Training 
This isn’t the time to do long, hard runs and rides. Reduce your volume by about 30 percent. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the race, warm up, then do some steady, short efforts that bring you up to race speed. Take Thursday off altogether. The day before your race, exercise enough to break a sweat, 15 to 20 minutes 

Sleeping 
Concentrate on getting some good rest the entire week. It’s going to be hard to sleep the night before, but one night’s deficit will not hurt much. One week of less-than-ideal sleep will. 

Eating/drinking 
Do not skip meals race week, and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate throughout the week. Don’t eat a late-night meal the night before the race. 

Equipment check 
At least 2 days before, pump tires, and go over your bike thoroughly. Are your goggles leaking, or do they suck? GET NEW ONES RIGHT AWAY!!! 

The night before 
Pack your stuff. Make a list of your strengths and why you are doing this. 

Essential items for your race bag:

• Wetsuit or swim suit
• Swim goggles
• Suntan lotion
• Warm up oil
• Bike shoes
• Socks
• Helmet
• Sunglasses
• Run shoes
• Hat
• Towel to place running shoes and gels for run, stand on when you change
• Bottles-High GI Carbs (freeze them, if you like), after race recovery bottles –High GI Carbs, protein, electrolytes
• Energy gels/bars
• Bananas
• Toilet paper
• Race clothes
• Race numbers
• Plastic bags to cover stuff in case of rain
• Marker so you can find your stuff easily (balloon, flag, etc.)
• Pam to spray on edges of wetsuit to ensure easy-off.

• Monday: 500 yd swim, 4 mile run
• Tuesday: Chest & Back
• Wednesday: 12 mile bike
• Thursday: Shoulders & Arms
• Friday: 750 yd swim, 3 mile run
• Saturday: 15 mi bike, 5 mi run

Week 6 

• Monday: 750 yd swim, 4 mile run
• Tuesday: Chest & Back
• Wednesday: 15 mile bike
• Thursday: Shoulders & Arms
• Friday: 5 mile run

Week 7 (my spring break)

• I did mostly running and cycling hill climbs for this week to adjust to my location and timing. 

Week 8

• Monday: 500 yd swim, 3 mile run
• Tuesday: Shoulders & Arms 
• Wednesday: 10 mile bike
• Thursday: Chest & Back
• Friday: 500 yd swim, 3 mile run

Word to the wise

• If you have a Bikram Yoga studio near you, it can be a great addition to your training. Bikram is a form of yoga performed in extremely hot temperatures (up to 100-110 degrees). I personally find stretching to be a chore and no fun whatsoever. But when I do it in a group setting it makes it enjoyable and my flexibility improves.

• With the last week and a half or so spent in California, much of my normal training routine has been pleasantly interrupted. Rather than running down a canal in the desert, I was running on a path paralleling the Pacific and through wood chip trails in the center of Manhattan Beach. Cycling is quite better as well with some steep beach hills making for good training rides. Swimming was non-existent as I was not too keen on diving in the 57 degree ocean, especially when the high temps only averaged around 62. Combine with some gusty winds and I’d much rather put in extra time in the Tempe pool this coming week. I will update the lengths/distances that should have been completed through weeks 5,6,7 when I return home tomorrow. 

• Monday: 300 yd swim, 2 mile run (fast pace)
• Tuesday: Chest/Back
• Wednesday: 8-10 mile bike
• Thursday: Shoulders/Arms
• Friday: 300 yd swim, 3 mile run
• SAT/SUN: OFF

Next week there will be some posts about gear and supplements and week 5 gets more intense.

My Wheels

My valentine and training partner

I decided that Valentines Day only sucks if it involves a girl that is needy, pretentious and feels a sense of entitlement because SOMEONE decided that February 14 should be a day to celebrate your love. Well, luckily for me, my Valentine was none of those things this weekend and we had a great time together. Although it took some convincing on Friday and Saturday, we got some solid tri training in on both days. Contrary to last week’s post, Friday was a 1/2 mile swim and Saturday turned out to be a 3 mile run. It’s amazing what exercise can do for a relationship and companionship. If you’re having relationship troubles, screw the counseling and go workout. Take your significant other and use them for inspiration, you’ll both be better off for it.

— Now unfortunately, Megan (shown above relaxing before our swim workout), is back in Calif. and I’m in Ariz. For the time being, I have two other training partners (shown below), although they aren’t quite in great shape yet.

Jasmine

Tazz

My Arizona training partners, Tazz and Jazz. They are brother & sister – not the brightest pups, but great companions.

You may not be able to stick to the training schedule every week. Sometimes things come up – work, school, girlfriends, boyfriends, whatever.  The point is you have to be able to adapt your training to fit your lifestyle.  

For example: I had a full weekend off with basically nothing to do.  Normally I take weekends off from training in the beginning stages, but I knew I had a busy week coming up.  So on Saturday I decided to do a 1/2 mile swim, 4 mile run and on Sunday 12 miles on the bike.  I took Monday off, did a normal strength training workout (shoulders & arms) on Tuesday and combined the swim and bike on Wednesday.  Today is strength training (chest & back) and tomorrow will be a 4-5 mile run. The break down looks like this: 

• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: Shoulders & Arms
• Wednesday: 1/2 mile swim (30 lengths, 15 laps), 10 mile bike (2 hour break in between)
• Thursday: Chest & Back
• Friday: 4-5 mile run 
• Saturday: 12 mile bike 
• Sunday: OFF

Basically the only adjustment I made was combining Monday’s workout with Wednesday’s and adding an extra bike day on Saturday. Good luck. 

“Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration and inspiration.”

For more help: Beginner Swimmers

Week 2 has been similar to Week 1:

• Monday – 300 yd swim
• Tuesday – chest/back heavy
• Wednesday – 10 mile bike
• Thursday – shoulders/arms
• Friday – 2.5 mile run
• Saturday – OFF – light cardio if desired
• Sunday – OFF – light cardio if desired

We’re up to Thursday and the training has been going smoothly. It hasn’t been too difficult, but next week should ramp it up a bit. If you start to have trouble, remember the actual part of training isn’t necessarily going to be fun. When it’s over you should feel rewarded, relaxed, and content with yourself. It’s not supposed to be easy, either. A little story for inspiration:

I saw a friend the other day who I hadn’t seen in a few months and the last time we spoke he told me he was going to the P.F. Chang’s Marathon in Tempe. I was skeptical – not because I didn’t think he could do it, but just because I hear a lot of people have lofty goals and don’t put the time and effort into achieving them. Well, sure enough, on his foot was a tattoo of 26.2 – he got it the day after he finished the marathon, in under four hours by the way. I asked him how much he trained and he said in all actuality he probably only ran a TOTAL of 26 miles in the entire time before the race. That means for every day he trained the mileage only added up to around 26 miles – the total length of the race. Now, this is not common and I don’t recommend trying this because it could be physically dangerous. But the point of the story, and where our conversation kept going back to, was the mental aspect of long distance competition. An Olympic Triathlon could take anywhere from 2 – 4 hours, on average. A marathon is pretty similar if you run it well. This seems like a long time for your body to be in continuous motion, but the body can handle it, I assure you. There is no doubt it takes its toll. But we are scientifically resilient. In our society, we have become accustomed to so much sitting and so much comfort throughout the years that we think pain is a bad thing. But realistically our bodies crave physical punishment because it makes them stronger and able to fight off sickness and disease. Do yourself a favor and get out there. It only gets easier the longer you do it.

Good luck.

This program I am going to show you is designed to allow an individual to complete an Olympic Triathlon (also known as a quarter-man) which consists of a .9 mile swim, 24.2 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run.

I started my training on Monday of this week – January 26, 2009. Week one is quite simple, very relaxed, just easing into the training. I am combining light cardio training (swimming, cycling, running) with 45 minutes of resistance training twice a week. The idea with resistance training combined with triathlon training is to do the weight training heavy. Because the majority of the focus is on long distance training which recruits slow twitch muscle fibers and taps into anaerobic energy. The idea is to use resistance training to build muscle that is opposite of the type of muscle you will build from the triathlon training. Here is the week one plan:

1. Monday – 20 minute swim
2. Tuesday – 45 minutes chest/back heavy
3. Wednesday – 10 mile bike ride
4. Thursday – 45 minutes shoulders/back
5. Friday – 20 minute swim a.m. – 2 mile run p.m.

This program is a 10 weeks, with a race on the 11th week. If you don’t have a race scheduled for 11 weeks, no worries, just continue to increase the distances and intensity until your race week and then adjust accordingly the week before.

• Note: If you don’t have a bike or it’s too cold outside where you live, the best option is cycling class at your local gym. An hour cycling class is more than enough to keep you in shape until the temperatures rise and you can purchase a bicycle.
• Note: A half mile in a standard Olympic pool is 15 laps and a mile is 30 laps. One lap is down and back.
• Note: Don’t worry about the intensity or speed for the first few weeks, just complete the distances.

You can follow this program and start whenever you want. It is designed to complete an Olympic Triathlon. Check back for week 2 on Monday.

Now, let’s get training.