13 Week Sprint Training Plan Group (Page 7)

Wow, Ryan...what an incredible story. I admire you tenacity and your drive and I wish you the very best of luck in your new challenges! Please drop in and ask any questions you have along the way!

I am out to do my third tri and like many swim has gotten me off to a slow start in the two tri's i have done, however i am already signed up for a sprint and hope to do enough training to finish a full distance this fall. this plan will help maintain a focused approach and at first glance when it said 45 next to the bike i gasped and thought it meant miles

lets do this!

How exciting! Best of luck to you and thanks for joining us here!

Welcome! Why not try to pick up this plan for the last 4 weeks and see how it goes?

Hi - I'm a newbie to triathlons, well to exercise in general. I decided in December to run a join my local Y in December (on my 50'th birthday) and started swimming. As a swimmer in my youth, I was happy to feel at ease in the water (thanks to prescription swim goggles!). But it was clear to me that just exercising for exercise's sake just wasn't going to work for me.

So I decided to pursue a triathlon. TRAINING sounds more interesting than EXERCISING...I had never run in my life, so I picked up a C25K program online and just finished it -- took me longer than the originally scheduled 9 weeks due to the flu). I run on a treadmill and sometimes on the track at another Y location. I also started riding my bike trainer in the basement. No outside workouts yet here in the frozen north (MN). Although I'm happy to say that the snow is melting now.

I've signed up for a 5K run at the end of April. and two triathlons - one is a beginners tri on June 25th and one is an all women's event in August.

I'm trying to build a modified training plan that will accomodate all three events - up to a 5K at the end of April (does my C25K program to date qualify? - most of the beginning training plans seem to start off significantly lower mileage than I'm doing now). Plus the beginner tri: 400 y swim/ 10 mile bike/ 2 mi run... and the final sprint distance: 800 y swim/ 18 mi bike/ 5K run.

Thanks!

Mary

Mary, welcome to BT! Not sure how I managed to miss this post for long, and I apologize for not welcoming you sooner! I am so excited for you!

I think the best way to train for all three events is to follow a spring training plan. That way you will be working on all three sports all season, and your run volume should be a bit higher than you were doing with the Couch to 5K program. You don't have to follow the sprint plan strictly until it's time to actually train for the triathlon, but following it loosely while being stricter with the running will help you finish your 5K AND prepare you for your triathlon.

I'm doing the olympic distance Pacific Grove Triathlon on 9/10/11 this year. Is a sprint distance on 8/21/11 too soon before the big one?

Thanks,

Dennis

Thanks Jessica! I was following a run focused custom beginners program for the past two weeks I did here on BT, but found today - almost to the end of 2 weeks, it may have been a bit aggressive. The timing on the program indicated a 10 minute mile, a 2 min / yd swim and a 16 mph bike. When I tried to maintain those speeds - on the run especially, I found that I was maybe overextended. So I think I might retreat to a 2x balanced and just adjust the rates on the custom plan. The swim is challenging, but pretty much doable and the bike piece maybe also a bit more aggressive.

I wonder how you balance challenging yourself and overdoing? I'm so new to training that I think I'm being whimpy, but maybe whimpy on my first attempts isn't such a bad thing. Do you have some thoughts on the subject?

Mary

Hi Dennis. Yes, if that Olympic distance is really important and your most important race, I would not do a sprint that close. Especially since you are probably supposed to do your biggest volume week the week you would be doing that sprint, so you might miss really critical training.

Hi Mary. I do have some thoughts on this subject.

As a new athlete, the MOST important thing is base-building. Any athlete in their first 1-2 years of the sport should almost exclusively focus on building endurance through Zone 1-2 effort only. That means going out there and following your plan at an easy pace in heart rate zones 1-2 or RPE 2-3 on a 1-10 scale. This builds your cardiovascular fitness but it very hard for people to do because:

1. it's boring

2. it stinks to be slow

BUT, if you do it this way your fitness will improve quickly and your speed at that low intensity will improve over time. You are also MUCH less likely to get injured or to get burned-out on training. Most new athletes spend all their time training at one speed:moderately hard. That's terrible to do from a training perspective. You should have easy days and hard days, NOT all moderately-hard. When you were trying to hold a pace that wasn't at all correlated to your current fitness, you were training in that moderately-hard area. Stop. You should train at the pace YOUR body needs.

I love that you are going back to the 2X balanced plan. What I want you to do is forget about speed right now and just get the time in at a comfortable, easy pace. As the weeks go by, you will be amazed at how much faster you get at that same level of exertion! And you will hopefully enjoy your training more. The hard part is getting out there every day and doing it, NOT pushing yourself too hard when you are out there.

Jessica - thanks so much for the response. I was getting discouraged by how hard my training had gotten, after feeling all happy and strong. With your advice, I'm cutting back to a regular 2X schedule.

So with one day of running and one day of biking behind me, I think this will be a much better plan for me. Thanks!

Mary

How are you feeling, Mary?

Hi Jessica!  I am joining this thread as a complete tri newbie! I am following a modified schedule until May 1st then I will start my swimming.  I am alternating running with biking daily and so far so good.  I ran my first 5K April 2nd and will be doing my first 10k May 1st.  Mind you, I am starting slow and trying not to get ahead of myself as I have injured myself in the past.  I am doing a tri a try in August and I'm really excited.  I have been using my DH's bike on the trainer as mine was stolen so I am looking to buy a bike but I don't want to break the bank!  I was looking at hybrids.  What would you suggest?

Lori

Hi Lori, and welcome to BT! I have two clients now that are doing their first triathlons soon and spent about 500.00 on Trek hybrid bikes, new from the bike shop. You can also look on Craigslist and see if you can find a deal there. I personally try to convince people to get a road bike instead of a hybrid bike, because if you keep doing triathlons you will outgrow that hybrid pretty quickly and will want to get a road bike since it gives you such an advantage in speed over a hybrid. A beginner road bike will cost between 800-1000 dollars but those can also be found on Craigslist. Trek, Felt, and Giant all make entry-level road bikes and can be found at most bike shops.

Very glad to hear it!

hi,

i will be joining mg 1st sprint tri in june. I swim, bike and run as my workout. my time in swimming is average, bike is 14-20 mph and my worst is run just because I developed an osteoarthritis on both knees and had arthroscopy twice on my right knee. I got this by playing soccer all my life. I already limp when I run because of the pain. But please don't tell me not to do it. I don't want to be sorry, I just want to enjoy what's left. please help me with my training.  thank you so much.

Welcome to BT! This group uses the 13 week sprint plan. You can find the plan here. You don't have 13 weeks before your race, so start the plan at the appropriate place so the last week of the plan is race week. We are here to answer any questions you have about the plan, so please look it over and ask any questions you have if you haven't already started it.

I just wanted to say hi, and that I am planning on doing my first sprint in late July this year so I wanted to start this program. I will most likely have to tweak the runs a bit as I am also running my first marathon in September, and then I am hoping to do an olympic tri in November. Plus I run other races as they pop up like a 10 mile xterra this coming weekend. I recently purchased a Trek 1.2 roadbike and I have been taking it out every weekend and started commuting to work on it last week. Swimming is where I am trying to focus the most as it's the hardest to train for because you have to actively search out a place to swim. Luckily I am close enough to the beach that I can go during the weekends, and during the week I am just going to have to swim in my apartment pool, which really isn't designed for laps. 

John

Welcome to BT, John! Thanks for joining us here in the forums! Many people use this plan to prepare for their sprint triathlon but adjust it slightly to meet their individual needs. It's ok if you feel you need to add to the run volume to help get you ready for marathon training. Let me know if you have any other questions as you get started on this plan!

Hi Jessica - this is Mary back to report on my progress on the 13 week program. I am now approaching week 5 - I have been feeling FANTASTIC. I get some ups and downs, but mostly things are going pretty well. I have my very first 5K run (and just covered a 5K distance on my last run/walk- well I ran for about 30 minutes and walked for about 10 but covered the distance).

I just wanted to say thanks for the early encouragement. It helped me out alot.

Mary

Thank you so much for the update! I love to hear about everyone's successes! You are going to inspire others with your success!

Hi all! I'm new to this group and new to Triathlons. To be honest, I'm about to participate in my very first Triathlon in 2 weeks. It's Olympic distance and I know I'm crazy to start high and go low later, but it was in the stars for me.

Anyway, I'm joining this group because I have a Sprint Triathlon in exactly 13 weeks from today and will be starting my training this week since it matches my taper for the Oly. I'm doing a custom plan since I had that option and really want to see myself learn how to run a full 5K since right now I'm mostly run/walking the run section... more walking than running... I might do the C25K while training since I need to learn how to run that distance.

Looking forward to learning from all of you!