Is a Half Distance Triathlon out of reach for someone who has only raced Sprint or Olympic distance? That question shows up more than almost any other from athletes considering their first Half Distance race.

That's the span this Beginner Full Distance triathlon plan works with: 24 weeks, building from roughly 7.5 hours of training per week up to a peak of about 14.5 hours, before you taper into race week.

Beginners who step up to Full Distance without a base phase tend to make the same mistake: they try to bridge the volume gap by working harder in week one instead of working longer over several months. That approach usually backfires, either as an overuse injury or as burnout somewhere around week ten.

Most athletes treat these stories as settled fact, filed away and never questioned again. But a growing body of research on belief, perception, and performance suggests this is backwards. Beliefs aren't facts. They're tools. And like any tool, you can trade a bad one for a better one.

The biggest myth in triathlon is that it's for a certain type of person. The lean, chiseled, relentlessly athletic type who was probably a competitive swimmer in college and thinks nothing of 5am alarm clocks.