Training for first triathlon

Apr 12, 21 9:48

Post #1 of 16 (1122 views)

I'm signing up for my first triathlon a 70.3 at the end of July. Which only leaves about 3 months to train. I have a distance running background, though I'm not in GREAT shape. I had taken time off over the winter and then I've been running only maybe 25 miles per week since the beginning of February. I have a wife, kids and a job that I usually work 50 hours a week. My plan is to bike commute to work to squeeze extra training in. It's about 6 miles each way. I could always extend that if it were necessary. My daughter also has track practice on Tuesday and Thursday, so I have to squeeze training in on those nights. My schedule might look something like this:

Monday
Am 6 miles bike
PM 6 miles bike, swimming

Tuesday
Am 6 miles bike
PM 6 miles bike, running track workout

Wednesday
Am 6 miles bike
PM 6 miles bike, swimming

Thursday
Am 6 miles bike
PM 6 miles bike, running track workout

Friday
Am 6 miles bike
PM 6 miles bike, swimming

Saturday 10 mile run

Sunday longer bike ride

Is that too much volume? I could do the 6 mile bike rides as easy or as hard as necessary

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 9:54

Post #2 of 16 (1117 views)

Congrats on signing up for your first tri!

Your bike commutes are good, but when do you ride for an hour? or for 50 miles? Doing the same training every week will yield results for a little while until the body is no longer having to adapt.

Also, there is a swim leg that I don't see any mention of. What's your swim background?

I'd say something like 3 hours of biking/week to start out with 20 miles/week running, then build the bike up from there and the run slowly. At least once a week run a few miles after biking to get used to the feeling.

Blog: https://davidkoppeltriathlon.blogspot.com/
Coaching: https://dkendurance.com/

Re: Training for first triathlon [DKMNTRI] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 10:00

Post #3 of 16 (1113 views)

DKMNTRI wrote:

Congrats on signing up for your first tri!

Your bike commutes are good, but when do you ride for an hour? or for 50 miles? Doing the same training every week will yield results for a little while until the body is no longer having to adapt.

I have the 50 miles bike rides penciled in for Sunday. Though, what I wrote just a rough outline. I'll probably change it slightly from week to week

DKMNTRI wrote:

Also, there is a swim leg that I don't see any mention of. What's your swim background?

I have those penciled in for Monday, Wednesday, Friday

DKMNTRI wrote:

I'd say something like 3 hours of biking/week to start out with 20 miles/week running, then build the bike up from there and the run slowly. At least once a week run a few miles after biking to get used to the feeling.

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 10:30

Post #4 of 16 (1091 views)

Congrats. 3 months is aggressive, but doable.

You will need to do a lot more bike volume. Think on the order of 4 - 8 hours/week at a pretty high intensity. Bike volume is your secret weapon to make the run less terrible.

My shortest bike workout is 60 minutes at a pretty high heart rate. You will not get much benefit from a 6 mile ride (~20 minutes) even if you are going at near threshold. You need to adapt your body to maintaining 80% effort level for three hours.

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 11:37

Post #5 of 16 (1063 views)

If I were you, I'd do the following:

skip the bike rides on Monday.
Extend your Wed and Friday bike commutes one of the ways so you're riding for 40 min - 1 hour one way. Include some efforts in these longer commutes. You should gradually go harder/longer.
Make sure the running track workouts aren't going to drain you too much. Maybe make one of those days just a Z2 day on the track with strides. This really depends on how much intensity you have in the week.

For my first 70.3, my schedule looked really similar. I swam MWF, bike commuted 2 days a week with a 40-1 hr ride to work and a 20 minute ride home, and I ran on days I didn't commute (2 days). Weekend was long ride and long run.
It got me across the finish line. Similar background with mostly distance running and soccer prior to triathlon, but I don't think I ran more than 30 miles a week. But I was also playing soccer 2-3 days a week, so I had plenty of intensity without track workouts.

Re: Training for first triathlon [bearlyfinish] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 12:44

Post #6 of 16 (1023 views)

bearlyfinish wrote:

If I were you, I'd do the following:

skip the bike rides on Monday.
Extend your Wed and Friday bike commutes one of the ways so you're riding for 40 min - 1 hour one way. Include some efforts in these longer commutes. You should gradually go harder/longer.

Are you thinking I should skip riding the bike on Monday because if I do a long bike ride on sunday, I'd be too drained to commute on monday?

I could certainly extend my evening rides, that's no big deal

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 12:48

Post #7 of 16 (1016 views)

I strongly suggest finding a sprint distance or Olympic distance between now and then so you have a tri under your belt.

The first race I ever signed up for was a 1/2 Ironman called Buffalo Springs Lake. I picked it because the t-shirts looked cool. Probably not the best method for picking a race 🙂

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 12:52

Post #8 of 16 (1011 views)

What do your track workouts look like?

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 13:04

Post #9 of 16 (1000 views)

Do you have any swimming background? 1.2 miles can burn a lot of energy (unnecessarily) real quick if you're just muscling through it to get to the bike then the whole day becomes a slugfest. 3x/week x 3 months is good but if you're starting from 0 you just have to realize your limits. After a couple weeks I would evaluate your workouts, maybe do a bike FTP test or something, just so you have an idea of baseline for the race and you can figure out how long you'll need to be swim/bike/running. Good luck!

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 13:05

Post #10 of 16 (1000 views)

I like to give my legs at least 1 full recovery day. You could substitute that with a very easy z1 ride instead, but most plans I've seen call for 1 complete recovery day. You can also make it a complete rest day every other week. This really depends on how well you can handle the load. If you bike commute everyday anyway, just make Monday's really easy.

What's the expression? You're better of 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained.

Re: Training for first triathlon [jimatbeyond] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 13:05

Post #11 of 16 (1000 views)

I'm sure it will vary week to week. Right now I've been doing something like

4 miles easy warm up.
6 x 400m repeats @ mile pace
with full recovery
2 miles easy cool down

That's probably a little too speed oriented for the triathlon. I'll probably start doing workouts a little longer and slower. I also dont know if itd be a good idea to do that twice a week with all the other volume of swimming and biking that I'm not used to

Re: Training for first triathlon [jond81] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 13:12

Post #12 of 16 (990 views)

jond81 wrote:

Do you have any swimming background? 1.2 miles can burn a lot of energy (unnecessarily) real quick if you're just muscling through it to get to the bike then the whole day becomes a slugfest. 3x/week x 3 months is good but if you're starting from 0 you just have to realize your limits. After a couple weeks I would evaluate your workouts, maybe do a bike FTP test or something, just so you have an idea of baseline for the race and you can figure out how long you'll need to be swim/bike/running. Good luck!

I don't have much of a swimming background. I would often swim to cross train for running. I'd usually swim like 2 miles. I'd say I swim well for someone that has never swam competitively. I'm going to see if I can work with a coach to improve my form.

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 12, 21 13:25

Post #13 of 16 (979 views)

Jimmy21 wrote:

I'm sure it will vary week to week. Right now I've been doing something like

4 miles easy warm up.
6 x 400m repeats @ mile pace
with full recovery
2 miles easy cool down

That's probably a little too speed oriented for the triathlon. I'll probably start doing workouts a little longer and slower. I also dont know if itd be a good idea to do that twice a week with all the other volume of swimming and biking that I'm not used to

With a strong distance running background, I'd put the speed-work away. You need to swim and bike a LOT, and run "just enough". A 6 mile commute is perfect. You can run or bike to work each day, or even alternate. Bike to work, run home, run back the next day and bike home and extend the bike to 30-40 miles. Its almost summer, so the sun is coming up earlier. Get up early and extend the AM bike. Lots of your training can dissolve into the commute time. I used to live 9 miles from work...and did EXACTLY this.

You should have a bike threshold day, and a bike tempo day, and a long bike.

All your running can be easy. You don't need the speed (as a runner you'll still outpace most...if you get the swim/bike right).

Swim, swim, swim. 4x per week....2-4k each. As has been mentioned, unless you're already a decent swimmer...your goal is to get out of the water NOT EXHAUSTED. If you're a new swimmer find a good coach and get a few lessons every few weeks.

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 13, 21 8:40

Post #14 of 16 (897 views)

Bike, bike, bike!

Run vs. bike - always bike! Your run fitness will be fine.

You didn't talk about open water confidence. I see good swimmers panic open water and quit during the swim. Being fast doesn't matter, but being confident does.

And finally bike, bike, bike!

If you were doing IM instead of HIM I would add many more bike, bike, bike.

Enjoy the experience.

Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

Re: Training for first triathlon [Jimmy21] [ In reply to ]

Apr 13, 21 8:55

Post #15 of 16 (886 views)

I was in a similar place to you when I signed up for my first 70.3 years ago. As a runner, put the run on the back-burner like others have mentioned. No need for speedwork, etc. You can get away with running about 3x a week, with one run as a short brick to get used to the feeling.

I would definitely swim 3x a week. You won't break any records your first 70.3 but that should get you conditioned enough to get to the bike feeling decent. I highly recommend practicing open water swimming a couple times a month (or more if you can) in a wetsuit to get to used to that as well. Comfort in the water and keeping a cool head in a pack can be a huge factor over swim fitness for a lot of beginners.

And like others have mentioned prioritize the bike. Don't need to overthink things for your first 70.3 but just steady volume will make a huge difference.

If you have the ability to add in a couple local sprint tris that would also give you great practice and help you learn pacing for a longer distance event. Plus they're fun! :)

Re: Training for first triathlon [TMR] [ In reply to ]

Apr 13, 21 9:39

Post #16 of 16 (861 views)

TMR wrote:

I highly recommend practicing open water swimming a couple times a month (or more if you can) in a wetsuit to get to used to that as well. Comfort in the water and keeping a cool head in a pack can be a huge factor over swim fitness for a lot of beginners.

Definately agree with this. Wetsuit depends on target race conditions. If its a late summer race in the south...I'd skip it. If there's a decent chance of a wetsuit legal swim...you definitely want to practice swimming in the suit before race day. Do not be THAT guy that tries a new suit for the first time on-the-day.

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