RIEMER Team Triathlon Magdeburg: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is at 10:00 in the Barleber See north of Magdeburg. Each athlete swims 500 metres, one after another in a fixed order; only when all three are out of the water does the bike block begin. The starting order is set, the race runs through without a break, and the last bike-to-run transition must happen by 13:00.

The bike leg is a 21 kilometre out-and-back per person, a good 10.7 kilometres each way from transition on the south shore to Heinrichsberg. At 90 metres of climbing and 77 percent flat it has no profile to speak of, but a whole series of technical points: the ramp over the Rothensee boat lift, which the organiser calls Mount Schleuse and where sightseers stand on the road; the road tunnel under the Mittelland canal with a tight bend and rough cobbles; a dark patch of woodland behind the Elbe dyke and tight bends before Heinrichsberg. Road traffic rules apply, riding on the right is compulsory and drafting is penalised.

The run is one clockwise five kilometre lap of the Barleber See: first the unpaved south-shore track, then asphalt with a small chicane, up onto the embankment road Am Mittellandkanal for the northern kilometre, back through the Anglerkolonie over a short unpaved stretch and home along the Seeweg. The climb onto the canal embankment from around 40 to 52 metres is the only genuine rise of the whole day. The race is staged by Magdeburger Triathlon Club, capped at 130 teams and doubling as the Saxony-Anhalt state championship.

Pacing Strategy

The format governs the pacing more than the profile does. Because all three swim first, then all three ride and then all three run, every athlete has long waits between their sections, and starts each one cold. That is the central difference from an individual race: there is no lead-in to bring you up to speed, just three cold starts.

The 500 metres in the Barleber See are a pure swim race and can be attacked. On the bike, by contrast, restraint pays at exactly three places: the ramp over the boat lift, because it is short and a kick there buys nothing; the tunnel under the Mittelland canal, where a tight bend meets rough cobbles; and the tight bends before Heinrichsberg. On a course that is 77 percent flat you take your time on the long straights, not at the technical points.

The race is decided in the run block, and there on the climb onto the canal embankment road in the third kilometre. It is the only point on the course where the terrain asks anything, and it arrives after hours of waiting on cold legs. The classic trap is the change of surface: the lap switches four times between unpaved track and asphalt, and running by pace rather than by effort makes the soft sections ragged.

Training plan for RIEMER Team Triathlon Magdeburg: 12-week build

For the team as a whole the race runs several hours, but the individual load is roughly 8 to 12 minutes in the water, 32 to 45 minutes on the bike and 19 to 28 minutes on the lake lap. The demand is therefore three short hard efforts rather than one long aerobic one, and each section begins after a wait of several rotations.

What decides it is therefore something triathlon training rarely covers: the ability to start a hard effort from cold three times in one day. On top of that comes the bike leg, the longest at a good half hour, where the technical points cost more time than any power package.

So train by discipline and with a focus on the entry. For the swim: 500 metre time trials with a hard opening off only a short warm-up. For the bike: threshold intervals of 10 to 20 minutes in race position, plus deliberate cornering and turnaround technique and riding on poor surfaces, because the tunnel and the cobbles here are real. For the run: tempo runs of 15 to 25 minutes with a short climb built in and a switch between tarmac and unpaved track.

The most important organisational point concerns the waiting. With a 10:00 start and cut-offs at 13:00 and 14:30 in mid-September, you spend over an hour at times standing in transition between your sections. Plan warm-up, clothing layers and fuelling for three separate entries; with this format that matters more than any extra interval session.