Does anyone throw a personal Tri into their training? I work a lot of weekends and don’t get to race as often as I would like too, So I thought I would schedule a few training days where I would go through all three sports in one workout. I would probably base it around my long bike for the week and would swim and run a little under my goal race pace and distance so I don’t kill myself. What do you STers think about that? Any suggestions or tips?
I did an olympic for this very reason (not able to do real competitions) together with a friend of similar performance.
We took it fairly easy on the swim, bike and transitions and stayed together until half the run, where the gloves came off and we competed for real. It was a lof of fun, and a good way to test some things for competition.
I do these quite regularly, especially early in the season. Once the season rolls around and I start racing, I don’t do as many. I live in a neighborhood that contains three lakes and a 5-mile main loop that intersects the lakes. It makes for a very nice course. I don’t do a lot of long workouts this way since I mainly do short course races. When I do one of these, I swim for about 10 minutes, ride 10-15 miles then run a 5K. In March and April, I did these on Friday afternoons. Now, it’s so hot, I have to find a morning (or go very late in the afternoon). Most of my best race performances have come when I’ve included a steady diet of weekly training triathlons around the lake.
I have done a bunch of these. It started out as a HIM around Thanksgiving every year about 4 years ago. Then in 2007 I did my first NothingMan (self-supported IM). In spring of 2008, I did consecutive days of sprints, Olys and HIM’s to prepare for Triple T. In 4 weeks I’m attempting sprint/Oly/HIM/IM (1 per day) to do double IM distance over 4 days.
For any race distance up to HIM, I’d highly recommend it. Might as well cover the entire thing in training to experiment with pacing, nutrition, recovery, etc. Doesn’t cost much, you learn to push yourself without people cheering for you, it can strengthen your HTFU.