FAIRMONT — The annual Fairmont Triathlon and Duathlon will take place Friday and Saturday. A local favorite for many people, the event includes changes from previous years.

Chuck Anderson shared what is new and different, and emphasized the family aspects of the event.

“In terms of the different types of races, we’ve got the Olympic triathlon, which is the big one,” he said. “The Sprint triathlon is the shorter version. And then we’ve got the Duathlon, which is a run, bike, run event and you don’t have to do any swimming.”

Anderson said one of the new things this year is moving the youth event to Friday, the day before the main event.

“We’re going to do the kid’s event at the Aquatic Park,” he said. “Before it was in the lake and we thought that may be a bother to some of them so we’ll do a separate event and they’ll have their own thing. It’s a closed course so it’s safe.”

Regardless of similarities and changes compared to previous years, Anderson says there is an overall focus and offered some of his own experiences of participating in the event.

“The whole emphasis of this thing is fun,” he said. “Personally, for about four or five years my family did a team thing where one of us would run, one of us would bike and one would swim. So it’s a nice thing for a family or group of friends.

“So for two years we had two teams in our family. We had myself, my son, his wife, my wife, my daughter-in-law and my daughter involved. So it’s just a fun kind of competition there.

“We’ve got quite a lot of options for people this year,” he continued. “Particularly one of the things we want to emphasize is that we’ve got a number of local individuals involved, but we’d like to expand that.

“From participants that do a lot of these, it’s considered to be one of the most smoothly run events,” he said. “We’ve got about 25 sponsors, and the city [of Fairmont] has been really helpful in getting us set up the way we want to. It’s something people can just come out and participate in or just watch.

Registration will be 4 p.m. Friday, with the youth event starting at 5:15 p.m. Otherwise, Anderson says people can register Saturday at Gomsrud Park, where the main event is held, or online at their convenience. Body marking and registration on Saturday begins at 6 a.m., with the Olympic event starting at 7:45 a.m. The Duathlon begins at 8 a.m. while the Sprint gets underway at 8:30 a.m.