Getting Started in Triathlon
I’ve written lots of stuff about Triathlon training, tips and advice, but just for you I will see if I can be succinct!
Swim – The club have good coached sessions and I and a few others swim at lunchtimes. When the water is warmer 14deg+ swimming in the sea + wetsuit is easy, fun and safe. If as a novice you swim 1500m, three times a week (broken into warm-up, drills, effort, warm-down) that should be enough.
Bike – Aim for one fast/speed session (spin), one steady session (hills/flats) and one endurance session (Sat or Sun ride) per week and you should be OK.
Run – Same as bike really, 1 x fast, 1 x steady, 1 x long. As an example hill reps on Tuesday, track or 1 mile repeats on Thursday and long-steady on Sunday.
Additionally stretching and strength work is really good!
You’ll have four distinct phases to your training programme
Phase1 Winter/Base - This is steady, slow, build-up of stamina and technique getting the basics right
Phase2 Spring/Strength – This is where you build with more emphasis on strength and speed sessions
Phase3 Summer/Race – This is when you cut back on the stamina and focus on pure speed
Phase4 Autumn/ Recovery – This is when you wind-down and recover before re-start all again
You need a programme
You can’t do the same stuff all the time, it gets boring and it will fatigue or break you. So have a programme.
Week1 – Easy recovery, relax. All the sessions are about technique and feel good
Week2 – Harder. This is when you start to work a bit harder, more hours, more miles etc
Week3 – Very hard. This is where you are getting used to being tired and coping
Week4 – Yikes! This is about mental toughness, Will you break? Next week will be easy!
And then go back to week 1 again, recover and repeat the cycle.
You need a plan
Use the Tri Club Website and FaceBook to plan out some races that you want to target, starting with the short/novice events and building up over time.
So what do I do…? Well a novice wouldn't do this but this is what I do and as you can see it pretty much follows the formula I have outlined above.
Mon - 6:30am swim 5:30pm 2 x Spinn Class (speed work)
Tue - 6:30am easy swim 5:30pm Hills Running 8 x Westmount Hill (strength work)
Wed 6:30am swim 5:45pm 1 x Spinn Class (speed work)
Thurs (Rest), Maybe 5:30pm easy jog, if I feel good.
Fri 6:30am swim 5:30pm Run maybe 10K as intervals along WestPark shortish and fastish
Sat 8:30am long steady bike (with some hills and speed bits) overall 3hours +
Sun 8:30am long steady run (possibly x-country or dunes) overall 2hours +
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