Seeing a cartoon that someone posted up yesterday made me think… ‘that’s pretty much me’ except I don’t do triathalons.

It also made me think it’s time to push on and get properly fit… so, where’s the best place to look for advice and training plans? Any triathletes on here care to share their own training routines?

Ta.

http://www.tritalk.co.uk is a good place. http://www.slowtwitch.com also.

you tube for swimming technique videos (swim smooth, total immersion)

I dont have a plan at the moment, I just do what I fancy, trying to swim 3x per week and alternating run & bike sessions.

I’m in the same boat looing to do my first tri in early summer. Was propably going to do a couple of local sprints, to get a taste. Then a couple of full distances later in the year to set me up for doing London next year

Cheers CP… what sort of distances are you aiming for… especially with the swimming training.
There’re a couple of tri guys and girls that got to the pool I go to and I can keep up with them for a couple of their sets. But they only need to rest fot 30 secs before cracking on…

Yeti, don’t start small, aim for full IM. I expect nothing less from you!

Pay a coach?

How about we get a STW club together to do the Ben Nevis tri in September?

<iDave to the forum> I’m going to put some money in your account…

DirtyG – Is there not an Ultra-Iron Man??

I’m serious about the Ben Tri btw.

moglrips – As of yet… I don’t have a bike, but I’m doing LEJOG in a couple of months so could get one for that instead of riding a slick tired hardtail.

Also riding the TP at the end of Speptember.

training depends on what distance you want to do…

Super Sprint
Sprint
Olympic/standard
Middle distance (also referred to as half ironman)
Long distance (also referred to as ironman)

(ironman is just the brand which runs some races of those distances)

I mainly do Olympic distance, though may do a half at the end of the year.

Swim training is mixed, some sessions I’ll do upto 2.5km probably, others are more like 1km total distance. Vary it between steady swimming (once a week tops probably) and the rest as intervals to increase speed & speed endurance. You’ll generally find that the ability to swim longer at a steady pace comes with increasing the amount of reps & diatance per rep when doing intervals rather than needing to do lots of steady long swimming.

There’s some good books, Joe Friels ‘Triathletes training bible’ is a great place to start!

EDIT – and swimming is all about technique. Get that right and strength in the right places will come. Get it wrong and you’ll get strong arms but you wont go very quickly… get it right and you;ll get strong shoulders and glide along nicely at a surpsing speed with minimal effort. Always worth getting lessons for technique early on as it has such an impact. either through a tri club or from lessons at your local pool

The Ben Nevis tri is off-road. And somewhat epic.

The Ben Nevis tri is off-road. And somewhat epic

Interesting… very interesting… and a full 2 weeks before the TP… hmmmm…

Cheers for the tips CP. Only really started swimming freestyle this year using a total immersion DVD. Think a couple of lessons are now in order… I’ve developed a habit of swallowing air.

What’s the TP?

Trans Provence… 7 day biking thing in Southern Alps… see STW issue 62 I think.

Oh I see 🙂 Well then the Ben Tri will be good training 🙂

Swim a bit, bike alot, run a bit. When its raining go swimming.

Hi, I’m a Triathlete, British Triathlon Coach and Coach Educator and would recommend you find a local tri club whose members and coaching staff will be very happy to help you. In addition there are some great websites (listed above) and magazines (220 etc.)
A personal coach will help you tremendously and help prevent you making lots of the early mistakes people generally make when embarking on something new and will also help you to progress your fitness, technical skills and ensure you have a bike that fits you.
If you have and questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Alot of whats talked on here about training is bollox and it will only make you mentally fit rather than physically i.e. In your head you’ll think your fit because you’ve been following some fancy “tritalk” training plan.

But really your body will be in a poor state.

The best thing I did for my triathlon fitness was putting up dry stone walls on the local farms near where I live. Alot of them didnt have stone on site so I had to fetch it myself. I’d run up the fells gathering stones in rucksacks and then deposit them on the shores of Consiton. I didnt have a boat, so I used to swim across the lake with the rucksacks on my back. This builds real strength.

Also, make sure you get lots of real, natural protein. Dont be fooled into buying suppliments. I used to eat whatever I could find, quite often a raw squirrel or two.

TSY, will fire you an email later – I owe you some free advice anyway

anyone else can go here 😉

I started doing Tri’s a few years ago to give me some motivation to get a bit fitter.

First thing is to set yourself a goal – not easy but realistic.
Without a goal no coach can set you a plan and it needs to come from yourself, and be something you can fit into your life.

Some people want to just complete an Olympic distance, some a sprint – don’t try an IM – not without doing something shorter first to sort out your technique.

Personally I’ve been trying to do Sprints and aiming to get my time down. First sprint I did I set a time of 1hr30 to get about halfway in my age group. 3yrs on I’ve brought that down to 1hr10 and any other improvements are going to be difficult and require more training time than I can probably commit to.

Not sure what my next challenge is going to be – probably a move up to Olympic – but I’d want to do it in a competitive(ish) time rather than just get round. But without a goal it’s hard to train properly.

iDave – thank you!

David – genius! The dry stone walling technique is much underrated, but really we shouldn’t share this pearl of wisdom with others! You’re slacking though… I’ve started putting the rocks in water filled drybags and strapping them to my ankles, I find this creates an extra emphasis on the kick during the swim. It goes against the grain for traditional tri-thought but nobody ever one anything by following the crowd.

iDave ygm.

I’ve started putting the rocks in water filled drybags and strapping them to my ankles, I find this creates an extra emphasis on the kick during the swim. It goes against the grain for traditional tri-thought but nobody ever one anything by following the crowd.

I’ll give this little trick ago next time Im working.

You may never hear from me again.

God look at my typing WON anything damnit, WON!

davidtaylforth is Erwan le Corre and I claim €5 (he’s also talking a lot of sense)

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKGF-ErsJiI[/video]