Tempo-Sport Aarau Triathlon: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The day starts in the heated pool of the Badi in the Schachen: 400 metres with an in-water individual start, the next number going every ten seconds. That removes the scrum of an open-water start, but it also removes any feet to sight off or sit on. From the pool edge it is only a few metres into transition.

The 20 kilometres of riding head out of Aarau on public roads that stay open to traffic. The loop classifies as flat, yet the elevation profile shows a clear structure: from transition to kilometre 14.2 the road climbs almost without interruption from 368 to 477 metres, and so evenly that the course analysis registers only one true climb inside it: 630 metres at 3.1 per cent at kilometre 10. The same hundred-odd metres then come back down over 4.7 kilometres into Aarau. Drafting is banned, and oncoming traffic, roundabouts and village sections are part of the course.

The closing run stays in the Aare floodplain inside a ten-metre elevation band, two thirds of it completely level. Across the whole race that adds up to around 153 metres of climbing. The event is deliberately a participation race: 300 places, entry from 18, no elite classification, and for the tenth anniversary a finisher gift, the traditional race-number raffle and the juniors' cake stand at the Badi restaurant.

Pacing Strategy

The interval start leaves you nothing external to pace off. Swim the 400 metres briskly but not as a stand-alone pool race: forcing the last hundred metres in the water means mounting the bike with a heart rate the opening kilometres of the loop can no longer bring back down.

The race is decided on the long, barely visible rise across the first 14 kilometres of the bike. It is too shallow to register as a hill, yet pronounced enough that your speed keeps drifting down at unchanged output. Ride to power and breathing rather than to the speedometer, and do not read the falling speed as a problem with your form: it is the profile.

The main trap is the 4.7 kilometre descent back into Aarau. Everything feels easy there, and that is exactly where the reserve gets burned that the five completely flat running kilometres will need: this run offers neither rise nor fall to hide a mistake on. Add the 07:45 start on a September morning: out of a heated pool into cool air, wet and moving fast, the first kilometres on the bike are the coldest part of the day.

Training plan for Tempo-Sport Aarau Triathlon: 12-week build

A sprint over 400 metres of swimming, 20 kilometres of riding and 5 kilometres of running takes an age-group athlete roughly 70 to 95 minutes. The demand is unbroken: a good hour around anaerobic threshold without the recovery windows longer distances hand out.

Two things decide it, and neither is peak power: the long rise across the first 14 kilometres of the bike, where steady output beats any attack, and the two transitions. Over a total of 70 to 95 minutes, half a minute in transition weighs as much as a whole kilometre of riding.

The training emphasis is therefore time-trial blocks of 2 to 3 times 12 to 15 minutes just under threshold, ridden in race position and deliberately on gently rising terrain of one to three per cent, so that holding constant output while the speed drops becomes familiar. Follow every second session with a 15 to 20 minute brick run at race pace.

The swim is a pool task, not an open-water one: no wetsuit, no buoy sighting, but turns and clean 50-metre pacing. Train the 400 as 8 times 50 metres with short rests at target race pace rather than as a straight continuous swim. And because the bike course stays open to traffic and the race starts early in late September, riding in real traffic and cool morning sessions in a wet trisuit belong in the closing weeks of preparation.