Introduction and a couple of questions

Hello,

I have lurking here for a bit and using the training programs, but I've gotten to the point where I have some questions so I'll take this chance to introduce myself.

I'm 34 years old, 6'5" and go about 261 according to the scale this morning. I guess that qualifies me as a "clydesdale". I used to do power lifting (herniated disk) and body building (rotator cuff tear) and I'm still in pretty good shape coming in at 7.9% bodyfat this morning. I'm on month 2 of the 2x 16 week sprint training program and other than a very sore butt, I have really been enjoying myself.

I tore my rotator cuff after a year of "bulking" for a BB contest and decided I was going to take a break for about a year to do something else - and the trialthon seemed to be the right fit. The only problem was that I could not swim, have not run in about 15 years, and did not own a bike!

When I first started swimming I could not go 50 yards without stopping for a couple of minutes to catch my breath, but on my long swim this week I was able to do 1100 yards and felt like I could have gone on forever! I still need to get a bike, but have been using a spinning bike. I live in Vermont and there is far too much snow to go outside biking... I'm still concerned about the rigors of training on my body - knees, shoulder, back, etc, but so far the cross training has really been making the training go by fast.

I am interested in doing the sprint and possibly the Olympic tri's for the primary reason that when I look at the training requirements, I still have time to do some weight training. Right now I'm doing squats and power cleans - good whole body workouts on one of my off or short training days.

So to my questions -

1. For the 16 or 20 week program, what zone am I looking for for my heart rate? Am I trying to do long workouts at a good base heart rate and short workouts in intervals?
2. How much of a morning heart rate jump is enough to warrant concern? Right now the lowest I have read is 51, but during the week it will raise has high as 56 or so.
3. I have noted that the suggested diet for training is carbohydrate heavy. Is this the concensus?

Regarding the diet portion, I have getting a good deal of my calories from fat and protein over the last 5 years - and when preparing for a contest going ketogenic. I'm so used to this that the suggested calories from carbs for someone my size is just too much for me to handle! Assuming I have about 240 pounds of LBM and 15 cal/pound for maintenance = 3600 cal/day to keep weight and if 60% of that is carbohydrates = 2160 cal/carbs at 4 calories/gram that is 540 grams carbs a day or about 10 CUPS of oatmeal a day! Assuming that I want 1g/per pound LBM that is 240 grams protein or 960 calories protein leaving only 53 grams of fat calories left in the day (the hypothetical 10 cups of plain oatmeal would provide 25grams of that fat). And those calcualations are based upon lean body mass - if I just used my body weight the numbers are higher. You see now why I take lots of fat, moderate protein, and some low glycemic index carbs for my main diet.

In other words, I just can't see eating that many carbs so are there other atheletes in this sport that compete with a diet with fewer carbs?

Well, thanks for your time and for providing the training material on this site!

Jorta