Creating your own training plan

The Triathlon Training Bible by Friel will guide you on how to di this, but it is pretty convoluted.

BT has a bunch of decent ones.  There are also a ton of others online.  Just remember that it is not about accenting your strengths in one or more sports, but about focusing on the complete package and being ready for race day.  All the decent plans have specificity.

If you sign up for Gold membership here which in the big scheme is relatively inexpensive you can get some coaching feedback and guidance if you want to pursue that route.

I personally just work from established plans and adapt them to my needs.  Of course in the last 8 months or so I've just been totally winging it for tri training and did a really focused running regimen.  It all depends on what you are trying to get out of it.

I think Rick has it right.

Why not combine plans or use one and adjust it to fit you. What are your strengths/weaknesses? Most folks make the mistake to do a lot of what they are good at instead of working what we are bad at.

If you pick a plan but the base level of say swimming is to easy, adjust the swim portion of the plan to your current fitness/training level if doing so allows you train enough bike and run.  If you need to skip a workout make it your strongest sport not your weakest.

You could pick another plan and say in the example I used use the swim workouts and meld them together. 

x2

Unless you have a personal trainer whom you speak to every day or week about your training plan, then you'll end up mixing and matching training plans.

What exactly do you mean by convoluted? I'm just curious as I was thinking about picking this up just for the knowledge. Thanks!

Yep agree - The Triathlon Training Bible by Friel is good if you want to create your own plan

But reading it is like studying for a diploma - very sience based with loads of tables and detailing on testing to make the bast use of those tables than the formulars to convert what you have into a phased training plan.

If you like that sort of thing - you'll love it - I did (im a bit of a geek like that)

Other good books to help you create you own plan are Going Long and Triathlon 101

x2.

 
Once you get the hang of all the codes in the book it makes sense and I like the structure of these plans. I'm taking the swim form one level and bike / run from another to make a plan that suits me. The great thing is the structure is the same across levels so you can mix and match like this.

I made up my own trianing for 1/2 Oly and 1/2IM races. Got through the Oly fine, but overtrained badly in the 1/2 as I didn't understand how to structure a plan well. I reckon if you're going for the longer distances first time it's best to use a plan that is proven unless you really know what you are doing yourself.

Gerrard 

I found a basic training plan (can't even remember what it was) on the web that seemed pretty straight forward. I used the structure to get an idea of approach and how long for each workout but that was all.

I really only trained at one pace, had my long ride on Sat every day and long run on Sun so those were quite tough days. I did have recovery weeks but didn't drop much time, and kept training at the same (no variation) intensity. I peaked at about 17 hours then went into a 3 week taper. It was only 10 week program so the increments each week were probably too big for my body too.

At the start of the taper I got cramp for the first time in training, which kept recurring in the last few weeks, was there throughout the race, and was still happening during light workouts a month later. 2 months on and it's well gone, but clearly my muscles were fatigued and needed some recovery. Also towards the peak time I got sick and was sleeping badly for no reason.

Perhaps over training is the wrong term. In hindsight it was training badly that caused my problems.

Gerrard