Recommended Base Before Beginning a 70.3 Program

Here's my unscientific, unproven thought.  I ran a half marathon.  I swam an Olympic distance swim (close enough), and full race.  I raced the bike leg of a 70.3 race.  In my potentially delusioned mind, I have a relative understanding of each of the individual distances.  I need to ramp up my run over the winter to get back in what I would consider half marathon shape by early spring.  Then, I might just be crazy enough to shoot for 70.3 next fall.

Some potentially useful ingredients:

-- Have done an Oly distance race
-- Improve swim technique (more important than swim conditioning, probably)
-- Be able to run 10 miles (pace doesn't matter)
-- Be able to ride comfortably for 3-4 hours

If you can build from that starting point, you should be in great shape to build for an HIM. 

Be able to run 10m/ride 25m/swim1000 comfortably.  There are plenty of 70.3 plans that start even before that.  Look at the first week of the plan.  It should look very doable.

Recommended base to accomplish what???

I got off my couch and began training for a HIM 8 months later. I came very close to my goal. Start training.

Yes, we have a few winter plans here on BT that go from Winter Maintenance to HIM. Let me know if you need help picking one out. It's based on current fitness, just like the other posters mentioned. Good luck! 

Depends upon the length of the plan.  a 3 month plan means you have to start at a different place than a 6 month plan.  Pick the race and count backwards and then crunch the numbers to see where you need to be...  If the 3 month plan has you running long runs of 10 miles and you are at 5 now, then you probably need a couple of months. 

Contrary to the others here, I think the run fitness is the one that will come the slowest and that you are not able to really leap frog into.  You can go from riding 20 miles to riding 40 miles without too much trouble in a week or two, but jumping from 5 miles to 10 miles on the run just ain't going to happen....  The swim can also come on pretty quick.  If needed you can add in a couple of swim lessons to improve your efficiency to jump ahead the curve a bit.

Rather than establishing hard-and-fast rules, I'd suggest you pick a plan, look at your target HIM date, and infer from the length of the plan when you'd have to start the plan.  If you can get to where week one is no big deal by the time week one rolls around you'll be in good shape.

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Just for an example, here's my n=1.  The HIM plan I used last summer was plenty for my needs. It was a 3/3/3, 20-week plan.

Here's a rundown of the first week from my plan:

* Swim (yards): 1800, 1500, 1600

* Bike (time): 1:10, 1:00, 1:45

* Run (time): 0:40, 0:40, 0:55

I spent two months prior to starting the plan and week one was no issue, enabling me to execute the plan successfully.

That is a great offer, and one you should take Mike up on.  His level of expertise and and advice for FREE is a no-brainer.

Thank you!