Wörthsee Triathlon: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The swim runs clockwise around five buoys in the Wörthsee, and the bike course starts immediately afterwards, with a steep climb straight out of transition, the cold start of the day.

The 22-kilometre bike lap is ridden twice and collects around 165 metres of climbing each time. Three ascents shape it: a ramp of just over a kilometre at 3.4 percent average at kilometre 10.5, a 300-metre pitch shortly after, and at kilometre 15.3 the steepest section, touching 5.8 percent. Only a good 44 percent of the lap is genuinely flat; the rest alternates continuously between up and down. Technically the course demands attention: oncoming traffic on the first and last three kilometres, a U-turn in Herrsching, tight corners in Rausch, Ellwang, Breitbrunn and Schlagenhofen.

The closing 10K runs on forest tracks around the lake, with two short rises at kilometre 3.5 and 4.6 and an elevation band of about 55 metres. Only roughly a third of the run kilometres are flat: gentler than the bike course, but by no means a flat runner's course.

Pacing Strategy

The effort here is not spread over one decisive mountain but over a dozen short waves. Cap your power on the bike lap's three climbs, and do not let the steep opening straight out of the swim tempt you into an early hard effort: that is where most of your day gets wasted.

The second bike lap decides the race. Because the course repeats identically, after 22 kilometres you know exactly what is coming: ride the first lap too eagerly and you lose far more time on the same ramps second time round than you gained.

The main trap sits in the first two kilometres of the run. The forest course feels fast off the bike but has barely any flat sections of its own; run to feel instead of race pace there and you pay for it on the two rises at kilometre 3.5 and 4.6, and again on the second lap.

Training plan for Wörthsee Triathlon: 12-week build

For the Olympic distance at the Wörthsee, expect roughly two and a quarter to three hours of racing depending on your level. The load is mostly aerobic but distinctly surgy on the bike: with around 28 percent uphill and 28 percent downhill per lap, you are almost never riding steadily: you accelerate and roll, over and over.

The race is decided on the three climbs of each bike lap, above all on the second pass, and in the transition to running, when your legs have to hold race pace immediately on a run course that undulates in its own right.

Training should therefore centre on short, repeated intervals in the threshold and VO2max range on real climbs, built on a solid aerobic base. Develop the ability to get straight back into aero position and race pace after every ramp instead of recovering over the top.

Add brick runs straight off undulating rides and do them deliberately on forest ground, so the surface and the constant rhythm changes are familiar. Open-water practice with sighting on a multi-buoy loop prepares you for the lake swim, and one full simulation of the bike distance plus the closing 10K during your build gives you confidence in your race-day pacing.