Willich Triathlon: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is at 10 am in the outdoor pool of the De Bütt leisure baths. Five hundred metres is twenty lengths of a 25 metre pool, so nineteen turns and no open water, for many starters exactly the reason this is their first or their annual race.

The bike course covers two laps on open roads through the flat countryside around Willich on the Lower Rhine. Flat is not an overstatement: 86.4 per cent of the route sits in the level band, the elevation runs between 39 and 44 metres above sea level, and the course analysis finds no climb at all across 20 kilometres. What sets the speed is the wind over open fields and the fact that the roads are not closed.

The run is three laps around the pool grounds, 96.1 per cent of it level, twelve metres of climbing across five kilometres in total. Because start, transition and finish share one location, you pass the crowd on every lap. The Willich city championship is decided inside this competition, which gives the field a local rivalry that is barely visible from outside.

Pacing Strategy

Twenty lengths in a pool can be paced exactly: use that. A fixed time per 100 metres is more controllable here than any feeling in open water, and too fast an opening is punished on a bike course that offers not one rise on which to regulate.

The race is decided on the second bike lap, specifically in the headwind section. On a route with 2.4 metres of climbing per kilometre there is no natural structure; output slips gradually with nothing to signal it. Fix a target power or breathing rate and hold it even as the speed readout falls in the wind, rather than over-cooking the tailwind half.

The main trap is the open roads. Junctions, oncoming traffic and village sections force you to brake, and the reflex to sprint back to target speed each time drains noticeably across 20 kilometres. Rebuild speed smoothly after every slowdown. On the run: three laps without a profile mean passing the same clock three times. Run the first a shade slower than planned and save the fastest for last.

Training plan for Willich Triathlon: 12-week build

The Volkstriathlon at Willich takes roughly 65 to 95 minutes depending on your level. The demand is sustained, uniform intensity with no relief at all: no climb to push you briefly above threshold and no descent to give anything back.

What decides it is therefore consistency rather than peak power. Twenty flat kilometres are the longest continuous time-trial effort of the year for many riders, and in a landscape with no shelter it comes down to holding a low position for thirty to forty minutes.

The training emphasis is accordingly bike blocks of 2 times 12 to 15 minutes just under threshold in exactly the position you will race in, ridden on flat roads and deliberately in wind. Add re-accelerations from low speed, because the open roads keep slowing you down.

For the swim, turn practice and clean 100 metre pacing are what count: 500 metres in a 25 metre pool is twenty lengths, and this race needs no open-water technique. For the run, a weekly brick of 12 to 18 minutes straight off a bike block on flat ground at target race pace is enough.