This weeks question concerns training totals. I come from a running back ground, so I feel I have that under control. But as to how much time or distance I should put into swimming and cycling I am kind of at a lost.
Here are my details, 39 yr old male, good physical condition, I have done one sprint, one Oly, and one 1/2 iron duathlon. This year I am doing Tris. My available training time consists of about 3 hrs a day 5 days a week. During the week, I work a second job all day sat/sun unless it’s a race day. I know my sprint,oly,1/2 schedule from last year is a little weird (newbieitis) but I really enjoyed the 1/2 iron and am mainly training for this distance. I have two scheduled for Aug with the Buckeye Challenge as my A race.
The question is how much swim distance, cycle distance should I look at putting in? My projected run total is 25-30 miles per week.
Given that you don’t have a swimming background, I would suggest that you spend a disproportionate amount of time working on your swim, esp. focussing on technique work. Once you get good stroke mechanics down, you’ll find that over the years you’ll be able to get away with less in the pool, and shift that training time to the bike, which is where you’ll need to spend the most time training in the long term.
My suggestion, start out doing equal measures swim / bike / run training time, for this year anyway. Next year, do some big swim work in the offseason, then adjust to around 20% swim / 50% bike / 30% run as the season approaches.
The bike is the most important, as your bike fitness in large part dictates to what % of your potential you’ll be able to run at.
Look at Dan’s beginning training articles, specifically the week 6 article about his point system. Basically, you assign a point for every 100m swimming, a point for every mile biking and a point for every 400m running (or 4 points for every mile). You don’t have to be perfectly equal in all 3 disciplines, but it’s a good place to start or shoot for.
If you are running 30 miles a week, that’s 120 points, so shoot for around 120 miles on the bike, and 12,000 m in the pool. You could probably do 2 x 20m bike workouts during the week. I’d try to make them hill or interval work, possibly on the trainer. Then shoot for a 80 mile long ride. 3 x 4000m in the pool, or 4 x 3000m in the pool, would get your swimming points in.
Not being able to train on the weekends is going to make your scheduling tough.
Hard Bike & Run on Mon and Wed, take enough time between to recover
Swim Tues and before/after your long bike/run on Thurs and Fri
Long bike on Thurs
Long run on Fri
You’ll be well rested for you hard workouts on Mondays, so hit those hard. Tuesday’s swim might be a bit of recovery. The only thing your missing is rest after your hard workouts on Wednesday before your long ride on Thursday. You can swim before or after your long stuff, depending on how you feel.
Hope this helps. One thing I’ve learned is that you should know how and why you are doing a particular workout, BEFORE you head out the door.