From the Publisher

From Triathlete magazine - the most popular and extensivesource for triathlon information - comes this guidebook of weeklytraining plans for triathletes of all skill levels.

Product Details

• Read a Sample Chapter

Read a Sample Chapter

Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide

WARNER WELLNESS

Chapter One

This book is not like a novel, which you need to read from start to finish, without skipping anything. It's more like a big recipe book that you can and should use one recipe at a time. There are 40 complete training plans (plus a pair of off-season training plans) in these pages, at least one of which is a good fit for you today, given your current fitness level, schedule, and event goals. But of course you can't follow multiple training plans simultaneously. So the way to use this book is to choose the best plan for you, complete it, and then pick another, and so on.

This chapter, however, is required reading. Its purpose is to give you the information you'll need to choose the right training plans to follow and to get the most out of them. First I'd like to explain the key features shared by all of the plans in this book. Understanding the rationale behind each of these key features will help you assume greater control over your training. In my experience, triathletes train with more motivation and discipline, and therefore get better results, when they truly understand and believe in their system oftraining.

Key Training Plan Features

There are six key features of the training plans presented in this book that you should understand before you begin using them.

Balance

Each plan has a more or less even balance in the number of swim, bike, and run workouts scheduled every week. (Note that bike and run workouts are sometimes combined into "brick" workouts.) Most agegroup triathletes tend to do more workouts in their favorite discipline, which is almost always their strongest discipline. This is not the best way to improve as a triathlete, because you have the greatest potential for improvement in your weakest discipline, so it makes no sense to marginalize it.

On the other hand, some coaches advise triathletes to do the greatest number of workouts in their weakest discipline, precisely because it offers the greatest opportunity for improvement. I see nothing wrong with maintaining this sort of strategic imbalance for short periods of time, but in the long term triathletes who take this approach tend to lose fitness in their strongest discipline, which is also undesirable. By doing a roughly equal number of workouts in all three disciplines you get something close to the best of both worlds: You get stronger in each discipline and weaker in none.

There's an exception in some of my middle-level half-Ironman and Ironman training plans, which include three swim workouts versus four bike and four run workouts in a typical week. At these longer race distances the swim leg is proportionally shorter than the bike and the run legs as compared to shorter race distances. Triathletes who are trying to keep their total training volume relatively moderate in preparing for longer races can't do four workouts per week in each discipline. One of them has to give, and it makes the most sense that it's swimming.

Variation

One of the most common problems in the training of self-coached triathletes is a lack of variation in their workouts. They fall into a rut of doing basically the same few workouts over and over. But you'll get fitter faster if you challenge your body in a variety of different ways in your swimming, cycling, and running workouts. Each of the training plans in this program incorporates a diversity of workout types, which you'll learn about in the next chapter.

Three Phases

Each training plan is divided into three phases. First is the base phase. It features a gradually increasing volume of primarily moderateintensity training to build aerobic fitness and endurance, limit the likelihood of injuries, and prepare your body for the tougher training to follow in the second phase of training-the build phase. It also includes judicious doses of high-intensity training to develop sportspecific strength and power and prepare your body for the highintensity workouts of the build phase.

The challenging, high-intensity workouts added in the build phase increase your aerobic fitness and enhance your ability to resist fatigue at higher speeds of swimming, cycling, and running.

The final phase is the peak phase. In this phase the top training priority is workouts that are highly race-specific in their demands. The two main types of race-specific workouts are long swims, rides, runs, and brick workouts that prepare you to go the full distance on race day and somewhat shorter workouts performed at or near race intensity. The final week to two weeks of the peak phase is a "taper" period, in which your training load is steadily reduced to leave you rested and ready for maximum performance on race day.

Step Cycles

Step cycles are four-week blocks of training in which the second week is more challenging than the first, the third week is more challenging than the second, and the fourth week is a recovery week, in which training volume is reduced 10 to 20 percent. Training in step cycles is much better than training with less week-to-week variation in training volume. The incremental training increases in the first three weeks ensure that your fitness moves in a positive direction with minimal risk of injury or exhaustion. The recovery weeks taken every fourth week allow your body to fully absorb recent training and prepare for still more challenging training in the weeks to come.

One Rest Day per Week

Every single training plan in this book has one scheduled day of complete rest per week, from the Level 1 sprint plan all the way up to the Level 10 Ironman plan. Why? Because even if you're a noncompetitive beginner who plans to do only one short triathlon, you should exercise six days a week, for the sake of your health if not your performance. And even if you're a world-class veteran triathlete capable of handling the most punishing workout schedule, you'll still benefit from regularly scheduled rest as much as anyone else-maybe more than anyone else.

Tune-up Races

A peak race is a triathlon that you want to be optimally prepared for-fit and ready to produce your best performance. The whole reason training plans exist at all is to make peak races possible. Every training plan culminates in a peak race, and its job is to raise your fitness level as high as possible between now and then.

In addition to peak races, the training plans in this book also have scheduled tune-up races. The only exceptions are the sprint triathlon training plans, which are only 12 weeks long-a little too short to squeeze in a tune-up race. The Olympic-distance plans feature a sprint-distance tune-up race in Week 12. The half-Ironman training plans include a sprint-distance tune-up race at the end of Week 12 and an Olympic-distance tune-up race at the end of Week 16. The Ironman training plans feature a sprint-distance tune-up race at the end of Week 12, an Olympic-distance tune-up race at the end of Week 16, and a half-Ironman tune-up race at the end of Week 20.

There are three reasons to do tune-up races. First, they're great workouts. You just can't push yourself as hard in a regular training session as you can in a race. For this reason, the right tune-up race at the right time can boost your fitness better than any regular training session. Second, tune-up races provide valuable experience in such areas as transitions, race nutrition, and dealing with race discomfort, to help you race better the next time. Finally, tune-up races reward all of your hard work in training. It takes many weeks of sweat and sacrifice to achieve peak fitness. It's a shame to put in so much effort for just one competitive performance. Even though you might not be able to perform at quite as high a level in your tune-up races as you can in your peak race, you can still perform well enough to be proud and feel rewarded for your training.

Of course, the odds are not great that you will always be able to find accessible races of the prescribed distances taking place at the times I've scheduled them in these plans. Don't sweat it. The tune-up race schedules in these plans represent what I consider the ideal scenario. Do what you can to create a race schedule that matches up with the ideal, but don't worry if you have to shuffle things around a little. The principles that underlie the race schedules in my plans are as follow: (1) It's generally best to avoid racing in the base phase, if for no other reason than because you'll probably disappoint yourself; (2) it's best to schedule shorter races before longer races; and (3) it's best not to race too often (one or two races a month in the build and peak phases are plenty).

How to Get the Most Out of These Training Plans

There are 40 complete training plans evenly divided into four groups according to the distance of your peak race: sprint, Olympic-distance, half-Ironman, and Ironman. Not every triathlon fits these four formats exactly, but every triathlon loosely fits one of them. There is no official sprint format. The typical sprint features a swim of about 0.5 mile, a 12- or 13-mile bike leg, and a 3-mile run. The official Olympicdistance format is a 1.5-kilometer (0.93-mile) swim, a 40-kilometer (24.8-mile) bike leg, and a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) run. The official half- Ironman distances are 1.2 miles, 56 miles, and 13.1 miles. The official Ironman distances are 2.4 miles, 112 miles, and 26.2 miles.

Before you choose a plan, choose a peak race-not merely a distance but an actual event of that distance. This event should be at least as many weeks in the future as the training plan is long. The sprint plans in this book are 12 weeks, the Olympic-distance plans are 16 weeks, the half-Ironman plans are 20 weeks, and the Ironman plans are 24 weeks. If you have a buffer of one or more weeks before you need to start your chosen plan, train sensibly in a way that prepares you for the workouts that Week 1 of the plan calls for. If there's less time between now and your peak race than the plans for that distance call for, then the training you've been doing had better look a lot like the weeks of my plan that you've missed!

Choosing the Right Plan

Within each peak race category the plans are ranged according to levels, 1 through 10. As you move up from Level 1 the number of weekly workouts increases, as do the average workout durations, the total weekly training volume, and the amount of high-intensity training.

To choose the appropriate level, look at the brief description of the plans at the beginning of each chapter. These previews provide a few words about whom the plan is a good fit for, plus information about the amount of training in the first week and in the peak training week (the second- or third-to-last week of the plan). Note that swim workouts are prescribed by distance (yards), whereas bike and run workouts are prescribed by time. It just makes more sense that way. In most cases, if you can handle Week 1 of a given plan now, you'll be able to handle the plan as a whole. However, there are exceptions. For example, if the training in Week 1 of a given plan is close to the maximum volume of training you've ever done, it's probably not a good plan for you unless you're a relative beginner and the plan in question is a lower-level sprint or Olympic-distance plan. Use common sense and don't bite off more than you can chew.

Because there are so many plans within each category, the differences between plans of adjacent levels are small. While this might make it a little harder to choose a plan, it also offers some flexibility that makes it much harder to choose the wrong plan. If, after completing a few weeks of a given plan, you begin to find the training unchallenging, feel free to begin subbing in some workouts from the next level up. Likewise, if you begin to feel overwhelmed by your chosen plan, drop down a level for some or all of your workouts. (Note that some workouts on some days are identical in plans of adjacent levels.)

You should never treat a training plan as gospel. It's impossible to always predict how your body will respond to training. When it doesn't respond quite as expected, adjust your training appropriately or your fitness will stagnate, or worse. Training well is about doing the right workouts at the right times, and the only way to do the right workout every time is to be responsive. On the other hand, don't get too creative. These training plans were designed with great care, such that, barring a major disruption such as injury, the amount of fine-tuning you need to do should be minimal, assuming you did indeed chose an appropriate plan. The occasional poor workout performance or stale patch is normal in triathlon training. Stay the course despite these annoyances, trust the plan, and see it through.

You'll notice that all of the workouts are prescribed in codes. The key to these codes is in the next chapter, which presents every format for every workout you'll ever need to do as a triathlete. In each of the subsequent chapters containing training plans you will find a "Quick Reference Guide" that provides only the details of the workouts used in the training plans presented in that chapter. This will allow you to decode the workouts in your plan without too much page flipping. The rationale for the code is economy. Without it this book would have to be about 1,000 pages long!

Finally, be sure to record the details of each workout in a training log. The Appendix at the end of the book is a 24-week blank training log that will get you started.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide by Matt Fitzgerald Copyright © 2006 by Triathlete Magazine . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---