A couple of days ago I put together a plan I called the Reverse Triathlon. I’ve been running triathlons for years, and a question I always get is what order the sports go in. The order, for those who don’t know, is always the same: swimming, followed by biking, followed by running. I’m often asked why that is, and the stock answer I’ve always given - which I read somewhere - is that organizers are worried about people drowning during the swim and so they want to make sure that folks do the swim while they are still fresh. But I decided to actually see how big of a deal that was by doing a little exercise. So I went out and biked, and then ran, and then swam. Admittedly, I didn’t quite do a full triathlon because of logistics. I biked about 16 miles, then ran about a mile and a half (I know, short, but I was short on time), then rode about 8 more miles, changed at home, got in my car and drove down to the lake where I swam about 800 yards.

And I can report that - at least at those distances - it really wasn’t a big deal.

Of course, I understand that for a full ironman, or a half, or even maybe an olympic, people might be extremely tired. I’m not saying swimming should come last. However, it would have two huge benefits: one, you wouldn’t have to do the rest of the race wet, and two - and more importantly - it might cut down on deaths. You see, the one thing that does actually get people killed occasionally during a triathlon is drowning from being kicked in the head. This comes about because of the group starts. With so many swimmers in a tight space, it’s more likely that someone will get kicked in the head, go unconcscious and drown. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. Modern races try to deal with this by doing things like age groups and staggered starts, as well as beach starts. But if the swim happened, say, in the middle, that wouldnt’ be an issue because everyone would just start swimming when they showed up and it would naturally stagger folks.

Just a thought, at least for the sprint triathlons.