Dev really got me thinking about his training “plan” this past year. He pretty much just f$#in trains. From my understanding he bikes when he can (commute), skiis all the time and runs with no specific plan. I can remember in my younger years I use to do the same and I was much more eager to not only train but I was much more prepared for races.
I guess my real question is if someone just wanted to train by utlizing this type of method (instead of a pre-determined spreadsheet/plan) what would be the best advice you could give them?
And I fully understand that Dev has MANY years of tri’s under his belt so he doesn’t really need the type of aerobic base work some of us might need. I am just curious to know if there are people out there who just go out and train just by cycling, running and swimming or whatever whenever they want. If they want to go hard in a given day, they do, if they don’t they take it easy but still just go.
Yup, that’s me. Stubborn to feel glued to a plan, and I probably will never get too much faster, but it feels like fun doing it this way and I am more likely to never feel burned out.
I can understand that a certain amount of structure is good and for someone just starting out is probably an important part of learning how to train, however, I think I wouldn’t mind trying something different.
Marcus, I do the JFT approach, and I don’t have a “day to day plan”. I can’t tell you want I will be doing on Jan 15th or Jun 6th. What I can tell you is that in Jan, I will try to do a long XC ski every weekend and some hard stuff mid week. I’ll also try and run 3 times per week whenever possible.
At a high level I have a simple month to month plan with different things to focus on:
Oct Nov: take is easy do whatever I want when I want less than 4-10 hours per week. Do some roller skiing once per week, maybe twice. Typically no more swimming (I hate pools so I want a mental break)
Dec: Try and average 15 hours per week of aerobic activity and weights. It can be XC skiing, running, riding, whatever. Just work the engine
Jan - Mar : Ski ski ski. One long ski per week (3-5 hours), intervals/TT mid week if not racing. Run 3x per week easy. Around 12-15 hours per week. Minimal indoor biking unless it is minus 25 outside to ensure that I have mental break from biking.
April: Swim bike and run less than 10 hours per week (transition over to tri training).
May: Bike-Bike-Bike. Bike long every weekend, bike hard on Wed. Fill around the biking with 3 runs per week and some swimming (18-24 hours per week).
Jun: Epicman-Muskoka-Tupper Lake-Irontour. Train high volume on non race weeks (20-25 hrs), train 15 hours on race weeks (including races). Try to run 3x per week. The rest is filler. Bike commuting, river swims etc.
Jul: Ease off for Ironman LP, ramping down to 15 hours per week. Maintain intensity and race specificity. No long bikes or runs 21 days from race. Taper
Aug - Sep: JFT and do whatever races I can leveraging fitness built through year.
I have to agree with you. IMHO, just find a basic week that you can realistically follow and repeat over. Adjust volume and/or intensity depending on the time of year and type of race you’re doing. Suppliement with some mega weeks and single sport specific periods.
What I think is unique about Dev’s approach is that like he says he doesn’t even really start “tri” training until the spring when all the snow is gone so his body never really gets a chance to get use to one activity and thus become complacent or stagnant. I know personally some of the cookie cutter plans I have followed are pretty much the same week in and week out in terms of the types of activities you are doing. The intensities and volume changes but I have found I get bored of that fairly quickly and usually find it easier to not get excited about working out.
There is something to this method and Dev has clearly shown. I gotta get back into Xcountry skiing
M~
I also adhere to this type of plan, or lack thereof.
There is a certain freedom to it. I never feel tied down by a schedule.
The downside for me and possibly others is that since I like to participate in workouts with singlesport individuals, it can easily lead to overtraining as my comrades are always pushing themselve hard, never worring about next morning’s swim or tomorrow evenings group ride like I do sometimes.
You need to be very intune with your body and know when you are becoming too fatigued. It’s alot of trial and error.
I also don’t touch my bike or swim once from September through March (for xc ski racing season) so when tri training season comes around I’m excited to hit the ‘new’ sports once again. Every year leaves me refreshed and anxious. You’ve got it nailed down.
Don’t be fooled by Dev’s seeming lack of a plan…he’s got a pretty solid framework going on…he just doesn’t hang out in the weeds…there’s a plan there and its less “spontaneous” than it sounds…
Well, everyone’s different. IM traing would be unbearable for me. I am very competitive but I don’t have the long distance gene (thank God!). I train for 7-8 5k-10k races, one duathlon and 3-4 sprint tris each summer. My main goal is to place in my age group, which I do 95% of the time (especially since I turned 50).
I don’t want to train more than 8-10 hours a week. I average about 25-30 miles running, 50 miles biking and 1 1/4 miles swimming each week. All of my training is tempo training. I don’t do any “easy workouts” for fear that my brain may wise up and want to go at that pace all of the time. My workouts don’t follow a set regime. I just mix it up as I go. Works for me.
Brian is correct. It is more of a macro plan with a focus month by month. But what I do on a given day is determined by a number of factors including:
How much fun a workout is
What my buddies are doing (do I get them to join me, or do I join their workout)
Weather
What my family is doing
What I have to do for work (ie travel, or be at work early and miss my usual morning training session)
Is it minus 25 outside (oh yeah…already covered weather)
My transportation needs (ie can I bike or run to where I need to go)
I like the flexibility and it keeps me fresh and in the sport. Its my 21st season racing tris and I’m pretty well motivated for all workouts in a year. If not, I skip, change, modify or add (usually I end up adding more training than I need…)
Finally Markus, don’t read into the winter section that I am not doing tri training. I keep running 3x per week all year to ensure I don’t lose the specificity of running. It is hard to fake running. There is no substitute for running miles. I can fake bike and swim training by skate skiing. In fact, I am usually fastest in the water in early May when I have lots of extra cosmetic bulk from XC skiing and I can grind through the water (ie I severely lack swim technique, so I compensate with muscle). By mid May, my bike times are not that far off mid summer peak. Skate skiiing transfers to biking very quickly.
I’m not the only dude on this type of plan. Pierre Lavoie, 3rd overall at Ironman LP does zero swimmming , biking and running from the week after Hawaii to April 1st. The man is an XC skiiing machine in the winter. That is all he does. He won the 40-44 last year in Hawaii. A few years ago, off 7 weeks of tri training after XC ski season he finished top 5 at both Lanzarote and Brazil !
i train the exact same way. the only plan I write out is
Base 1, base 2, Base 3, build 1, build 2, taper, race.
i work on a 4 week cycle with a rest week in week 4.
On a day to day basis I never really know what I’m doing until I get up in the morning and decide then what I think I need to train the most. It makes it difficult to train with ohter people on a regular basis so I’ll just committ to meeting up with a group 1pw for a ride on sat morning.
Ive been doing this for 6months now and it has worked great for me. On average I’ll run 6pw and ride 4-5 pw. not swimming at the moment because its my strength.
Even though I train this way when I look back at my training logs, there still is a natural increase in volume and intensity on a regular basis. Ie base 2 was wk1= 13hr, wk2= 16hrs, wk3= 18.5hrs, wk4= 6hrs.
I train purely by feel. For example, I think I go for a 2hr run this afternoon. If I’m feeling awseome I’ll insert some IM efforts if not I’ll keep it easy to Aet.
yesterday I rode for 2hrs, with the idea of keeping it at aet. I felt great so I inserted two 20min TT at HIMpace. it turned out to be a BT session for me.
At this stage I have no idea what I’ll do tomorrow other then that I think I’ll go for a ride. What I’ll do will depend on how I recover from todays long run.
every 6-8wks I’ll do a 10km TT run and a series of 40min TT on the bike to test my fitness. Thats about as structured as it gets until I hit Build phase. Then I’ll really focus on TTing as much as I can at MSS.
cheers
Fluro
P.S I’m in base 3 at the moment as I’m from OZ.
I never have a long term plan all drawn up. I swim with a group 3 times a week so that schedules my swim times. I try and do a long ride/short run combo on Saturday followed by a short ride/long run combo on Sunday. During the week I do 1 speed or hill workout for running and 1 speed or hill ride on the bike. If I feel good then I’ll throw in some tempo now and then. If I have people to run or ride with then I adjust and I also have to adjust for family considerations. I used to keep a detailed training log and being the obsessive-compulsive nut that I am it would stress me big time if I wasn’t able to follow it exactly. Now that I’m older (more matrue and sensible is still questionable) I just go with the flow and count weekly hours. As long as I am in a certain range based on the time of year then its all good. I have no idea at all what my power output in zone 2 is and after 27 years as a runner/triathlete I don’t think that it would make much difference to me when I train or race
Allan…you are a 400W Zone 1 guy. I know it just by looking at you :-). Good luck in Ktown this weekend and see you in Ottawa on Sep 4th for the half Ironman. Remember 4:19.xx or you are a poser
