Ironman Training Distances - Triathlon Week

ZackJones · 02-09-2005, 02:11 PM

Greetings,

I'm working my way through Friel's "Going Long" and have made it as far as the part where he says to build up to 4000 meters of swimming, 5 - 7 hour bike ride, and 2 1/2 hours of running. I've been working up a 52 week training plan to prepare myself for my first Ironman. A question I have is should you base your workouts on your long distance for the week? For example if my long swim for the week is 3000 yards what distances should I use for other workouts?

I was leaning towards using 75% of the long distance as a medium distance workout and 50% of the long distance as the short workout? Does this sound reaonsable? Using the 3000 yard long swim example would give me swims of 3000, 2250, and 1500 for long, medium and short. That's 6750 yards of swimming in a week. Assuming you base your workouts on your long workout do you use the same percentages for swimming, biking and running?

Does this seem too agressive of a training plan for someone attempting their first IM with a goal simply of finishing? If you've done an Ironman what were the distances you used for your longest workouts? FWIW, the 3000 long swim week would be on week 26 of my plan.

Any hints/tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your replies.

**daphne** · 02-19-2005, 01:50 PM

First, I have never training for an IM, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
I would factor in the intensity. I don't think that it is too agressive. I would put the same yards in a week when training for Olympic, but yet my goal was to get out of the swim and not be tired. I have never cut 50% a swim workout within the same week - and that because I do mostly oly. However, since your goal is only to finish I think you are right on.

Coach Mike or other IM members can best answer your question.

ZackJones · 02-20-2005, 07:37 AM

daphne: Thanks for the reply! I'm surprised no one else has replied, my question has been viewed over 150 times. Oh well. I have been doing some more reading and see that I should have 3 different swim workouts per week. A long swim, a skills/drills (short) swim, and a tempo swim. I'll be cutting back on the distances for the skills and tempo swims.

Smartt/RST · 02-23-2005, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZackJones

A question I have is should you base your workouts on your long distance for the week?

This is certainly one way of going about structuring your swimming, biking or running training. You may see some variations on this approach, such as working off of total training time or goal event distance/time (which you may be already); but either way, the adavantage is that you are approaching your training from a structured perspective.
I personally structure training differently for different people. I can structure training in what I consider a more ideal way (based on event time or distance) for an elite athlete who has a lot of time to train/recover, but that's not usually the case for most of us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZackJones

I was leaning towards using 75% of the long distance as a medium distance workout and 50% of the long distance as the short workout? Does this sound reaonsable? Using the 3000 yard long swim example would give me swims of 3000, 2250, and 1500 for long, medium and short. That's 6750 yards of swimming in a week. Assuming you base your workouts on your long workout do you use the same percentages for swimming, biking and running?

Those are very reasonable percentages, but it really depends on what you are doing during those workouts too. These percentages can work for cycling and running too, but each sport has it's particular issues that need to be accounted for and again, it depends on what you are doing during each workout (i.e.: tempo vs. slow endurance vs. drills, etc). Another example would be that 50% of your long running workout would not be appropriate for recovery, although I'm not sure if you meant to include recovery workouts in your question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZackJones

Does this seem too agressive of a training plan for someone attempting their first IM with a goal simply of finishing? If you've done an Ironman what were the distances you used for your longest workouts? FWIW, the 3000 long swim week would be on week 26 of my plan.

This is getting more at the issue that struck me when I first read your post. Unless you already have a multi-year history of endurance training, I don't recommend approaching your first IM as aggressively as you stated above (Friel guidelines). *Generally* speaking, withought years of training in your body, you won't truely adapt to such extensive training. In the short term, most do fine, but chances are you are more likely to run into some injury or overtraining issues before you get a chance to actually go and do your IM.

ZackJones · 02-23-2005, 02:59 PM

Michael,

Thanks for your reply. I will address a few of the points you've brought up. Since posting my message I have finished reading Friel's first book and am currently reading Going Long, of which I've read about 3/4 of it. I have picked up some great information from both books and plan to structure my training based upon time and not distance. Well, perhaps for the pool I will use distance but for running and biking I'll use time for sure. I plan to structure my workouts around three different types - the long workout, a tempo and drill. I can see that if I use my short swim as the drill workout I will not need to be putting in as many yards/minutes doing those as I will the long swim.

I appreciate your advice regarding the amount of build up. I'm looking at building to the following maximum training times/yards. Swim 4000, Bike 7 hours, run 2 1/2 hours. I have confidence in my swim and bike capabilities; my weak area is the run. I plan to build to 2 1/2 hours very gradually. I will be using a combination of run/walk for the run segment. I plan to build from 2 minute run and 1 minute walk to 10 minute run and 1 minute walk. I plan to try this strategy out in a marathon in April of 2006. I am also scheduling every 4th week as a recovery week where I will cut all distances by 50% for that week.

As previously stated my only goal is to complete the Ironman. If for some unknown reason I just happen to do it faster than the 2x finisher I work with well that's just icing on the cake.
Thanks again for your reply.

Smartt/RST · 02-28-2005, 11:51 AM

You'll find it much easier to build up the swimming and cycling w/o risking injury, but with the run being your weak area, I recommend being careful about such lengthy workouts (I'm assuming that by "weak area" you mean that you do not have the same level of experience in running). An anecdote: I know a particularly famous/successful/very experienced coach who only has his most elite marathoners ever run over 90mins! The idea being that you can train the body to run long, with 90min as a ceiling (the mind is another story), and significantly reduce the chance of injury. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't send IM athletes on longer runs than that. But what it does say is that you can train for a marathon on a lot shorter "long runs" than most people practice in their own training. Something to consider when running is somewhat new to you.
Best of luck!

ZackJones · 03-04-2005, 07:24 PM

Michael, thanks again for the reply. Have you ever looked at Galloway's Marathon training book? I've borrowed a copy of it and was thinking about using it to try and complete a marathon in April 2006. I plan to use my bike this year as a way to burn the excess weight I'm carrying around off. Once I drop several pounds I plan to start working harder on the running. Right now it just beats my body up too much to try and run more than twice a week :(

rhino52 · 03-05-2005, 10:00 AM

Hey Zack I am new to tri training also but just sprints for now!! i always try to remember that with a strong swim bike the run can be broken up with walking intervals so you dont have to press the run with the understanding of finishing 1st. I would love to beon the podium someday but completing the tri is always going to be a first for me.. Good luck with your workouts Rhino

Flatman · 05-03-2005, 11:50 AM

Hey Zack,

We keep bumping into each other! I agree with Mike in the fact that you won't have to go on as many long runs as you think in order to complete your marathon in April. Most things I have read say the same thing. I am in training for a marathon myself right now! Good to see you on yet another board!

Flatman