This
plan is designed for the sheer beginner. To get started, pack
your bags for the journey by clicking off the following Seven
Basic Steps:
Step
1: Get your doctor’s okay. Most places, even a 17-year-old
has to get a doctor’s permission to try out for a sport. Even
one as physically mild as golf. Get a physical, and tell your
doctor about this triathlon thing you’re up to (ideally your
doctor is a runner or triathlete; someone who gets it). Use
this training program as a springboard to a clean bill of health,
as well as your new venture into multisport.
Step
2: Find a training partner. Even if you and a compatible
training partner can only hook up on weekends, a training partner
makes a phenomenal difference in getting your butt out the door.
And as triathletes around the world have discovered, training
with friends is the best part about being in the sport.
Step
3: Commit each other to a year of training together. This
program is a 12-week kickoff into triathlon, but if your goal
is to transform your habits for good, it’s important to declare
at the start that you and your partner will train for a full
year. According to sports psychologist Dr. Denis Waitley, following
a new discipline for a year is the best way of turning it into
a lifelong habit.
Step
4: Acquire the necessary equipment and facilities. You don’t
have to get fancy, but you must have the basics: running shoes,
a bike (mountain bike, road, carbon-fiber race bike, whatever)
and access to a pool. Other good investments are quality running
shorts, bike shorts, a good pair of goggles and if your target
race will be in cool conditions, a wetsuit for the swim. The
truth is you can do a lot of your training at a YMCA or club,
as long the facility has a pool, exercise bikes and treadmills.
Many beginners find using a gym to train for their first triathlon
a good choice in terms of eliminating the stress of venturing
onto the roads. In fact, American marathon great Bill Rodgers
got his start running laps around an indoor track. You can also
get quality instruction, particularly invaluable for swimming,
and more and more you can find a good cycling coach tending
to indoor cycling classes, where you can get tips on pedal stroke
technique, body position, cadence, as well as rip through a
good workout. But when you’re ready, take it all to the great
outdoors. It’s an unbeatable way to enjoy a nice day.
Step
5: Find a target race at least three months out. The program
mentioned here is meant to prepare your body to finish a standard
sprint-distance triathlon, like the Danskin Series races: a
quarter-mile swim, 12-mile bike and five-kilometer run. Sprint
triathlons are often a part of the weekend schedules of major
triathlon festivals around the country. You can find them through
various race calendar websites, like the one at triathletemag.com or by using our North American Event
Guide, which will be in the March issue and on newsstands in
the middle of February.
Step
6: Set up your logbook and first workout. After you get
your stuff together and know when and where you’re going to
train, set up your equipment so that when it’s time to do your
first training session, it’s all right in front of you. Studies
have shown that monitoring effort and improvement on paper will
result in a higher success rate for aspiring athletes. By dutifully
recording the details of your workouts and the details of your
progress, you’ll enhance the quality of your training by strengthening
your determination with attentive feedback.
Step
7: Begin the training, have fun, go like hell and NEVER
LOOK BACK.
First
Six Weeks
| Day |
Week
1 |
Week
2 |
Week
3 |
Week
4 |
Week
5 |
Week
6 |
| Saturday |
Run:
15min |
Run:
20min |
Run:
25min |
Run:
30min |
Run:
35min |
Run:
40min |
| Sunday |
Bike:
30min |
Bike:
40min |
Bike:
45min |
Bike:
50min |
Bike:
55min |
Bike:
60min |
| Monday |
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
| Tuesday |
Swim:
15min |
Swim:
15min |
Swim:
20min |
Swim:
20min |
Swim:
25min |
Swim:
25min |
| Wednesday |
Run:
15min |
Run:
15min |
Run:
20min |
Run:
20min |
Run:
25min |
Run:
25min |
| Thursday |
Bike:
20min |
Bike:
20min |
Bike:
25min |
Bike:
30min |
Bike:
30min |
Bike:
35min |
| Friday |
Swim:
15min |
Swim:
15min |
Swim:
20min |
Swim:
20min |
Swim:
20min |
Swim:
25min |
Second
Six Weeks
| Day |
Week
7 |
Week
8 |
Week
9 |
Week
10 |
Week
11 |
Week
12 |
| Saturday |
Run:
35min |
Run:
45min |
Run:
50min |
Run:
55min |
Run:
60min |
Run:
40min |
| Sunday |
Bike:
45min |
Bike:
65min |
Bike:
70min |
Bike:
75min |
Bike:
80min |
Bike:
80min |
| Monday |
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
| Tuesday |
Swim:
25min |
Swim:
30min |
Swim:
30min |
Swim:
35min |
Swim:
40min |
Swim:
20min |
| Wednesday |
Run:
25min |
Run:
30min |
Run:
30min |
Run:
35min |
Run:
35min |
Run:
15min |
| Thursday |
Bike:
30min |
Bike:
35min |
Bike:
40min |
Bike:
30min |
Bike:
40min |
Bike:
20min |
| Friday |
Swim:
15-30min |
Swim:
15-30min |
Swim:
15-30min |
Swim:
15-30min |
Swim:
15-30min |
Run:
15min |
5
keys to training
1. Perform your workouts at an easy pace. If you can’t comfortably
maintain a conversation while running or biking, you’re going
to hard. After you graduate from your first triathlon, the time
will be ripe for introducing small amounts of intensity to your
training. But the bedrock of any good triathlon program is composed
primarily of low-intensity cardiovascular work -- popularly
known as base training. A fast finishing sprint in a triathlon
is worthless unless you have the aerobic base to get you into
the position to out-sprint a competitor. Base is where it’s
at.
2.
Monday is your rest day. Take this day off.
3.
If swimming is your nightmare event, take swim lessons or attend
a swim workshop. Don’t worry about speed: the key is working
on good technique and staying relaxed in the water. The most
important thing is to get in the water every week.
4.
The key workouts of this program are on the weekend. By adding
a few minutes to the previous weekend’s bike and run, your body
slowly adapts to the stress by increasing cardiovascular efficiency
(including the body’s ability to burn fat) and musculoskeletal
strength. This is what it’s all about.
5.
During the last week of the program, training times drop as
you taper for your race. If your race is more than 12 weeks
away, simply repeat weeks 10 and 11 until you’re one week out
from the big day. Then follow the taper, eat plenty of healthy
food and get plenty of rest. On race day, have fun as you cross
the finish line into the world of triathlon. After you finish
your first race, take a couple of well-deserved days off and
then get right back into completing a year’s worth of training.
Set another race goal, consider hooking up with a local triathlon
club and make training consistency your mantra for 2005. Good
luck!
Strength
training: high speed, long range
Weight training is one of the most valuable tools you’ll ever
find in building yourself into a triathlete. If the time and
the energy are there, follow your Sunday bike rides and Wednesday
runs with a short, smart strength-training routine. 20 minutes
in the weight room is just about right for a beginner. Don’t
exceed 30 minutes, and don’t try and thrash yourself too hard
-- your body is already working around-the-clock to digest the
new stress of your triathlon training. A little bit of weight
training goes along way to aid injury prevention, fat loss and
power.
Try
the following set:
Two
sets of dead-lifts using light weight. 15 to 20 reps
Two sets of quarter-squats using light weight. 15 to 20 reps
Two sets of pushups, as many repetitions you can do
Two sets of pull-ups, as many repetitions as you can do. If
you can’t do pull-ups, use the lat pull-down machine and do
two sets of 15 to 20 reps
A session of crunches and exercise-ball core body movements
to strengthen and balance muscles surrounding the trunk.
Perform
the exercises slowly, concentrate on good technique and rest
one minute between sets, two minutes between exercises. If you’ve
never seen the inside of a gym, get a personal trainer to teach
you a few of these exercises. At first you’ll feel off-balance
and uncoordinated, but by the end of three months you’ll feel
radical improvement.
Nutrition
booster
As you’ll invariably discover in your life as a triathlete,
nutrition is the complex X factor of triathlon. Figuring out
what works best for you is a mixture of study and personal experimentation,
depending on variables such as genetics, weather and race distance
(and that’s just for starters). The important thing for the
beginner is to not drive yourself batty trying to figure it
all out at once, but to focus on the basic discipline of exercise
and to keep things smart and simple with nutrition.
Our
initial recommendations? Eat a healthy diet rich in whole-grains,
cereals, fruits, vegetables and lean proteins. Drink fresh water
as often as possible (go for at least 10 glasses of water a
day). Restrict your intake of saturated fats, simple sugars,
caffeine and alcohol. Try and spread your diet out into five
to six meals per day rather than two to three massive ones.
Make one of those six meals a smoothie rich in recovery-enhancing
antioxidants, like the one described below. Do all of this,
and you’re guaranteed to increase your energy supply, revitalize
general health and ward off fatigue and illness.
Super
Smoothie
1
cup of soy milk
1 scoop of chocolate whey protein powder
1 carrot
A few spoonfuls of non-fat vanilla yogurt
A half-cup of frozen berries, like blueberries, blackberries
and raspberries
A spoonful of peanut butter
1 cup of orange juice
Ice and water to favored thickness
This
article originally appeared in the February 2005 issue of Triathlete
magazine, available here.