Tips, Prediction Workouts and other advice for a newbie

Hi all,

I'm primarily a \(slow\) runner but my son recently expressed a desire to do a Triathalon, so I went and found a nearby sprint for us to do next month and want to be sure I'm dotting my I's and crossing my T's. I looked for a FAQ here but didn't find one so I thought I'd write a long, rambling open ended request for help. =\)

I have triathalon shorts, a road bike \(no aeros\), clipless pedals \+ cleats and running shoes. Is there any other gear I *need?*

I've primarily been running, but spending a lot of time on the bike and in the water since my marathon a month ago because of an injury I ran through in training. I haven't worried about pace, especially when swimming just working up to being able to swim 2000yards of freestyle non\-stop. On the bike I'm mostly commuting \(about 15 miles round trip\) with the occasional 15\-20 mile ride a little harder.

This Tri is a staggered start in a pool, and has a really short swim of 250m a 10 mile ride and a 5k run. While my primary goals are to just finish and have fun I do like to push myself and I was wondering if there are any prediction workouts that could give me a rough idea of times to shoot for? I'm afraid I'm either going to go out too easy or I'm going to try go at PR effort too early and crash and burn. In a more general sense, how much do you recover in transition ? or does changing sports and the different muscles worked allow you to go a bit harder than you would in a similar time duration event of a single sport?

Recently my easy paces have been 1:55\-2:10/100 yards, 16.5mph \(around town 75% quartile pace is usually 18\-19mph\) on the bike and 8:30/mile on the run. My main training goals for the final month are:

* get my son's maximum run distance up from 2 miles to 5k so he has no worries about completing the event * drill him on how to change a flat for similar reasons =\) * Practice flip turns since the swim is in a pool and that's free speed * Do some bricks to get a feel for the bike \- run transition * Try a harder run workout or two just to make sure I can actually compete at full effort and get turnover up.

Other than race specific advice, is 80/20 typically followed for triathlon events ?How do you prioritize your training among the various disciplines \(question intentionally very open ended?

Thanks for your time.