses. Learn voraciously from them. If they're 45+ and beating you, they can teach you something.

Get a swim technical coach from day 1. Competitive youth swim coaches who develop winning youth teams are a great place to look. SWIMFAST is also another option. He works with a lot of my tri clients and can take folks from "likely to drown in triathlon" to "fully competent and actually racing."

You don't need fancy swim programming per se. You just need eyes and hands on you to learn how to move. Swimming is the only discipline that is more technical than physiological.

Your running is never going to be your weakness. Don't worry about it. You may even find that with the massive training volumes you can do as a triathlete, your running performance continues to improve without as much dedicated training there.

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Chrissie Wellington was about 27 when she did her first ever triathlon and 30 when she turned pro - so I’d say you’re fine!

Realistically you’re probably not going to make it to ITU, so you should look at 70.3 and full course if you want to go pro.

An example you might look to is Mark Buckingham from the UK. He grew up as a runner and took a scholarship at Florida State running the 3000m steeplechase I think. Believe they had some success as a team winning the NCAA one year.

I don't think he turned to triathlon until he was maybe 25? I know him a little bit from when he used to join our local triathlon swim session - he was an adult onset swimmer like the rest of us, although clearly with a much better engine! You might be starting from a better place depending on what you mean by "competent swimmer". I believe he took to cycling very quickly and I remember some of the guys at our club commenting how rapidly he progressed to Cat 1 racing. He was picked up by the TriGold programme and went to the centre of excellence in Loughborough (this was the centre of the GB triathlon world before Leeds) where I gather they had him focussing massively on his swim.

Mark was pretty regular on the ITU circuit, not always making the front pack as he was racing when you had Richard Varga pulling the Brownlees along, all of these other guys being lifelong competitive club swimmers. But he was good enough to win an ITU World Cup event and IIRC came 4th in the WTC at Yokohama one year. Always did well in Duathlon. His run was good enough for ~30mins 10k in ITU events and he could swim 18:30 for the 1500m OW. Bike was always good enough if he made the pack, but the swim is always the thing in ITU.

Gives you an idea what is possible with a very strong run background. I often wondered how well he might do if he turned his attention fully to 70.3, but believe he has moved into coaching as part of the GB elite triathlon setup.

Cheers, Rich.

Contact your regional development officer and have a talk with him. Details are on triathlon England website.

Get yourself into a club and join the club swim sessions to see if you enjoy it.

Never too late. Good luck

Might be too late if you're trying to go to the Olympics.....

I was a competitive cyclist in my 20s, then got into marathons in early 40s and did my first Ironman at age 46. I learned to swim from scratch at age 42. I had never swam or went into the water as a kid or young adult. But now I absolutely love open water swimming. I'm not fast due to learning so late, but I've done 4 Ironman swims. t's never too late in triathlon.

At age 20 you have the potential to be an extremely fast age grouper or even a professional depending on your genetics and passion. (ETA - I'm thinking of 70.3s and Ironmans, I know nothing of short course tris)

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Go for it! Go all in on the bike and swim. You need to become a cyclist and become a swimmer. Not just a runner who can kind of swim.

Strong runners tend to have a tough time giving up their run training and running strength when they start triathlon. "How am I supposed to remain fast when I only run 3-4 times a week instead of 7?". Running will remain your top discipline based on your level and your background of years of consistent run training.

Reach out to a coach with proven results and find the best route for you to start training with a plan. Good luck!

Thanks everybody! It has got to be worth a shot then! Sounds like I need to get in contact with somebody who knows triathlon well and get my goggles on!

Finding your competitive distance will be one of your challenges.

Sprint vs Olympic vs. HIM vs. IM are really different beasts. Some people are just faster at one or another.

Personally I like IM the best, but not wanting to train to that level HIM is more my go-to. I'm way too slow for sprint or olympic as I have no top end speed.

HIM and IM are less swim focused vs. the 2 more classic distances.

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Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

Definitely not too late to be a pro triathlete. Gotta start putting the work in in the pool. It'll take several years to catch up to people who have been swimming since they were kids. I don't think it's too late for draft legal stuff but, again, your run won't matter much if you get into a Continental Cup race. I would work to your elite card and then think about short course and long course. 70.3's will be good for someone like you because your swim won't take you completely out of the race. Spend a couple of years and then maybe your swim has you making the breaks at sprints and olympics. No reason not to give it a shot.