First Year of Triathlon - 70.3? (Page 2)

Originally posted by ninagski

Update: I've been swimming a bit more. I had my third official swim class this past Saturday. Up until then, I felt like the classes were a little slow, but focusing on technique and form, rather than distance and speed, so I was ok with it, that's what I signed up for after all.

However, on Saturday we totaled 1,500+m in just under an hour. I'm not sure if 1,500m is a lot, but it was certainly the longest I've swam hard. It wasn't continuous, but broken up into 10 laps of continuous swimming for endurance practice, followed by 25m sprints alternating free and kick only.

Originally posted by ninagski

Update: I've been swimming a bit more. I had my third official swim class this past Saturday. Up until then, I felt like the classes were a little slow, but focusing on technique and form, rather than distance and speed, so I was ok with it, that's what I signed up for after all.

However, on Saturday we totaled 1,500+m in just under an hour. I'm not sure if 1,500m is a lot, but it was certainly the longest I've swam hard. It wasn't continuous, but broken up into 10 laps of continuous swimming for endurance practice, followed by 25m sprints alternating free and kick only.

Originally posted by davejustdave



How did you feel after those 1500m?

HIM swim is something on the order of 1930 meters, and remember, you need to ride 56 miles and then run a half marathon after.

If you are simply doing it as a completitor and not a competitor, and feel comfy swimming 1500M now, I wouldn't worry about the swim as much as others are saying. To go from 1500M comfortably now to 2000M over the course of six months is nothing if you put in 3 sessions a week.

For a 1/2 IM, the swim is a much smaller section proportionally to the bike or run than in an oly or most sprints (reflecting most triathletes laziness about getting in, or dread of, the pool, IMO), so the swim is not as big a deal. Think about it.. it's only 400M more than an oly swim, but the HIM bike and run is more than TWICE as long...

Now if you want to be FAST on the swim, that's another ball game entirely. Could you have done that same 1500M in 20-21 minutes?

On to the Bike, again, 6 months is plenty of time, but it comes down to if you just want to finish or to be fast/competitive. It sounds like you have a lot of base endurance, but to get fast on the bike for a 56 mile ride and still have legs for the run is again a totally different story.

Finally, and one of the more important things in my opinion is that you should definitely NOT just do the high intensity lower hour training. You can get by with that for sprint tris, or AFTER you have already established a huge endurance base, but that type of base takes years to develop. I read somewhere that while you can do an IM from zero in a year, you need to train for much longer than that just to be able to do the training it takes to RACE an IM (yes, there are freakish exceptions, but they are exceptions). Plan on doing rides that are as long as you expect the entire HIM to take you in order to get your body used to working that hard for that long.

I'm in a similar circumstance as you - I am essentially going from zero after 18 months off my feet with broken bones in my feet to HIM, but I gave myself 9+ months to get there and have a big swim and bike background. I started training months ago (November 1) and already have done a sprint and an oly (races were in just the last few weeks). I felt pretty good during both, even got on the podium in the sprint, but was realllly feeling it on the oly during the run. That was partly due to a bike crash a couple weeks before the event hurting my ability to run, but still.. If I had to do a half on just two more months of training, while I know I could finish, I doubt I would be competitive and it would probably really hurt.

Originally posted by happyscientist

When you say you run 1-2x per week, are those 2 mile runs or 10 mile runs?