Triathlon Training Program + Recreational Sports League

Triathlon Forum
1

Hey Everyone -

First time poster here. I’m currently training for my second tri (Escape from Alca) while also participating in two recreational volleyball leagues on the side. I’m looking for advice for how/if people can cram in yet another sport into their training schedule. Right now my week (roughly) looks like the following:

Monday: Swim + Core
Tuesday: Lunch Run + Volleyball
Wednesday: Morning Bike + Night volleyball
Thursday: Lunch Run
Friday: Off
Saturday: Long Run + Short Bike
Sunday: Long Bike + Short Run

For only my second triathlon, I can absolutely feel myself getting addicted! I’d love to understand how to better balance another sport, or just some general training advice as I add on more than one tri per season (considering adding on a half ironman aqua bike and an another olympic tri in a few months).

Thanks in advance!

2

Hey Everyone -

First time poster here. I’m currently training for my second tri (Escape from Alca) while also participating in two recreationally volleyball leagues on the side. I’m looking for advice for how/if people can cram in yet another sport into their training schedule. Right now my week (roughly) looks like the following:

Monday: Swim + Core
Tuesday: Lunch Run + Volleyball
Wednesday: Morning Bike + Night volleyball
Thursday: Lunch Run
Friday: Off
Saturday: Long Run + Short Bike
Sunday: Long Bike + Short Run

For only my second triathlon, I can absolutely feel myself getting addicted! I’d love to understand how to better balance another sport, or just some general training advice as I add on more than one tri per season (considering adding on a half ironman aqua bike and an another olympic tri in a few months).

Thanks in advance!

Stop doing Core and train on Friday, unless of course you have to have that day off for reasons other than recovery.

When I was playing hockey I skated on Wednesday morning, Friday morning and Saturday night in addition to 3 workouts in each sport. You can’t expect to do more since there is only so much time in a day. If you can run at lunch more that would help free up time.

Unless you are already a swimmer you going to need to be in the pool some more.

And not to be nit-picky…but it’s Triathlon and not “Triathalon”

jaretj

3

Cramming? Good grief man… your only working out twice a day 5 days a week and 2 of those are bricks. What are you doing in the mornings and evenings most days? I estimate maybe 12 hours including volleyball. Not bad, but far from a packed schedule.

  1. Swim on Friday
  2. Add a run on Monday
  3. Add a bike on Tuesday (get a headlight and/or trainer)
  4. Add a bike on Thursday
  5. Drop the core on Monday and Bike then too
  6. Add a swim on Thursday
  7. Bike on Tuesday instead of running. IMO, volleyball counts as a “run”.
  8. Short run on Friday.

Feel free to add as many or as few as you like.

You “balance” 3 sports by doing lots of shorter sessions during the week and just a couple key longer workouts on weekends. The 4th sport is not a big deal because again, I’d consider it like a run, though a lot less time effective in terms of cardio, though it adds some very good plyometric type jumping, but at the risk of injury.

4

My mornings are usually when my swim work outs occur as I’m trying to swim open water 2-3 times a week if at all possible (just realized I left off Thursday AM Swim on my original chart).

I guess the biggest thing for me to grasp here is that most days should involve at least two work outs although it sounds like they can be at least slightly on the shorter side. With that I’m going to try to aim for the following:

Monday: Swim / Bike
Tuesday: Swim / Run / Volleyball
Wednesday: Bike / Volleyball
Thursday: Run / Bike
Friday: Swim / Run
Saturday: Brick - Bike / Run
Sunday: Brick - Bike / Run

Really appreciate all the feedback.

5

At first glance it looks like a lot of work but I think you have it covered well.

If you were going to put in a high quality run day I would make it friday.

A high quality bike day could go in a sunday or monday

jaretj

6

I would just do your normal training and not worry about how the volleyball fits into training, its not like its incredibly taxing.

7

Could you elaborate a bit further on what you mean by a “higher quality” run? I assume this mean’s increasing the distance but just wanted to be sure.

As for the higher quality ride my Sunday Brick usually included a long ride of 40+ miles so hopefully that should cover.

Thanks jaretj

8

A lot of people will use two harder runs per week and then a few easier ones.

Those two run are the quality runs. They can be anything from a long run to a tempo interval run to a track workout.

For example…I run 7 days a week. On Sunday I normally do my longer run and sometimes with shorter tempo intervals in it. On Wednesday I do another type of higher quality run, lately it has been in the form of hard hill intervals but in the past it has been 40 minutes worth of tempo intervals.

In order to get the most out of those days I need enough energy to complete them as scheduled so all of my other runs are easier and shorter.

I also try not to put a high quality bike day in front of a high quality run day but sometimes it happens just so I can get all of the workouts done.