New Member! few questions

Training
1

Hello all so i will get to the point, im 36 dad of 2 young ones, and after doing blenheim last year as my first and only event i decided to focus on family until this year as baby was only young. Flash forward and shes now nearly a year old so i have a litle more time and sleep :).

I trained for the sprint and Blenheim for around 18 weeks and had no real plan i just tried to ride 2-3 times and run 2-3 times, swim 1-2 a week. I managed to do it in 1 hour 36, 6mins off my target.

Anyway all training went out of the window and i have gone from a 4:50min/km run to a 6min/km, and my bike fitness has probably suffered as much.

Have started ramping up this week with 29 weeks to go until i do Blenheim spint again i was planning to work up to the same as last year but then follow a structured plan once i get to 20 or 12 weeks (depending on what plan i find). The catch is i am planning to also do London Olympic, around 9 weeks later.

So my main question is, Should i train for olympic distance now or train for sprint and switch it up for the 9 weeks before next race? My limited knowledge is telling me to train for 1500/40/10 now, but i am a noobie and thats why i a here.

Sorry for the wall of text, my typing is bad. But il try my best.

1 Like
2

Welcome!

I haven’t done an Olympic or sprint for a long time, but for most of us, there’s not a great deal between the two. If you’re swimming a couple of times a week, you’re probably going to be doing something between 1k - 2k in the pool anyway (you might want to stick your head into the ‘swimming for hammers and spoons’ thread at this point. To be honest, what you were doing initially, of a couple of sessions in each discipline is a perfectly good approach, with one being endurance focussed and one that’s based more on intervals and intensity.

3

train for both now, be more specific in the run in to the sprint and then specific for the run in to the Std…

4

welcome Neemo83

I didn’t start Triathlons until I was 43 and my youngest was 11 years old, I have 3 kids and put on a lot of weight over 16 year of not doing regular sports. In hindsight I wish I had started earlier… however, family, career, moving and renovating house took all my time. But I am certainly making up for lost time now

I don’t see a massive difference run and bike training for a Sprint and an Olympic, My run pace for a 5k and 10k is pretty much the same.

You will see people who put in massive hours of training, and don’t actually go that fast. In my first full season (2016), I trained from Feb to July an average of 5 hours per week, and completed an Olympic Distances in 2h30m. I just looked at my Garmin records, I did an average of 40 mins swimming, 3hr bike, 1hr20m run per week

If you have a parkrun nearby, try to do that regularly on a Saturday morning, lots of people run with a push chair, so you can also take the kids, and give yourself an extra challenge.

A turbo trainer can really help build up bike fitness, and has the benefit of being in your home, so something you can do while young kids are asleep. I use Zwift races as my intensive sessions

With a fast Parkrun and a weekly Zwift race as your intensive sessions, another easy bike (can you ride to work?) and a couple of easy runs (run at lunchtime at work?) should be plenty.

If you have a local triathlon club, one or 2 swim sessions per week can be really helpful. If you have a good swimming background, then training for the swim should be relatively easy, if you don’t then you need to spend time in the pool, and possibly get some coaching, where the tri club can really help.

In that first full season, my first OD was 2h53m in May, and by July it was 2h30m… in the next 3 seasons I have reduced from 2h30m to 2h10m, so I made more gains in 2 months than in 3 years, despite training 10-12 hours per week and getting massively fitter. It makes me realise how fast those early gains come, and how tough it gets to go faster

1 Like
5

Thanks for the reply. Funnily Enough i have been doing parkrun on saturdays again, and i do use the trainer and zwift, i think i will train for the olympic distance now then, have planned around 3 rides a week (more if work rides) and 2-3 runs, fast parkrun and 1 long run and maybe a tempo day. Swimming im not sure but last time i did 2 sessions a week and seemed to be enough