Weinstadt Triathlon: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The swim is 300 metres in the Neues Hallenbad Weinstadt, twelve lengths of a 25-metre pool. The start is at ten, with transition and the finish at the Weinstadt stadium in Endersbach.

The bike consists of three laps of a good 6.2 kilometres through the vineyards above the town, and every lap repeats the same pattern: shortly after the start a 750-metre climb at around 3.2 per cent, immediately followed by a considerably shorter but steeper 330-metre ramp at a good 5.5 per cent with up to eight at the crest. Six times in all. The heights range from 243 to 303 metres, only about a fifth of the course is genuinely flat, and almost 44 per cent descends: what goes up comes back down on the same lap.

The run is three laps of roughly 1.5 kilometres through the quiet residential area right beside the stadium, entirely on asphalt. The elevation band is nine metres and there is no categorised climb, but only a good third of it is level: the constant small undulations and street corners between the houses feel more like a criterium than a running track. The race is staged for the second time by the town of Weinstadt together with SG Weinstadt, capped at 500 individual starters and 30 relays, and it counts towards the Triathlon REGIOCUP Stuttgart.

Pacing Strategy

Twelve lengths in an indoor pool are over quickly, and a pool start invites you to swim them like a training set. Swim them briskly but with your breathing under control, because the first ramp on the bike comes after just a kilometre and a half, while your heart rate is still up from the water.

What decides the race is how you handle the pair of climbs. A 750-metre pull at a good three per cent, immediately followed by 330 metres with up to eight, is exactly the combination that invites an attack, and it comes three times. Ride the long part seated and evenly, shift down early before the steep ramp and stay in the saddle there too. The 44 per cent of descending that follows is the recovery this course offers; use it to spin out rather than to push on.

The trap is the third bike lap. Since the course repeats exactly, the lap comparison is incorruptible: if lap three is markedly slower than lap one, the start was too hard, and the run course will not forgive it. It is flat, but with three laps, constant street corners and only a third of it genuinely level it offers no section in which to make anything good. Run the first lap to effort and lift only on the third.

Training plan for Weinstadt Triathlon: 12-week build

For the Jedermann triathlon in Weinstadt, expect roughly 1:05 to 1:30 hours depending on your level. The demand is anything but even: only around 20 per cent of the bike course is level, six short ramps each force you into the anaerobic range, and with its constant small undulations and corners the run never holds a rhythm for long either.

The six bike ramps and the first run lap decide it. Each ramp lasts only one to three minutes, but three repetitions of the pair add up to an anaerobic load that shows immediately over the 4.6 kilometres of running. That exact duration (short hard climbs with full recovery between them) should be familiar from training.

The conditions are predictable and unusually mild for a triathlon. The swim is indoors, so no open water, no wetsuit and no sighting task, but eleven wall turns. Outside, the end of September in the Remstal vineyards brings cool mornings and a mild late morning; a ten o'clock start means the bike and run happen at pleasant temperatures but after a longer wait at the pool. The run course is asphalt throughout, while the bike uses vineyard roads with tight bends.

Three building blocks carry the preparation. First, hill intervals on the bike of one to three minutes on gradients between three and eight per cent, ridden in pairs with a descent between them, because the course repeats exactly that structure three times. Second, brick runs of ten minutes at race pace on undulating, twisty terrain rather than a straight course. Third, pool sessions with sets such as 6 times 50 metres at race effort, turn technique in a 25-metre pool included.