couple of years ago on a dark, cloudy Sunday morning, I shared a ride with two guys I was coaching as we made our way from Manhattan up to Harriman State Park for one of the NYTC races.
During the drive it became clear that Sam and Ronen had a lot in common as we sat back, talked and tried to ease the pre-race anxieties I sensed in the car. This would be the first triathlon for both, and as we arrived in Harriman, in true pre-race fashion, Sam discovered he had flatted his rear wheel less than thirty minutes before his scheduled swim wave start. Now I’ve forgotten my helmet once; I know a friend on the Flyers who’s forgotten his cycling shoes, and I even have a former girlfriend who flatted in her very first triathlon but eventually finished her race on my bike. But getting a flat with your swim wave coming up in less than thirty minutes, is high on the early morning triathlon stress meter.
Some of you might know what I mean.
Sam’s a determined gentleman — he’s an ophthalmologist by training — but training for this, his first event, has ruled his existence. It has brought about a very positive, productive change in his life, and in his lifestyle. Finishing this event would allow Sam to “check off” another one of his “must do things”, or bucket list in life that he has assembled, envisioned and taken action on.
Our other companion, Ronen, calmly stepped up and graciously offered Sam his own replacement tube — the only tube he had in case he might need one on his bike ride on the rolling hills the Seven Lakes region has to offer. Anyway, Sam fixed the flat and was now ready for the task at hand, and he eagerly took his place with his peers for his scheduled age group swim wave start.
I think that one of the greatest byproducts of competing in a triathlon, is that it gives us an opportunity to reach for and find a new “extreme” within each of us, or an opportunity to dig a little deeper, take that proverbial leap and find something with meaning and purpose in our life, where otherwise we might choose not to or find we are not able to, for a variety of reasons — right or wrong, good or bad. Sometimes we can be guilty of living a life dictated more by mediocrity or complacency and the mundane vs. the seat of your pants ride that triathlon can offer with its mix of pre-race anxiety and an often unspoken fear of not finishing the swim; of having mechanical or GI issues; of flatting; or of just not quite performing up to your own expectations.
After we all finished our race and were feeling empowered and great, but with a real post race desire for an afternoon nap, we made our way back home to Manhattan and talked about our race, what went right, what went wrong, what did we learn and how would we do “things” differently?
On this ride though, there would be some interesting revelations from our sport's two newest disciples who have lived and spent their formative years growing up in a very troubled, often violent region of the world, where beliefs and cultures clash and ideology and a struggle for existence are often challenged.
Ronen grew up in Tel Aviv. An Israeli by birth, he now lives here in NYC on the Upper West Side with his wife and daughter. Sam grew up in Damascus, Syria. A Christian who was actually born in St. Louis, he left to pursue studies abroad and ended up in NYC, where, as an ophthalmologist, he lives on the Upper East Side with his wife, two young daughters and son.
Two guys who spent years living in the Middle East. One guy needed a spare tube, another guy was able to come through, help out and give up his own spare tube. In a sport like triathlon, it could have just as easily been a spare water bottle, a CO2 cartridge, a packet of gel, or, as I once witnessed, a rear wheel.
Sport should be blind to race, color or creed. Sport shouldn’t care about your politics or religious views or beliefs. In a sport like triathlon we all start out on a level playing field where we have the opportunity, on any given weekend, to try to be the person and athlete we really want to be and to enjoy a sport that’s truly the perfect metaphor for life, no matter where you grew up.
Like the open water wave swim in a race, sometimes in life’s journey’s we have to “sight” our way through crowded, choppy water. Sometimes you feel like you’re climbing up an ever constant hill trying to express yourself, your ideas and thoughts. And I think we all keep our eyes wide open for the finish line where we can be “proud in the crowd” on a dark, cloudy morning in a sport where we are all wannabees until we cross the finish line.
This season there will be a lot of Flyers who will be doing their first triathlon and I’d like to wish everybody the greatest success and try and offer some fundamentals and insight on preparation, training/racing focus, equipment and more.
Let’s begin with the four basic racing distances in triathlon —
raining for each distance is based on time spent developing skill sets based on each distance — and If you are just beginning your training and putting your body through the cross training work load required in triathlon, it might be best to adhere to the principles of progression and adaptation in putting our minds and bodies through the multi-disciplinary training which requires a great deal of determination, a willingness to work hard, the need to achieve through effort and reward, and the understanding that at the end of the day, we all share a common bond in wanting to increase our fitness and just have fun training and racing and reaching our goals!
Ideally, this sample schedule has you utilizing the weekend to get your longer rides or runs in. But no schedule should be set in stone; instead it should provide the flexibility to be built around your own busy life and schedule. So try and work the longer workouts into the day/night that works best for you! The schedule also recommends you try and use cross training as a secondary workout with yoga/pilates/strength training/rowing all being viable XT options.
Our training principles are also based on two other important components that include identifying and implementing REST, which means allowing for muscle repair and recovery, and realizing that we gain our greatest fitness and ability for maximal performance gains by getting 7-8 hours of SLEEP every night. Creating this pattern will hopefully decrease the opportunity for training related injury, which can include shin splints, muscle strains, lower back and neck ache, all of which are prone to happen in running and cycling by doing too much, too soon, too quickly, but can be exascerbated by not getting enough rest!
Multi-sport training, for many of us, becomes a culture or lifestyle choice fueled by the singular desire to improve by effective training, but to also identify the triathlete’s most common mistake, which is overtraining — not allowing for much needed rests or breaks in training, getting or feeling “burned out” by the conscious or unconscious need to keep training in the mistaken belief that more is better, longer is needed, harder is required.
Many mistakes, assumptions and beliefs will be made and challenged, and that’s fine, as long as you are able to identify and learn from the mistakes you will make in your training and in your racing strategies. These are necessary, as quite often this is how we learn to correct and tweak, and how we improve our skill set, training focus and greater racing success.
This four week schedule is based on a three week progression in training with using the fourth week as your “recovery” or taper week.
My “one caveat” — based on an understanding that each of us will expend different amounts of time investing in each discipline at different times and will bring skill sets: this guide or should serve only as a reference towards preparation for a sprint triathlon.
In week “3”, I list a sport specific week of cycling, but this assumes that cycling might be an individual's “limiter”, or weakest discipline to overcome, gain greater insight, and develop greater confidence with. While for some it might be cycling, for others it can be a week dominated by swimming — an excellent “recovery” activity, as well as a great total body workout — where that activity dominates that week.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
| 1 |
Run Segment of 35 minutes over rolling terrain |
Cycling 30-45 minutes or 10-12 miles in light gearing |
Run AM OR PM: 40 minutes over rolling terrain Follow with: XT using Yoga, Pilates, Strength training using planks, push ups, squats and lunges | Rest |
Swim 200 yards or for 20 minutes w/o drills but with focus on stroke technique, lifting your head to practice sighting, building endurance |
Cycling 45 minutes or 12 miles in light gearing |
Rest Or Optional 45 minutes of either Cycling or Running |
| 2 |
Rest Or XT using Yoga, Pilates, Strength training using planks, push ups, squats and lunges |
Cycling 45 minutes or 12 miles in light gearing |
AM Run Segment of 50 minutes over rolling terrain PM Ride for 30 minutes Or reverse order if desired |
Swim 200 yards or for 20 minutes w/o drills but with focus on stroke technique, lifting your head to practice sighting, building endurance | Rest |
Run Segment of 60 minutes over rolling terrain |
Cycling 45-60 minutes After a 10 minute easy warm up work with 3-5 60-120 second segments of tempo riding in large chain ring to simulate racing effort Space the 5 minute efforts apart every 8-10 minutes |
| 3 |
Sport specific week of Cycling
After a 20 minute warm up of a 20 minute ride in light gearing work with a series of 6-7 hill repeats with the goal to work in light gears to produce steady cadence or leg turnover on each repeat |
Rest
Or XT using Yoga, Pilates, Strength training using planks, push ups, squats and lunges |
AM
Cycling 45 minutes or 12 miles in light gearing PM Run 40 minutes or reverse order if desired |
Cycling
45 minutes After a 10 minute easy warm up work with 4-6 2 minute segments of tempo riding in large chain ring to simulate racing effort Space the 5 minute efforts apart every 8-10 minutes |
Swim
20-30 minutes w/o drills but with focus on stroke technique, lifting your head to practice sighting, building endurance |
Brick Work
The first Ride to Run transition segment 30 minutes of cycling using light gearing immediately followed with 15-20 minutes of ‘slower’ or easy paced running to allow for “regaining” or developing gait or running rhythm off the bike. | Rest |
| 4 |
Recovery Week
Rest or Optional 35-40 minutes of easy paced running | Rest |
Run
30 minutes but using 60 second striders once at the end of every 3-5 minute segment to total 5-6 striders to increase anaerobic threshold |
Cycling
30-45 minutes or 10-12 miles in light gearing |
AM
Swim 20 minute with first and last 5 minutes at tempo based pace PM Run 30 minutes |
Cycling
30-45 minutes or 10-12 miles in light gearing | Rest |
ince each of us may bring a different skill set into each discipline, we will initially work with “time spent” towards swimming, cycling and running in lieu of using any set mileage standards.
We work with different formats in my NYRR BRiX classes in Central Park on Tuesdays/Thursday mornings at 6 AM, and many of the participants have found these sessions to be extremely helpful in developing skills and applying them in races.
tarting with apparel, in addition to the newest multi-sport tops and shorts being preordered through the club, there are many choices out there from the local retailers, who are willing to help with styles and sizing, functional triathlon tops and shorts you can swim, ride and run in.
There are a lot of choices out there from some great manufactures like Zoot, 2XU, Sugoi and Craft, but try each one as sizing can differ amongst each company.
Costs for some suits have actually come down and I recently had a good experience buying an XTERRA online, where I selected a full body Vortex 3 suit, and in using their sizing chart, I ordered a medium. I took it in the pool only to realize it was too long for me, so they let me exchange it at no cost for a small. It worked quite well in the chilly waters of Ironman St. George and the suit cost me just $200.
If using area retailers, most let you rent a suit to try in a pool and will apply that rental cost to a subsequent purchase.
The components in most first time purchases are typically standard Shimano components with lower cost again dictating the type and weight of components used. The same generally holds true for the other parts of your first bike such as wheel sets, forks, and saddles.
In summary, cost ($800-$1100) generally dictates how your first bike will be built, but most retailers will work with you and deliver a good solid first entry level bike you can train on and race with for quite some time, before either upgrading the existing bike, or like most of us, investing in a more expensive bicycle.
erhaps — as I sometimes suggest to clients — your first event should be a duathlon. This event of run/bike/run with distances that are generally a 2-3 mile run, a 12-18 mile bike ride and close with another 2-3 mile run might be ideal. Perhaps with a goal to produce a “negative” split or complete the second run faster than the first. A duathlon offers a transition from one discipline to another and isn’t a bad idea for getting your feet wet before entering your first triathlon.
But for a triathlon, the Sprint distance might be the best option for your first time, because it will give you a great perspective on the folowing important elements:
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Some great links for Newbies —
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