Triathlon du Blavet: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The swim is in the Blavet above the white-water park's lock - in the river, not a lake - a short and manageable 300 metres. Transition sits directly on the bank in the Parc du Bunz, so the distances between disciplines are short.

The bike is the only demanding part: one lap out of the valley towards Penquesten, with a kilometre at a good four percent immediately after transition and rolling ground back. The run is entirely flat by contrast - 2.5 kilometres on the halage, the old Blavet towpath, out and back around a turn.

The XS starts at eleven, six hours before the racing day ends, and is open from twelve years of age; drafting is allowed. That makes it the entry-level race of an event the Hennebont Triathlon club has now put on for the eleventh time, in the wooded Blavet valley inland of the Morbihan.

Pacing Strategy

At super-sprint distance there is no reserve to save - and yet the course cannot be raced evenly. The swim is short enough to attack, but the heart rate then has to survive the climb immediately after.

The race is decided in T1 and the two kilometres after it. Transition times weigh heavily in proportion, and the climb straight off the mount line punishes a hard swim twice over. Overcook it there and you lose the 2.5 running kilometres, flat though they are.

The trap is precisely that sequence: cold river water, a short sprint in it, then a ramp at once - a combination that shuts the legs down faster than an even effort of the same duration would. On the towpath afterwards nothing in the terrain forces a recovery; the last third has to be carried on your own.

Training plan for Triathlon du Blavet: 12-week build

Total effort for a typical field is roughly 35 to 55 minutes. The demand is high-intensity throughout with one clear spike on the bike climb - more anaerobically tolerant than a middle distance, but without the recovery windows longer formats offer.

What decides it is the chaining, not any single discipline. Short brick sessions are therefore the core of the preparation: a swim with a hard exit straight onto the bike, and bike-run transitions in which the first 500 metres on foot are deliberately run under control.

Add transition practice in the narrow sense - wetsuit removal, mounting, shoe changes. With a total time under an hour those seconds decide placings, and they are the fastest-improving part of the race.

Among the conditions the water matters most: at the end of September the Blavet is a river with current and cool water, and a wetsuit is compulsory below 16 degrees. Open-water swimming in a wetsuit, sighting without pool lines, and going from cold water into immediate effort all belong in the preparation - as does riding narrow and possibly wet lanes.