Last week I signed myself up for my first triathlon in mid July. Yes I realize that is a very short time frame to start training. If all goes well I will do another in August. I am 26, formerly a competitive athlete, active, but haven't done any serious training in a few years. On the weekend I went out to get some ideas of where I stand triathlonwise. Doing each event by itself, at a hard effort but not all-out, I managed a 37 min swim, 1:20 bike, 50 min run.

If I could do that all consecutively with a bit of transition time it puts me just under 3 hours. I really want to do well, and can dedicate about 16-20 hours a week to training for the next 5 weeks, and my question is what should I aim for. Or what would be some good milestone times to focus on. Also where can my limited time be best spent?

If you don't have open water swimming experience, practice that - it's quite different to swimming in a pool. Sighting is important! And if you can effectively draft the swim, you'll both be slightly faster and save energy for bike/run. If your tri has a beach start, practice that. Practice swim exits and run to T1. Practice transitions (get elastic laces so you can put your shoes on faster). Do bricks, running off your bike. Etc. I did not do a lot of these things before my first tri, and regretted it. Train all 3 disciples. There are some good plans online, but they all assume more than 5 weeks training time (most assume 12).

No matter what time you do this time round, it will be a PB. The second time you race the distance, aim to smash it.

Practise transitions and just aim to finish. I agree with brick training (run then bike) and the open water swimming