This forum obviously isn’t always meant for the lightly-trained. I know there are some training animals out there, you’re triathletes for crying out loud. So heavy is your training load during your season (non off-season training)?
For me, IM training gets up to 25 hrs. 2x workouts about five-six times a week with the usual 6-7 hr bike ride. During the week, the only long workouts I do are my long run (3 hrs) and one or two medium rides (2-3 hrs).
While I know rest and recovery are mandatory, I fall into the routine pattern of calling my swim/weightlighting workouts my “rest” workouts. Biggest benefit for me is i don’t have kids and I’m always in awe of those who put the time in and have to raise the kids and take the verbal abuse from the SO.
Wow! 25 hours? Do you have a life outside triathlon?
I’m training for IMFL right now, second-season triathlete and here’s my schedule:
M: 1 hour mountain bike followed by 30 minute swim
Tu: 8-10 mile run
W: 40-mile bike/2-3 mile run brick
Thu: Long run (right now up to 12 miles)
Fri: 2-3 mile run followed by 45-minute swim (will be 1 hour soon)
Sat: Long brick (up to 80 mile bike/4 mile run)
Sun: Off
No weights, no 2-a-days. I still have time for a life outside the sport. I won’t get a Kona slot, but I’m happy with that. I am married, have a 3-year-old daughter, and own a business.
I’d be interested in hearing about this as well. Since this is only my 2nd season doing tris, I want to see what plan I need to take for the next few years towards getting faster. One thing I know I need to do is to stay injury free, but that probably won’t happen. I haven’t been more than 4 months without an injury and it’s always a running injury which happens to be me my weakest sport.
Keep building on the base millage during the off season will do wonders to help prevent injury. That and stretching!
1st season I had a ton of overuse injuries. 2nd I had a lot less, this year I’ve been allmost injury free and nothing has stopped me from training apart from a virus.
Before I started doing tris, the longest run that I’ve ever done was like 5 miles. Now, 5 miles is a short easy run for me. I’m sure a lot of this is overuse injuries like you said, but I’m becoming more aware of my body and fixing issues that come up quickly. Plus, I’m not so stubborn like a lot of others here and if something is hurting, I can take a rest day or find something else to do. I’m also quite proficient at aquajogging and I’m pretty sure that aquajogging for 2 hours will make a 6 hour death march marathon in an IM seem easy.
This winter I plan on doing marathon training so that should give me a great base for next year’s tri season where I’ll be focusing on Oly’s and HIM length races.
thankfully I am not married. My gf puts it plainly like this: “I’d rather have you train and be happy rather than mopping around and unhappy. So long as it doesn’t affect our relatioship.”
I thought I was training 15-25 hours on a regular basis. Then I began using training peaks. Now I realize 12 is more realistic, with a number of 15 hour weeks in there. The good thing about TP is that a 45 minute run only counts as 45 minutes. I have a feeling that on ST a 45 min run counts as 2 hours of working out…
Right now I’m rolling 10-15 hours a week, seven days a week, but with no Ironman on the horizon I’m cool with these hours. The day after a race is a day off and I’ll take some time off after Atlanta Marathon. The plan is to go 10 or so hours a week during winter but starting 18 weeks out from CdA next year I will ramp it up to 15-20 hours a week.
Life outside of this and work? Well, which affects my lack of a life more: working nights, weekends and holidays (nature of the business, not really a choice) or 15-20 hours a week of tri-training? My family lives across the country so my visitation is limited to vacation. I genuinely love to swim, bike and run so it doesn’t bother me.