I completed my first olympic tri in 2016. (had a fairly good outcome considering I am a mediocre swimmer…) and am completely hooked!!! Prior to that I have been a runner for 15years (10 half marathons, several 10k and 5k). I am signed up for 2 olympic tri’s in august and sept, I am seeking a intermediate 12week training plan (5 days a week). Any recommendations? (I need a schedule to plan out my weeks/months of training on a spreadsheet kinda thing…) Any help and suggestion are much appreciated! Thank you!
I suggest that you make up your own schedule.
Hi there! A half ironman plan should work ok… I’d reduce the bike and the run volume somewhat and try to hit the pool 4x a week. Oly distance training overweights the swim in my experience.
I can build one for you for free. It’s become a hobby that I do for friends. I’ve had some moderate success at Sprint/Olympic distances. (2:00:XX usually…) You can shoot me a PM, or we can discuss your needs/schedule here in the board.
(Caveat, for my training, I’m a subscriber to the swim heavy training style for Oly/Sprint… But I get it that this style doesn’t work for everybody.)
If I sound like a creeper, that’s fine. I recommend “Your Best Triathlon” by Joel Friel. He wrote Triathlete’s Training Bible, which is how I learned how to build my own plans and build plans for others.
First questions would be what your work and personal schedules are like? What kind of time do you have available on which days during the week? Also, what are your strengths and weaknesses? What were your splits for each discipline in your last race?
Are you looking for a free plan, a full plan to purchase or something you can customize or have customized for you ?
There are dozens of free “olympic triathlon training plans” available online if you do a google search for them. I’m guessing you’ve already done this type of a search and are looking for more advice.
With your running background and self-admission of a poor swim, I’d look for a plan taht either schedules or allows you to add extra swim sessions (at least 3 a week), and consider getting some one-on-one help in that area as well.
Aside from that, it’s tough to give you recommendations without knowing more about your training and what youre weaknesses might be. But in general, consistent training will allow you to make progress and have fun.
Since you’re a runner and a novice adult onset swimmer, I’d suggest swimming 4 Xs per week, biking to work, and running once a week.
The oly distance has a disproportionally large swim. Biking to work will give you cycgling training and get you to work.
Running is your forte, you’ll not need a lot of that.
Garmin has 1 that I used a couple of times. I had modest results with it.
Thank you! I would love some help.
I am a stay at home mom (I have around 3 hrs per day that I can fit in workouts, 2 hr in the morning and 1 around noon). Swimming, besides being my weakest, is also the one I like the least… I have been swimming around 2 x per week, averaging 2000 yards (doing drills, fast sessions, etc). 5 - 6 days a week of training would be ideal!
My strenght is running. (I am not a super fast runner, but average around 7:45-8min/miles. All my half marathons were around 1:45.
My last olympic tri I did 45mins in the water (horrible!) 1:24 on the bike and 50mins on the run.
Thank you
Annelies
Cool ok. So some more followup questions.
First, goals - Do you have any? Are you aiming for a certain overall time? If so, what time is that? Want to focus on one of the disciplines more or less than the others? Proper context here is important when developing a plan because that will determine “serious” you’ll want to take your training.
Second, more logistics. For the morning and midday sessions, are you restricted from doing any of the three sports?
Third, do you know what Trainerroad is? You probably do. But just checking.
Fourth, for swimming, is there a nearby masters team you can join?
Consider these: joining a Masters swim team, buying an indoor trainer and signing up for Trainer Road.
Then if you can squeeze in 8 hours per week:
MON - 1 hour Masters swim + Trainer Rd Intermediate Olympic Plan + 2-4 mile EZ run
TUE - 4 to 8 mile EZ run with 10x :30 sec strides at the end
WED - Masters swim + Trainer Rd Intermediate Olympic Plan + 2-4 mile EZ run
THUR - 4 to 8 mile EZ run with 10x :30 sec strides at the end
FRI - Masters swim + Trainer Rd Intermediate Olympic Plan + 2-4 mile EZ run
SAT - long run or functional exercises (optional)
SUN - Off, recovery
This is the simplest that has worked for me. If you are an overachiever you can add a 4th Masters workout and a 4th Trainer Road workout. Your Masters workouts hopefully would be 2800+ yds each. For running I’d start conservatively and slowly build up run mileage over the first few weeks. And once you build up some run volume you can consider doing tempo work 1 day per week. Every three weeks I’d scale back on the workouts as a recovery week. Trainer Road will build recovery in for you.
Hi Gantaliano,
Thank you. I want to beat my previous tri time (3:18). I prefer running and biking, but swimming is the weakness. I am just not sure if spending 4 x per week in a pool will improve my swimming without having a coach telling me how to improve. I can easily swim 2000 - 2500 yards and occasionally swim with out local Masters group (their times just don’t work well with my schedule)
I am not restricted to what sports I do when.
I looked trainerroad up. I have never used it. Will it really improve my bike (I have a road bike and a tri bike, the road bike I mainly have attached to a bike trainer I have in the basement. Which I use occasionally when weather is bad. But I mainly just aim at increasing my heart rate and time.
Thank you again!
Cool ok. So some more followup questions.
First, goals - Do you have any? Are you aiming for a certain overall time? If so, what time is that? Want to focus on one of the disciplines more or less than the others? Proper context here is important when developing a plan because that will determine “serious” you’ll want to take your training.
Second, more logistics. For the morning and midday sessions, are you restricted from doing any of the three sports?
Third, do you know what Trainerroad is? You probably do. But just checking.
Fourth, for swimming, is there a nearby masters team you can join?
Thank you Kentucky Mac
I am just looking for a more detailed plan. Listing the exact distances for the run, what swimming drills, etc
Maybe I am being lazy, but since I am new at this, I want to make sure I am getting the mileage and endurance build that is necessary.
- A
Alrighty, I think I have enough info to build a plan.
Agreed that not having a coach telling you how to improve may not help you much. However, the swim does seem to be the low-hanging fruit here. So perhaps you could ask one of the masters coaches to look at your stroke during a couple swim sessions that work better for you. Then take their pointers and apply them during your own sessions…? Also, if you have the ability to take video of your swimming, you can post it on here for people to critique. My wife coached me in the swim for a few years and helped me get from around 30 minutes to 20-21 minutes on the 1500. She’d be happy to offer pointers with a video.
As far as the other two are concerned, I think they are tied with each other in terms of speed. So the goal would simply be to become get a better bike/run combo. Trainerroad will help this, as will varying the styles of your runs. For olympic training, ideally, every bike is followed by some kind of run. Sometimes it’s fast and short. Sometimes fast and long. Sometimes easy. Regardless, you just want to get good at biking and THEN running.
Another piece of my training style that’s different than a lot of other triathletes is the intensity. The hard days should be HARD, and the easy days should be EASY. Also, I do TWO recovery days a week. Not one. I’ve always been at my fastest when I do this. Also, injecting a little bit of strength training is important and helps a ton.
So based on what I know about your schedule, here’s what I suggest.
- Get trainerroad and follow their intermediate Olympic Triathlon plan - but ONLY do the bike workouts. Ignore the rest of it. I’m a HUGE trainerroad fan, but through experience, I’ve found their triathlon plans favor the bike too much and don’t prepare one adequately for proper run and swim speed. However, the bike workouts in those plans are VERY challenging (be prepared to cry a little bit) and they will easily lead you to your best bike split.
- Get ready to run after every bike ride. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.
- Swim sessions are going to be very focused.
- The hard days will generally be double workouts.
Also, you need to determine what your “Race Pace” is for swimming and running. If you want to swim 37:30, then your race pace will be 2:30/100 meters. (It will be more like 2:10/2:15 if you swim yards.) For running, sounds like your race pace could be around 7:45. But if you want to be aggressive, you could bump it down to 7:35 or 7:40. Trainerroad will set your bike “pace” for you.
So here’s a proposed weekly schedule:
Monday AM: Swim TT. Warm up with SKIPS, 100 each (Swim, Kick, IM , Pull, Swim). Then do 4 x 50 Sprint with 20 seconds rest. Then do a time trial. (Rotate weekly through 3x500, 2x750, and 1x1500. So you’ll do a 1500 every 3 weeks.)
Mon Midday: Easy run 30-ish minutes. (Should be around 2 min/mi slower than race pace.) - As your fitness gets better, this workout will eventually become a long fartlek that will stretch to about an hour-ish. But this isn’t until later.
Tuesday AM: Bike Trainerroad Intermediate Plan + 3 mile Brick run. (You may need to start at 1.5 mile and build up to 3 as the weeks tick by. This run should be at RACE pace, or even a little bit faster.)
Tuesday Midday: Strength Training. Try to work the whole body evenly. Core, Legs, and Upper body.
Wednesday AM: 90 minutes to 2 hours of solid Yoga.
Wednesday Midday: A walk or SLOW/SHORT jog or SUPER easy spin on the bike.
Thursday AM: Bike Trainerroad Intermediate Olympic Plan + 1 mile MAXIMUM EFFORT run. This should be WAY faster than race pace. This should be simply be the FASTEST you can run 1 mile. Then give yourself plenty of cool down. Another mile at least.
Thursday Midday: Swim intervals 100’s. Warm up with varying swim/drill/kick/pull for around 500, then do 15x100, leaving on your race pace (RP) interval + 5 seconds. Eventually, this workout should transition to 5x100 on RP+10, 4x100 on RP+5, 3x100 on RP, 2x100 on RP-5, and finally 1x100 on RP-10. After a month or so of training, you should start trying to do this one and see how far you can get. If your race pace is accurate, you probably won’t make it for a while. But when you can’t make an interval, just go back to the last speed that you could make, and finish the workout at that speed.
Friday AM: Easy Bike + Easy Run. No more than 90 minutes total between the two. (And these need to be SUPER SUPER easy, otherwise, you’ll ruin yourself for Saturday.)
Friday Midday: Swim endurance: Just swim a ladder. 100,200,300,400,500,400,300,200,100. It’s 2500 and super simple. Don’t go fast. Don’t go slow. Just focus on proper form and breathing.
Saturday AM: Bike Trainerroad Intermediate Olympic Plan + Long Brick Run. This is where the rubber meets the road. Realistically, this run will eventually be 10k, and should start to get faster. The goal will be to pull it down to within about 10 to 15 seconds per mile of your goal race pace. But initially, you should probably start about a minute slower per mile, and only run about 30 minutes. This whole workout will likely be so taxing that you shouldn’t do any other training for the rest of the day.
You see how each day and each workout has a purpose? It’s not just getting out for the sake of training or running or whatever. It all has a reason behind it.
I know I didn’t include tapering, but we can discuss that at a later time. This plan will successfully help you build endurance, strength, and speed to a peak. But tapering is a different ball game.
If I’ve said anything that you don’t understand, I’d be happy to clarify. Also, if there’s something that doesn’t work for your schedule, I can readjust.
Thank you Gataliano!
Thank you for being so detailed. I will definitely give it a go next week and give you feedback!
How do you film your swim? With a iphone water proof cover?
My local master’s group is great and I should definitely take more advantage of it!
- A
There are variety of waterproof camera options out there. There water proof phone cases built for underwater stuff. There are underwater point and shoots. I currently use a goPro Hero 4.
Good luck and happy to help!
I’m glad i stumbled upon this post, because I am training for my first triathlon, and the advice given here has been very valuable.
If i can, i would like to piggy back off this question and ask a follow up:
when training for the swim, is it more useful to train by keeping the head above the water, as to look ahead the whole time, or to maintain my head down?
Hi TrijerryTri,
Definitely with your head down. (Normal swim). I recently did a workshop with an ex-tri pro and she taught us how to do sighting during the swim (here is some more info).
http://www.triathlete.com/2015/12/training/9-secrets-to-proper-open-water-sighting_46124
She also made us practice polo swimming, and that is now part of my swim drills.
Good luck!
- Annelies
I’m glad i stumbled upon this post, because I am training for my first triathlon, and the advice given here has been very valuable.
If i can, i would like to piggy back off this question and ask a follow up:
when training for the swim, is it more useful to train by keeping the head above the water, as to look ahead the whole time, or to maintain my head down?Hi
Alrighty, I think I have enough info to build a plan.
Another piece of my training style that’s different than a lot of other triathletes is the intensity. The hard days should be HARD, and the easy days should be EASY. Also, I do TWO recovery days a week. Not one. I’ve always been at my fastest when I do this. Also, injecting a little bit of strength training is important and helps a ton.
There’s a lot of evidence the says riding in high zone 3 works really well too.