the triathlon.de CUP Königsbrunn: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The day starts on the lawn at the Ilsesee: one blue and two pink triangles swum clockwise, then a short run into the transition area at the lakeside car park. From there the bike course heads out onto the open Lechfeld, four times around the same out-and-back loop on Lechstraße and Meringer Straße, passing the lake four times. The run never leaves the water: eight laps of the 2.5 kilometre loop around the Ilsesee and the Lautersee.

That layout is the real character of this race. Start, transition and finish sit side by side at a swimming lake on the edge of Augsburg, so you see your competitors and the spectators constantly and pass the same point on every lap. On the run loop you also share the road with the fields of the shorter distances, turning their laps at the same time.

Two structural rules shape the middle distance. The bike course runs on roads closed only for a limited window, and anyone who would start the final lap too late is taken out of the race: no other distance here comes anywhere near that limit. And you cannot line up without a DTU race licence or a day licence, unlike on the Volksdistanz.

Pacing Strategy

The swim is barely a tenth of your day and can still ruin it. A mass start in the water rewards nobody who sprints the opening metres: swim clear early, then settle, and reach T1 with a heart rate that lets you drop straight into a controlled bike effort.

The race is decided between the last bike lap and the third run lap. The power that still feels comfortable on this flat loop is almost always too high for the 20 kilometres that follow. Plan it so that you step off the bike in T2 feeling you got off too early.

The run loop has a trap of its own. Across eight short laps you are constantly passing, or being passed by, starters from the shorter distances, and both pull you off your own pace. Run the first two laps deliberately steady and use the aid station, in the same place every lap, as a fixed rhythm rather than eating by feel.

Training plan for the triathlon.de CUP Königsbrunn: 12-week build

Age-group athletes should plan for four and a half to six hours, most of it on the bike. The load is uniformly aerobic from start to finish: no climbs to break the rhythm, no descents handing you recovery. That sameness is the demand here, not the severity of any single section. Swim and transitions matter so little by comparison that you can weight your training clearly towards bike and run.

The decisive phase is the switch onto the 20 kilometre run. Train it as a session in its own right rather than as an add-on: two to three hours on the bike followed by 8 to 12 kilometres at your planned race pace. Add at least one long run on a flat loop, because the course gives you no change of terrain at all.

Conditions are late summer turning to autumn: cool morning air by the water, a lake whose measured temperature decides the wetsuit question only shortly before the start, and wind over the open Lechfeld as the norm. Swim open water both with and without a suit, and ride your long sessions in wind on purpose.

The last focus is fuelling to a lap rhythm. Almost all of your calories have to go in on the bike, where the aid station comes once per lap; on the run you pass it eight times at short intervals. Rehearse both patterns in long sessions instead of improvising them on race day.