I think it's about personal style.

If you want to be a robot and delegate all the training decisions to someone else, get a coach.

If you want to learn about the sport, then read all the articles in the magazines, browse the Forums here, Google stuff, and teach yourself. You can't screw up seriously at this stage. At 14, you can do just about anything and succeed, because you have the most recovery ability right now that you will ever have, plus you have done all that swim training and you have developed "exercise tolerance."

My preference? Be independent. Be a sponge about training info. Pick the brains of people who might know something specific to your needs, but take it all with a grain of salt. There are fanatics out there who do crazy stuff and it might not be for you, but if you want to do it, go ahead, have fun.

You're 14. You are resilient and will learn like a sponge. Enjoy swimming, biking, running for yourself, without a coach. Find out about yourself for the next few years until your body matures.

You're not eligible for serious competition until you're eighteen anyway, so unless you are an Olympic potential talent already, just enjoy it.

If you get a coach, you will be back into the training treadmill like you have experienced as a swimmer. Your choice.

PoC

Thanks PoC your advice is well appreciated.

Ask your high school to start a triathlon club or team. There are a whole TON of out-of-work people right now, at least one of whom will both live in your town and be qualified to coach your HS's new team. Plus, it'll be more fun once you have some of your friends involved.

jnrice, I'll take up that point, just for discussion.
I'm not putting down coaches.
My "robot" reference is to the practice of "just do what your coach tells you, don't think about it" that some athletes engage in.
That is totally appropriate for an elite gymnast in a relationship with a coach where there is total trust, say, Bela Karoly and Mary Lou Retton or Nadia Comaneci.
Why have a coach if you are going to second guess him/her?
If you want to bounce ideas off someone ("a 3rd party perspective"), don't waste your money on a coach, use Trifuel.
Why buy a dog and bark yourself?

Specifically with reference to our young friend who started this thread, the "fawcettenator," he's 14 and just starting triathlon. Some might argue that getting a coach right away means he can get started right and avoid making all those mistakes others of us have made, but those mistakes are also called "experience." Some people think experience is the best teacher.

Now once you have a few years of experience under your belt and want to move to the next level, a coach is probably a great way to go, depending on your personality. There are examples of top class triathletes who have not engaged coaches and others who wouldn't make a move without one. Compare Mark Allen and Pauli Kiuru, or Molina and Dave Scott. More recent examples may serve also to illustrate this point.

I think coaches can be valuable and definitely have their place. I'm a qualified coach of six different sports, have coached athletes professionally to National level and I have been coached by some of the best. I'm not knocking coaches at all. Ultimately, the athlete must take responsibility for his/her success and that includes the decision of when to place their fate in the hands of a coach.
Above, I said that I think at 14, with years of swim coaching behind him, young Fawcett would be well served to get stuck in to the sport without a coach for a few years.

So, no, this is not me telling anyone to "write off" having a coach. I'm saying, "Have a go by yourself, acquire a bit of experience, then decide if a coach is the right way for you to go."
Looking back on my initial post, I can see clearly that I laid out the choices.

cheers,

PoC