Book Review -- Time Crunched Triathlete

Chris Carmichael’s book “The Time Crunched Triathlete” offers clear, concise, instructions on how to train for sprint/Olympic distance triathlons in 5 to 8 hours per week.  I’ve been using the program for three weeks now and am extremely impressed at (1) how easy it is to get the work outs in (they’re Tu/Th/Sa/Su) and (2) how quickly they improve your fitness.  The book also offers a program for training for HIM events; however, Carmichael suggests that if you’re looking to compete in events of this duration, you’ll need to spend more time / 5 to 8 hours is not enough to do the event justice.

The book is NOT a “how to” manual on swimming, biking or swimming.  Rather, it’s a clear discussion of Carmichael’s program and why it works and how to use it.  He leaves the discussion of SBR techniques and drills to others.  There’s lots of details that will keep the techies happy regarding why the program works.  However, he also presents the basics in a manner so that those that don’t want to understand the intricate details of diet, physiology, and power meters can follow equally easily.  He has done a nice job of making the material accessible to beginners and experts alike.

The basic idea Carmichael employs is simple.  If you’re time crunched, you need to be realistic on the time of the events you can compete in.  He suggests that three hours is about the maximum that you can expect to compete at a reasonably high level without spending a significant amount of time training / following the traditional endurance training regime of lots and lots of time.  He provides detailed programs in the 5 to 8 hour per week range that are up to the task of having you compete for a podium finish.  The secret to his approach is based on high intensity interval training.  A basic work out will combine two of the three disciplines.  Each discipline will involve a block of time at the traditional “endurance” pace; however, it will also incorporate accelerations or intervals within the work out.  The intervals are of varying times and intensities; and, as expected, over the weeks of the program, the time and intensity of the intervals increases. 

For those training for sprint length events, he offers two programs of six weeks duration.  The easier of the two starts at four hours per week and ramps up to five and a half.  The harder starts at five hours and ramps up to seven and a half.  For those training for Olympic length events, he offers two programs of eight weeks duration.  For the more advanced of the Olympic programs he adds in an additional day to the training program (Tu/We/Th/Sa/Su).  The easier program starts at five hours and ends at eight hours per week.  The harder goes from six hours to eight and three quarters.  Carmichael has also provided a four week recovery program that is to be followed if you want to “stack” successive training sessions.

If you are looking for a time efficient, easy to follow, highly effective training program, I would strongly recommend you take a look at Carmichael’s book.  Beginners can use the recovery program to get used to the basics of a training program / cycle through the recovery program until they feel comfortable moving on to one of the programs.  Those that are already training regularly can jump in to the program that best matches their ability level and feel challenged while seeing improvement very quickly.