Question:
I have been very interested in doing
a triathlon for the past 3 years.
I have finally decided this is the
year and I am looking for some training
tips. I am an avid runner and mountain
biker, however I lack extremely
in the swimming area. Does anyone
have good training advice, tips,
anything? that could help me. I
currently run 5 days a week, and
bike 4 days a week. I also lift
weights 5 days a week.
Answer:
Drop a couple of your running days
for swimming, or if you also have
running goals, drop those weight
sessions. You don't need to put
in a lot of time on the swim to
start - on a sprint the difference
between a great swimmer and a mediocre
one is 4 minutes. For doing tris
versus trying to win them or set
PRs, you just need to able to comfortably
cover the distance in open water.
Later you can build on the speed.
Since most of the course is running
or biking, focus more time there.
I think many
here would question 5 days of weight
training - when is your body ever
going to get rest time to build
muscle tissue? A lot of the debate
here has centered on doing any at
all. With
your training base, as soon as you
can do the swim leg, you're ready
to race.
As far as
triathlon distance swimming goes,
the most important things are technique
and sustainable upper body power.
For me, using the TI drills as suggested
by others have been useful for improving
technique, although I disagree with
their overall philosophy of training
which emphasizes mostly low-intensity
drills and low yardage. I've found
that once I developed a reasonable
technique, the best way
to improve times is swim as much
as I find time for. My usual swim
session, which I do twice a week,
is about 2 hours with 1000 yds warmup,
~8 x 200 with 20 second rests, ~8
x 200 with some combination of pull-buoy
and paddles, sometimes an all-out
400 or 1000, and sometimes some
shorter all-out sprints (50 - 200
yds.). This usually adds up to about
5200 yds over the 2-hour session.
In training,
the biggest problem you'll face
is that is that the while the swim
is usually only a small fraction
of total race time, training to
anywhere near peak condition for
it is very time consuming, thus
will cost you training time on the
other two events. Thus, if you're
looking to enter a triathlon in
the spring, I would start swimming
now, uming you won't be biking and
running as much over the next few
months of winter.
