Hi all. Looking to sponge off the wiser or more experienced ones on the forum.
I started triathlon this season and bravely/stupidly chose to do an IM in my first year. Why? Because it's what attracted me to start triathlon and the area of the sport I fell in love with first. As I had no endurance background (this time last year I couldn't swim and had never owned a road bike) but I'd played team sports such as soccer and basketball at quite a high level I chose to sign up as it was something I thought I could complete. I did the training and clocked 11 hours, something I was very happy with.
My question is what to do next? I'll be 23 by next season and am wondering whether to focus on sprint or olympic distance to build top end? Or stay in the long distance field and reduce my time over years of work. There's 70.3s to consider too.
My long term aim is to succeed in the longer distances, looking at the top end of IM over recent years there are examples of those who have come from short course (Macca, Alexander, Carfrae, Frodeno, Van Lierde etc) and those who have always competed in the longer events (Jacobs, Cunnama, Wellington, Daerr, Joyce, Buckingham etc) who seem to have come to the sport later in life also and starting at levels as high as 13 hours. Anyone have any advice as to what to do for the foreseeable future or any experiences similar to mine and what they did and the effect on success, development, injuries, burn out, regrets....
Another thing confusing me is, say, an AGer who has 16 hours a week to train, surely they would train pretty similar for either short or long stuff as they can't do professional volume for long course so ramp up the intensity. I suppose that's a whole other discussion but knowing how to train is a difficult one!
Anyones $0.02 is appreciated.
I started triathlon this season and bravely/stupidly chose to do an IM in my first year. Why? Because it's what attracted me to start triathlon and the area of the sport I fell in love with first. As I had no endurance background (this time last year I couldn't swim and had never owned a road bike) but I'd played team sports such as soccer and basketball at quite a high level I chose to sign up as it was something I thought I could complete. I did the training and clocked 11 hours, something I was very happy with.
My question is what to do next? I'll be 23 by next season and am wondering whether to focus on sprint or olympic distance to build top end? Or stay in the long distance field and reduce my time over years of work. There's 70.3s to consider too.
My long term aim is to succeed in the longer distances, looking at the top end of IM over recent years there are examples of those who have come from short course (Macca, Alexander, Carfrae, Frodeno, Van Lierde etc) and those who have always competed in the longer events (Jacobs, Cunnama, Wellington, Daerr, Joyce, Buckingham etc) who seem to have come to the sport later in life also and starting at levels as high as 13 hours. Anyone have any advice as to what to do for the foreseeable future or any experiences similar to mine and what they did and the effect on success, development, injuries, burn out, regrets....
Another thing confusing me is, say, an AGer who has 16 hours a week to train, surely they would train pretty similar for either short or long stuff as they can't do professional volume for long course so ramp up the intensity. I suppose that's a whole other discussion but knowing how to train is a difficult one!
Anyones $0.02 is appreciated.