I'm 22. I want to get faster/competitive. Point me in the right direction!

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m 22. I want to get faster/competitive. Point me in the right direction!

I’m nearing my last race of the year and I want to start thinking about my future training. This is my first year of racing. I have no endurance background. Growing up I played rec soccer, taekwondo, video games, etc. I love being a triathlete, I love triathlons, and I want to dedicate 100% of my time to improve myself. Eating, sleeping, school, and training is all I really want/plan to do now…I’ve never really had an interest in the typical drunken college scene. Right now, as you can see below, I’ve mainly done HIMs. I love this distance and want to continue racing them.

So far this year I’ve raced in 3 HIMs and an Olympic. My last race will be the B2B HIM.

Galveston 70.3
Swim 36:54
Bike 2:43:00
Run 2:16:43
Total 5:40:24

Gulf Coast 70.3
Swim 33:02
Bike 2:37:51
Run 1:57:51
Total 5:13:41

Rocketman Olympic
Swim 31:31
Bike 1:07:13
Run 46:02
Total 2:26:21

Augusta 70.3
Swim 25:43
Bike 02:36:31
Run 02:08:19
Total 05:14:57

What I’ve struggled with during races is overpacing of the bike and screwing up nutrition. At least I think that is the reason why my runs always fall apart. I’m more than capable of holding 7’20/mi during my long runs (10+ miles) without much effort.

Right now my training weeks look like this.

Monday Swim
Tuesday 30 mi bike, 6 mi run
Wednesday 10 mi run, swim
Thursday 30 mi bike, swim
Friday 10-14 mi run, swim
Saturday 40-60 mi bike
Sunday 30 mi bike, 6 mi run

I’m starting to taper down for my race, but last week my totals were around:
Swim ~ 12k yds
Bike ~ 140 mi
Run ~ 32 mi

I think my body is handling the mileage and I feel great going into each workout. There is an occasional day where I’m tired and it’s a struggle, but that’s only when I don’t get enough sleep.

I guess now to the questions.
Where to now?

Should I continue doing what I’m doing. Keeping around the same mileage and just building the endurance?

Find a coach? I’d really like a coach, but I’m in college and poor…so this would be a stretch.

Get an entry level power meter for my bike and train with that?

Would sticking to a modified training week (of the one above) be ok to follow over the winter?

I’m thinking about joining masters in the spring? I (think) I hit that point where I can’t get any faster without improving my form. I swim 1:30-1:40/100

In the spring, should I start working in track workouts to improve my run pace?

Thanks for any suggestions/advice/banter. My questions may seem a bit random/out of order…but I was just thinking and typing.

2

how much do you weight?

3

how much do you weight?

I’m 5’5
I haven’t weighed myself recently. But I’m normally between 125-130.

4

Just a guess with limited information, I think you need to run more often. Maybe 6 times a week over the winter.

5

Sounds like way to much on the bike for you (event wise). Im 24, i know how it feels to get out of the water raging and put to much at the start of the bike. Thats where your screwed. A powermeter may help (im training on power but havent raced with it), but only if you understand how to use the numbers to your advantage.

6

Monday Swim
Tuesday 30 mi bike, 6 mi run
Wednesday 10 mi run, swim
Thursday 30 mi bike, swim
Friday 10-14 mi run, swim
Saturday 40-60 mi bike
Sunday 30 mi bike, 6 mi run

What do your workouts consist of? There is a world of difference between 30 miles on the bike, and 1:30 on the bike with 10x3 min hard, 2 min ez. Same with the swimming and the running.

On first glance, the thing that stands out to me is that you have two 10+ mile runs making up the bulk of your mileage, and that your long bike is only 2-3 hours.

John

7

how much do you weight?

I’m 5’5
I haven’t weighed myself recently. But I’m normally between 125-130.

My thought was the same as eganski’s. Seems like you should be able to run much faster than you do with that type of mileage. You need or work onn running faster. Much faster. Good luck.

8

Do a huge run/swim focus over the winter and just do maitenence on the bike. Swimming and running unfortunately take years of consistency and hard work to improve at - better to start now.

You’re very low on run frequency. I would say minimum 5-6 runs (1-2 can be short and nearly all can be easy over the winter) and 3-4 swims per week over the winter. Work in your bikes around that. Check out the BarryP run thread for building run mileage.

9

Sounds like way to much on the bike for you. Im 24, i know how it feels to get out of the water raging and put to much at the start of the bike. That where your screwed. A powermeter may help (im training on power but havent raced with it), but only if you understand how to use the numbers to your advantage. Nice swim time, maybe its time to pull back a bit on that and focus on your bike/run bricks? Swimming fast is awesome but not at the cost of a solid overall race.

A 31:31 for an Olympic, and 36:xx for a HIM swim is not swimming fast. That put him 11 minutes down on the leader in his division at Rocketman, where even a 25:xx (Which still isn’t blazing speed) would have moved him from 19th out of the water to 3rd/4th out of the water. It’s fast by triathlete standards, but there is a lot still available there.

John

10

I want to dedicate 100% of my time to improve myself. Eating, sleeping, school, and training is all I really want/plan to do now.

I’m also 22, but I would highly suggest you reconsider this. Have some f’ing fun man! I just graduated in May, and looking back I really liked the way I did things. I partied my ass off in school, but at the same time once in a while I would give up a night of partying for a race or to train, not because I “had” to but because I wanted to. It worked out perfectly. I put down some pretty (what I would consider) respectable times while I was in school including a 4:29 HIM and a 10:24 IM, but more importantly I enjoyed every minute of college and made some friends that I’ll have for the rest of my life. It’s very possible to do both.

It’s easy to get way too caught up in all of this, so I would just say be careful. If you truly want to devote all your time to training, by all means, be my guest. But I would just be cautious about it. When you look back on school, what do you want to remember? The answer to that question is probably different for everyone, and that’s something you have to decide personally.

11

eventually Fleck will chime in and he will tell you to stop doing the half IMs and start doing Sprints, Olympics, 5k road races, 10k time trials and swim hard and fast at a Masters swim program.

He’ll say it more eloquently than me, but what he won’t tell you is how right and how much of a bad ass he is. Pro tip: listen to Fleck.

However, for the long term, you have to think big picture. No one workout or plan or whatever is the difference maker. What you need is time, consistency, and frequency, for years and years and years. I know that may sound daunting and hard to imagine, but it’s true.

so, endeavor to run as frequently as possible without getting hurt (ie. search BarryP on this forum for his run plan), ride frequently and hard and never miss a Saturday ride with the group (ie., ride like a cyclist), and then swim hard, short, and fast with a Master’s program.

  1. Get a coach. Or a mentor. I’ll do it for free. PM me if your interested and I’ll build you a basic week that fits your lifestyle.
  2. Get a power meter (are you really poor?). Best cheap “powermeter” is mph on a indoor trainer… it’s consistent and repeatable, and some would say the workouts are higher quality than on the road.
  3. Modified training week, based on time not distance, with 5-6 runs a week, 3-4 bikes, 3-4 swims. Swim and run on the same day, bike on the off days with easy transition runs off the bike to keep up your run frequency.
  4. Yes join masters, now.
  5. Yes, join a run group and go to the track, now.
12

I want to dedicate 100% of my time to improve myself. Eating, sleeping, school, and training is all I really want/plan to do now.

I’m also 22, but I would highly suggest you reconsider this. Have some f’ing fun man! I just graduated in May, and looking back I really liked the way I did things. I partied my ass off in school, but at the same time once in a while I would give up a night of partying for a race or to train, not because I “had” to but because I wanted to. It worked out perfectly. I put down some pretty (what I would consider) respectable times while I was in school including a 4:29 HIM and a 10:24 IM, but more importantly I enjoyed every minute of college and made some friends that I’ll have for the rest of my life. It’s very possible to do both.

It’s easy to get way too caught up in all of this, so I would just say be careful. If you truly want to devote all your time to training, by all means, be my guest. But I would just be cautious about it. When you look back on school, what do you want to remember? The answer to that question is probably different for everyone, and that’s something you have to decide personally.

This guy is right. I’m 21 and in school. Have fun first. You are only in school for a few years-- you can do triathlon for the rest of your life if you want.

13

What I’ve struggled with during races is overpacing of the bike and screwing up nutrition. At least I think that is the reason why my runs always fall apart.

You say you are not using power, what are you using during racing/training? Heart Rate? RPE?

You should get a VO2 max test. That can give you a Heart Rate based training/racing plan and give you an outline for nutrition. Read this:
http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/10/fat-burners-and-sugar-burners.html

Where are you located? While you are at B2B try to find Greg Combs from VeloSmart and talk to him. He is a bike fitter that is rated very highly here on Slowtwitch, but he knows a lot more than just bike fit. He’s also racing B2B Half. You can learn more at www.velosmart.com. He’s helped me a TON.

Good Luck!
Alan

14

statement withdrawn.

15

Echoing what everyone else has said:

Ignore the bike for the whole winter. Ride 2-3 times a week, but work up to swimming 6x and running 5-6x a week. Make sure you spend a LOT of time on stroke work. Depending on your situation, have a coach tell you what to work on. I use the term coach loosely - it could be anything from your university’s tri team coach, to their swim coach, to the guy down the hall who’s been swimming for 15 years, to your personal coach. Either way, definitely use the same person each time.

You will be tired. A hard swim takes as much out of your body in 90 minutes as a hard ride takes out in three hours.

Running should be consistent. Don’t care about pace now. Consistent. Even if you have to run 9:00/mi because of yesterday and tomorrow, that’s fine until you get strong enough to run every day. Once you get there, you can bump volume back up.

16

And to specifically answer one of your questions - no you don’t need to do trackwork, you need to just run more. Given the discrepency between your training pace for runs and your race pace, what you’re lacking is endurance, not speed or speed endurance. The only way to improve that is by increasing frequency.

There have been a few threads on improving the run, here are some good things to read -

http://accelerate3.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/the-track-is-not-the-answer-part-1/

http://stevefleck.blogspot.com/2010/11/running-frequency.html

http://www.letsrun.com/2006/collegesuck.php

17

You need to add detail to your workouts besides time or distance. Just looking at your run discipline, you need speed work, tempo and aerobic runs. Each workout should be a specific training session; not simply running 6 miles. It should be something like 10-minute warm-up; 10 X 800m at 10k pace with 200m recovery; 10-minute warm-down.

You are off to a good start - now just add some meat to those bones.

–

18

everyone was fast there. like 8 min faster than normal. current. 26min was slow there.

19

Sounds like way to much on the bike for you. Im 24, i know how it feels to get out of the water raging and put to much at the start of the bike. That where your screwed. A powermeter may help (im training on power but havent raced with it), but only if you understand how to use the numbers to your advantage. Nice swim time, maybe its time to pull back a bit on that and focus on your bike/run bricks? Swimming fast is awesome but not at the cost of a solid overall race.

A 31:31 for an Olympic, and 36:xx for a HIM swim is not swimming fast. That put him 11 minutes down on the leader in his division at Rocketman, where even a 25:xx (Which still isn’t blazing speed) would have moved him from 19th out of the water to 3rd/4th out of the water. It’s fast by triathlete standards, but there is a lot still available there.

John

Augusta 70.3
Swim 25:43

I would bet that the Augusta swim was either with a current or short. His first two HIM’s were 36:54 and 33:02. That’s an average of 1:10ish for an IM length swim, and the Augusta one is at a pace of 51:xx.

John

20

everyone was fast there. like 8 min faster than normal. current. 26min was slow there.

ahhhhh, Noted. Seemed fast from prior times. i withdraw my previous statement :slight_smile: