Conditioning / Slow going

Mark, Most of us started right where you are right now (and some mile myself are there again!). The most important piece of advice I can give you is take it slow and build endurance over time. If you are sore and tight all the time I would guess you are going too hard every day and will end up hurting yourself if you keep this up over a period of time. Remember the 10% rule... You should never increase your workout time or distance by more than 10% week to week and every 4 weeks you should cut back intensity and duration to allow yourself to heal properly.

It all comes with time... If you want to feel real frustration work up to a respectable training volume then quit for a year and a half and start up again. I was doing 2500M swims and 5-7 mile runs no problem 2 years ago and now am struggling with 900M swims and am doing SLOW run walks of 2 miles. I have a plan and am following it though, and am making progress.

I highly recomend you pick a plan off BT and stick with the plan. You will see HUGE improvment quickly and without all the pain. Just my .02 though... 

 You have had a great two weeks so far, I would hate to see you get injured or burn out.

Hi!  I started about a month ago as well.

 Uhh it was pathetic, just having both my feet off the ground on my bike was a major feat.  When I biked 10 miles at a slower pace, I was amazed.  For swimming, I was just as pathetic in that I couldn't even put my head under the water for more than a couple seconds.   I change up what I do but last time I went swimming, I swam 1/2 mile total.  I just started running and I can't run for more than a couple minutes straight so I do run/walk intervals.  I'm signing up for a 5k in a couple months though and I plan to run the entire thing. 

 Have you seen some of the beginner training plans?  I highly suggest you peruse them because they start out very very slow, slower than I was doing. 

 I've read it time and time again here but you do need to build a base and I felt a little frustrated myself with that.  Then I realized that when I started hiking a few years ago, it was basically the same.  I could hardly do 1/2 mile up a major hill without having to stop and rest.  Now I can go for 6 miles or so with lots of ups and downs with maybe one rest and that is just to have a snack. 

Well, don't do this then.

Training is rarely done at "race speed." Slow down, increase the duration of your training session. You'll reap significantly greater benefitsby ridin your loop four times at 13 minutes per loop than you will riding it once in ten minutes.

x2  You are probably getting some lactic acid buildup from the daily, high-intensity rides.

Cool, thanks everybody.  I appreciate the advice.

One thing to remember...most people don't just jump up one day and say "I am going to train for a tri" and start a severe workout...most of us are from one of the sports and have migrated over to tri's...I was riding around a 100 miles per week before I started this stuff...my riding has suffered due to learning to swim properly...and I have not even though about trying to run yet...

Swimming and biking everyday is too much...swim three days a week and ride the other three days a week...go to church on Sunday and thank God (or insert your religion here)...meaning give your body at LEAST one days good rest...

If your struggling to swim you need to join a masters group...your probably doing something wrong if you can't swim 800/1000 yards in a pool in an hour...the coach will get you fixed up in no time...as for riding YOU need to be riding for endurance...try going farther and farther...find a group to ride with (your LBS is a good place to start)...you need to have a "base" prior to doing what your trying to do...which is going all out...

Here is a place to find your masters group... www.usms.org

assuming your in Redding, CA

REDDING:

ANDERSON AQUAGATORS SC: Contact Bob Williams (530)225-2365(d), 221-5152(ev).

REDDING MASTERS: Shasta College Pool, 11555 Old Oregon Trail. Contact Jeff Kubiak (530)246-2666 or John or Ann Clark (530)246-4971(h). W/o's M-F 5:30-7:30am, 5,6,7pm, Sat. 7-9am. Lap swim same. Call for summer practice times.

Unlike alot of people on this site, I do not come from an endurance sport background and was where you were just 1 year ago.  Swiming was splashing with the kids in the pool and biking was what I did on a huffy at age 10.

As others have said go slow, be consistent and you will see improvement.  While it may take years, decades or eons for us to reach our endurance peak, you will see improvement relatively quickly because when you start from the bottom of the proverbial hill just getting up the first rise is a huge movement.

You should be sore.  This stuff is hard work!  Soreness is yoru body adapting and you will have to learn the diffrence between being sore and hurt.  I did my last tri of the year last sunday and was sore as hell monday, but after a slow run I felt much better.  Before you know it, a 1000 yrd swim will be your recovery work out.  30 miles will be an easy spin and you'll do a 5K to cool down from your sprint tri. 

Don't be discouraged, after a few months of training get into a race, be it a tri 5K, etc., even if you don't feel 100% ready, you will be amazed at how far you have come so quickly AND you will be certain to PR!  I've been there, I am there, you can and will do better than you ever thought possible.

lot's of useful stuff from others.  Probaby repeating but a couple of things stick out from your post.

1.  You are taking the right attitude with swimming, so well done with that.  You are correct in that it is pointless to keep on when you are thrashing when your technique goes.  Technique is key.  It may be worth having a lesson or two or getting a more experienced swimmer to watch and give you some tips but otherwise keep going with that endurance.  It does take time.  I swam loads as a kid and the odd time as an adult but when I got back in the pool regularly it took me months to get endurance back - I was doing one length f/c with 1 length breastroke for recovery of each f/c length for many weeks.

 2. Biking (and I agree probably every day is too much) but get the easy miles, time in the saddle, base miles (all same thing for you) in first.  Do not even think about race pace until you have a decent level of base fitness.  Sure, you can't avoid hills but try and spin up them (high cadence, staying sitting if you can) and this should gain you fitness whilst minimising soreness

 Good luck and have fun.  Have a look at the training plans here for some ideas and you will see that you can work up to a sprint distance tri in about 4 months of consistent training