What would you need to do to prepare for a triathlon?

Depends on the length of the triathlon and your current fitness level.

I once wrote an article for about triathlon for a cycling magazine. It started with "Triathlons are fun; Marc Dragan said so." (Dragan was the top Australian triathlete of the era.) After that I catalogued a list of disasters I'd encountered -- mostly my own, but some of the calamities belonged to other people. A couple of months later there was a letter to the editor from a guy who read it, liked the humour, but failed to  realise that what might be funny in hindsight can be very painful at the time. He said that the only thing that kept him going was the thought that he was going to find me, and get his hands around my throat, and...

So I telephoned him. It turns out he was a G.P. And even with his medical expertise he didn't have the wit to get himself fit enough to finish the race. Thank God he selected a short triathlon and not an Iron Man.

So what do you need?

Swimming preparation is the easiest. Just make sure you can swim the distance. No problems there except that in a mass start and the melee that follows it you're going to swallow your share of water. People will swim over you as they try to get clear of the pack, and you'll get your share of elbows in various body parts. But once you find your own patch of water you'll be fine.

Transition to the cycle leg. SIT DOWN to change. If you try to stand while you're getting your cycling shoes on it'll take three times as long.

The cycle leg is where it starts to get hard. Make sure you've done enough training to enable you to complete the distance at an uncomfortably fast speed. You're not out for a pleasure ride -- this is a race and you WILL get caught up in it and push yourself. By the time you finish you'll be happy to get your feet on the ground.

Transition to the run leg. SIT DOWN to pull on your running shoes, and make sure they have velcro flaps or lace locks. You don't want to be stuffing around trying to tie knots in the things.

The run leg is when they really sort out the competitors. You've just been spinning your pedals as hard as you can for anything from 10 km to 180 km and now you think you're just going to change that motion into a forward stride. This is something you have to train for. Make it a practice, during that pre-race training, to run at least a few kilometres at the end of EVERY hard bike ride. You will know, intuitively, that the ground is down there, somewhere, below your knees, but your responses will be all stuff up from pedalling. You have to learn to trust your feet, even though what they're doing will seem very strange to you. It doesn't last long -- maybe a few hundred metres, maybe a kilometre -- but you have to get through it.

Don't let any of that turn you off. Triathlons are satisfying, they're fun (especially if you have masochistic tendencies), and there's a great deal of very pleasant camaraderie.

Enjoy!