Brief synopsis of what I learned in 2008, plus, extra info that can help triathletes.
Train with a HRM. Don't train on ego, and beat your teamates in easy practices. These should be easy days, and not mini races. Train hard only when you have the base to do so (usually at least four weeks). When training hard limit yourself to two days a week of doing so, and no more than three intervals per week (one in each sport). This means that if doing three intervals (hard days) on one of those days you need to double up and do intervals in two sports. Make sure you have one long (easy - mod effort) day in per week for each discipline.
Train with fluids and foods especially when you are going long. In training the average person should take in the fluid equivalant of one water bottle on hr along with 200 calories, if the training session is longer that 1.5 hrs. In races you should shoot for 2 bottles per hour on the bike. Especially in Irons and Halfs. Also in longer races (Irons and Halfs) one should shoot between 350 calories - 500 calories an hour.
As for olympic distances you do not need to eat anything. Sports replacement drinks, and if you like, gels, are another option. About 1.5 to 2 drinks and 200 calories per hr is what you want to shoot for here. Since olympic distance are shorter and faster, it will be harder to digest. So, you need to find out what works for you when you are going hard.
Longer distance races require the intake of extra sodium (especially when it is hot). This especially true if you are succeptible to cramping. If you are thinking of going this route, you need to practice with salt capsules. The best one is salt tabs. In order to absorb the salt into your bloodstream optimally, one should chew the tablet and quicky drink some sports replacement drink to avoid the nastiness. This tidbit of information was posted by Mark Allen. After I took the advice practicing chewing the tablet and racing like that, I noticed a great difference.
Also, a Hrm in an Iron and even a half can be very useful. Keep in mind that most of the Half will be anaerobic, so do not worry about going over the limit. In an Iron however you need to conserve energy, and need to be careful how hard you go. Personally you want energy for the run, so take in calories, fluids, salts, and don't go too hard on the bike and swim. This is relative of course, so use good judgement.
Always have a warmup and warmdown.
Stretch after workouts.
And finally practice, practice, practice...
Train with fluids and foods especially when you are going long. In training the average person should take in the fluid equivalant of one water bottle on hr along with 200 calories, if the training session is longer that 1.5 hrs. In races you should shoot for 2 bottles per hour on the bike. Especially in Irons and Halfs. Also in longer races (Irons and Halfs) one should shoot between 350 calories - 500 calories an hour.
As for olympic distances you do not need to eat anything. Sports replacement drinks, and if you like, gels, are another option. About 1.5 to 2 drinks and 200 calories per hr is what you want to shoot for here. Since olympic distance are shorter and faster, it will be harder to digest. So, you need to find out what works for you when you are going hard.
Longer distance races require the intake of extra sodium (especially when it is hot). This especially true if you are succeptible to cramping. If you are thinking of going this route, you need to practice with salt capsules. The best one is salt tabs. In order to absorb the salt into your bloodstream optimally, one should chew the tablet and quicky drink some sports replacement drink to avoid the nastiness. This tidbit of information was posted by Mark Allen. After I took the advice practicing chewing the tablet and racing like that, I noticed a great difference.
Also, a Hrm in an Iron and even a half can be very useful. Keep in mind that most of the Half will be anaerobic, so do not worry about going over the limit. In an Iron however you need to conserve energy, and need to be careful how hard you go. Personally you want energy for the run, so take in calories, fluids, salts, and don't go too hard on the bike and swim. This is relative of course, so use good judgement.
Always have a warmup and warmdown.
Stretch after workouts.
And finally practice, practice, practice...
posted by Chris Viskup at
1:12 PM
1 Comments:
I'm not sure I would necessarily agree that you need to double up your interval days. For starters, most of our swimming is interval work (there are good reasons why but this is another discussion). In general you want to get the most out of each interval session, especially on the bike and run. This means doing those intervals on reasonably fresh legs. For me, the following rules generally seem to work:
1. You can do bike intervals after a good swim workout, or vice versa in the same day, but make sure the day before and day after were easy/short in all sports.
2. Run intervals should be the only hard workout that day, although an easy swim or bike before shouldn't do any harm.
3. The only exception is a combo bike/run interval session, but these are more to practice going hard from one to the other on race day than build the fitness/speed that the one-sport workouts do.
4. If you do back-to-back interval days, take at least 2 days easy before doing another interval workout.
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