Triathlon training for real people: 10 helpful hints

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2001

So you want to be a triathlete. Maybe even you want to train for the big one—an Ironman. Great. Get on with it.

There’s a problem, you say? How the heck do you get the training in? You have a family, a job, friends, community obligations. You really to want to see your kids’ soccer games and maybe even help coach. There’s your favorite television program. Your spouse likes to play bridge and prefers you as a partner. And you don’t really want triathlon to get between you and your marriage.

Never fear, with planning, dedication, flexibility, a willingness to compete somewhat undertrained, and, most of all, a sense of humor, you can be a triathlete and even compete in an Ironman. (Notice that I did not necessarily say that you could win your age group at Hawaii.)

Here are 10 helpful hints that have helped this triathlete—and may help you—have a life and be an Ironman triathlete, too.

1. Schedule your workout on the calendar and in your training log.

If you leave the training to “left over time,” you will never get it in. If your schedule is like mine, little time is unstructured, and the time that is unstructured is often used to “veg out.” Conversely, if you train without planning, you will inevitably be out swimming, biking or running when you should be with the kids or going into work early to prepare for a big meeting.

Good time management says that you should put your workouts on the calendar (or in your date book or on your Palm) just as you do other important commitments. If it’s on the schedule, it’s “official.” If it’s on the schedule, other people are more likely to respect your commitment and help you achieve it.

Also, I find that putting my planned week in my training log beforehand leads me to want to “follow my schedule” and complete my training log for the planned workouts. It’s human nature to want to “check it off” as done and to describe what you have achieved. If you keep a log and put in your scheduled workouts, you’ll want to follow through.

2. Create a yearly—flexible--training plan.

Planning the year—how much in each sport, each week, and even down to scheduling on which days each workout will occur--may or may not be compulsive. My spouse and I disagree on this issue. But I find it very motivating to see what I need to do to be ready for Ironman and intermediate races, and how my build-up needs to occur. Knowing I’m moving along on a progressive training schedule keeps me engaged and focused on my training.

Plus, a yearly schedule always shows me what’s ahead. When I can’t do a workout as planned, I can look ahead and see where I can get it in in the future or how I can adjust a future session to partly compensate. (But be careful. You can only “adjust” a schedule so much and still get yourself trained to the point where you are ready to race. Too much “adjustment” and you may have to modify your expectations or goals.)

How to create or where to get a year-long training schedule is an issue I won’t cover here. Suffice it to say, a good plan requires consulting a coach, books by qualified people or appropriate training software, and tailoring the plan to your capabilities and situation.

3. Train with buddies, clubs and teams.

I find training with others more interesting. Also, I progress more when I work out with others. These factors alone make it a higher priority to get to workouts planned with others than alone.

Training with others is also very helpful for the time-stressed triathlete because if you miss the workout with your pal or with the club, you are letting the pal or the group down, to some extent. I find myself more likely to go out of my way to make a planned run with my buddy Rich and to make Jim Spivey Running Club workouts than I do to get in a run or a ride that I plan to do alone. Also, others tend to try to honor and help you meet commitments that they know you have to a running partner or a club.

4. Be prepared to have more off days and more very heavy days than might be ideal.

“Train while the training’s good.” Expect to do more bricks (back-to-back bike-run workouts) than your schedule might call for. Or swim-run or other back-to-back variants. And to do two workouts a day separated by work or family events.

When work or the family calls at a time when you expected to train, most often job or spouse should rule. That means that you will have unplanned off days. And, that means that you will have to have more multi-workout days than planned and than may be ideal. But, hey, we aren’t talking about the ideal here. We are “getting real.”

Just be careful that you don’t pile up too much in one day or two days back-to-back. A killer weekend of workouts can be just that—a killer for both body and attitude.

5. Find all the training “slots” in a day: Befriend the dawn and the moon.

Try this exercise. Look at your typical week and look for training “slots”—that is, times when you can slip in workouts.

The way I look at it, I potentially have 34 training slots in week. On weekdays/workdays: early morning, noontime, early evening and later in the evening. On weekends: early morning, later in the morning, mid-day, early afternoon, late afternoon, early evening and later in the evening.

Of course, I can’t use many of these slots in a week, because they are filled with other commitments. And those that are available may not work because one can only do so many workouts back-to-back or in a day.

Nonetheless, going through this exercise opened my eyes. It’s now much harder to say that because of the morning meeting I can’t get my workout in. There’s always the 10 p.m. slot for the track workout!

6. Make the most of your weekends.

Most “real” triathletes live for weekends. That’s when other commitments abate somewhat and when larger time blocks become available.

For those long runs and rides, use the weekend. In my case, Saturday a.m. is usually a quality medium-length mile running workout with my buddy and Saturday p.m. usually involves a longer ride. Sunday is often brick day—an intermediate-length ride and a long run. Inevitably, well over 50% of the week’s training occurs over those two precious days.

7. Find nearby places to train, and always be ready to train.

Convenience is the objective when finding training venues. If the run course or ride course begins at your front door, that’s ideal. If the pool and club with treadmills is on the way to and from work, that will make it easiest to make the masters’ swim workout early in the morning and slip in the before- and after-work sessions. If you put your bike trainer on the back porch, as I do, you can hop on any time.

I have found from long experience that the “inverse square rule” applies to workout venues. If the training site is twice as far away, I’m four times less likely to get there to train.

Yes, I love obscure, wild, remote and different bike and run courses. And open water swimming (weather allowing) is what I really enjoy. But I settle for runs from home to the local lake, rides from home to the top of the hill past the county building, and swims in the local club pool because I know I can get these in. I save the treks for the weekends.

Also, I always try to have training equipment in my car—workout clothes, spare running shoes, wetsuit, etc. I sometimes drive around for weeks with my bike in my car. That way, if I happen to get out of an afternoon meeting early, I can find a nearby training site and go to it. In the summer I am sometimes able to slip in unplanned long open water swims in Lake Michigan when meetings in downtown Chicago end earlier than 5 p.m.

8. Go on a “training retreat” four to six weeks before “the big one.”

This is a Dave Scott technique. Plan an intense period focused on training to end your heavy training before you taper. Maybe you can’t devote a full week away from work and family to bounding around in the mountains, but maybe you can get away for three days to a hillier area and focus on the last big rides and runs.

In my case, the family is planted at the beach in July. I travel back and forth from home to work to the beach through the month. As the month progresses, I schedule some days off when I spend most of the daytime swimming, riding and running while the family sleeps, sun bathes and shops. We meet in transition and for cocktails and dinner. Everybody’s happy!

9. Get your family engaged in your quest—but don’t expect them to become obsessed along with you.

Try to engage family members in the parts of triathlon that they might enjoy. They will be more supportive of your training if they have a taste of what it is all about.

For some triathletes, spouses and children become training partners and fellow triathletes. That may be ideal. In my case, my daughter and I shared sports as an interest as she grew up so she has naturally been supportive. She even “ran me in” on a Mrs. T’s finish. On the other hand, my spouse has no interest in competing or even working out, but she thinks the guys in Speedos are attractive and likes to travel to race locations that are choice, such as the Sonoma Valley, the site of Vineman, where the wine tasting is excellent. Once she experienced the excitement and extraordinary achievement at Ironman Canada, she wanted to go back and volunteer. Now she’s much more likely to “kick me out the door” to train, because she understands better what I’m trying to achieve.

10. Train for the long haul.

Above all, understand that triathlon is a lifestyle. I may have immediate objectives and today’s workout might be important, but what’s more important is that I keep my training and objectives in perspective.

Completing the training and competing in the big race doesn’t mean much if I have alienated people I care about and not fulfilled my obligations as a parent, spouse, manager, etc.

Triathlon is all about testing oneself against big challenges and unknown limits. It’s about health and extreme fitness. It’s about growth. It’s positive, not negative.

Thus, when training becomes truly obsessive, and ultimately self-destructive, it negates the very value of being a triathlete.

So, set your goals, plan the training and get it in as you can, but don’t be too upset if you wind up not doing it all. You are having a life while you are training and you can compete even when undertrained. In my case, I now finish at or above mid-age group in many races, even when my training hours a very low by “official” standards. And I know other triathletes who are even more woefully undertrained and yet enjoy Ironman racing.

Take the long view. If you are a triathlete for life, there’s always next year. That’s when you can add more training hours and prepare yourself just that much more for the big race. It’s probably a measure of how little I used to train compared to what I now am able to fit in, but in my 50s I’m setting triathlon and running personal best times.

If you start slow like I did, you can improve over a lifetime, too!