Working backwards from the cutoff clock
In long-course triathlon it is usually the gates, not the legs, that end a day. The swim and the bike each carry a cutoff expressed as elapsed time from the race start, and missing one means you do not continue. This calculator takes the leg distances, those cutoff times and your transition times, works out how much time each leg actually gets, and converts that into the slowest swim pace, average bike speed and run pace that still clears each gate. Add your planned splits and it also reports the spare time you would have at each gate.
Bike time is the bike cutoff minus the swim cutoff and T1; run time is the overall limit minus the bike cutoff and T2. The required paces are rounded down to the second because anything slower misses the gate, and the minimum bike speed is rounded up for the same reason. Swim distance stays in metres, which is how race guides publish the course. The built-in 70.3 cutoffs were checked in October 2026.
Cutoffs change with the course and the year, so replace the starting values with the numbers in your own athlete guide rather than trusting the defaults. This page does not predict a finish time, and it carries no full-distance defaults because no single reliable source was confirmed. Water temperature, current, climbing and wind are not modelled, so leave real margin when you set a target.
FAQ
No. Race guides publish cutoffs as elapsed time from the start, so this page takes them the same way. The time each leg actually gets, with transitions removed, is reported separately.
Anything slower than that pace misses the gate, so rounding the seconds up would show a pace that does not make it. For the same reason the minimum bike speed is rounded up instead.
No single reliable source for full-distance cutoffs was confirmed, so none are built in. Enter the numbers from your athlete guide and the calculation works the same way.