Ironman Oceania managing director David Beeche said they had to think of a way to keep athletes active and motivated during the COVID-19 crisis.

"Like everyone we're battening down the hatches to get through what will hopefully be a two or three-month storm and not a six to 12-month one," he said.

So far, Ironman Oceania has postponed six of their eight events originally scheduled for the first half of 2020.

It means they will now potentially hold 21 events in 18 weeks across Australia and New Zealand in the second half of the year.

While it is hoped racing will be able to happen in real-time at Ironman Australia in Port Macquarie on September 13, athletes can log on to a digital format and keep fit in the meantime.

"Connecting a digital format with your customer base and audience is critical for any business these days," Mr Beeche said.

"The idea is you upload your data to your regular platform - whether that's Garmin Connect or Polar Flow and Strava which most people in the fitness world have," Mr Beeche said.

"Once you sign up to Ironman Virtual Club, you connect those two platforms and your workouts will automatically upload."

The Virtual Race component was important for Ironman organisers to create as a way of keeping athletes engaged with the triathlon community during the self-isolation period.

While it has not been possible to come up with a way to do the swim leg due to most public swimming pools being closed around the world, all races will involve run-cycle-run legs.

"It's worth noting that while a lot of the world is in some form of lockdown, not everyone has to stay at home to do these workouts," Mr Beeche said.

"While you can do these workouts on your treadmill or stationary bike, you can head out your front door depending on your lockdown restrictions and go for a run and upload that."

The first trial event will see more than 22,000 people competing worldwide this weekend where they will take on the five-kilometre run, 90-kilometre cycle and 21 kilometre run legs.

"You don't have to do it back-to-back; you can do each of those three things over a 48-hour period," Mr Beeche said.

"Then you will pop up on leaderboards where you can see where you compare with people right around the world and earn points."

Mr Beeche said they were also looking at uploading different pieces of graphical footage from each of the race locations.

"We've partnered with another company to give the graphics a go and we're using the Ironman 70.3 Boulder course this weekend," he said.

"So if that works out we'll look at extending that to other races and courses to make it interesting."

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