What it takes? TR*

As I approach the end of the second build cycle with my new Cadence coach I thought I would take the opportunity to briefly cover the bigger picture stuff relating to the sport of Triathlon. How much commitment does it really take and what effect does it have on your home life balance?

I like things simple so I see triathletes as falling into one of four broad categories:

1. At one end you have those who are doing triathlon purely for fun or to see if they can finish an event. These people are often starting out from a low level of fitness or perhaps coming back from a medical problem. Often these people will stick to sprint events and may possibly do an Olympic distance but rarely do half ironman or ironman distances. They may not have the time or inclination to join a club and will often fit in training as and when they can, perhaps relying on some previous experience in one of the disciplines to carry them through a race.

If you know how to swim and ride a bike you do not need to put in a lot of training to compete in Triathlon. In the few shorter distance races I have done there are plenty of people just there to have a good time. It is probably sensible to make sure that you can cycle and swim the race distance before you start but you do not have to put in any serious training. I was really surprised at my first race just how relaxed the atmosphere was and triathlon can be really fun. As for owning a decent bike I saw all sorts of bikes out on the course including mountain bikes and even a folding bike. Bottom line is almost anyone can do a triathlon for fun without it taking up much of your free time or involving any serious commitment as long as you are just content to finish.

2. The second class of triathlete is where I would have placed myself this year. I was relatively fit compared to the national average but I did not have any endurance sport or racing experience. I had cycled to work fairly regularly on a road bike but I hardly ever swam and only jogged for 20 min or so at a time. I wanted to try the sport and was prepared to put in a significant amount of time and effort in order to race rather than just finish. I invested in a Tri bike part way through the season and I also invested in tri shoes, a new helmet and triathlon clothing. I probably trained about 10 hours a week. 1 hour run Monday lunch, 1 hour swim Tuesday lunch (sometimes a 45 min cycle in the evening), 45 min run Wednesday lunch (fast intervals), 1 hours swim Thursday lunch, rest day Friday, long run Saturday morning (anywhere from 1 to 3 hours) and a long cycle on Sunday (anywhere from 1.5 to 4.5 hours). I would also do two 1 hour weight/abs sessions a week. The long runs and cycles at the weekend were almost always complete by lunch except for one or two of the very long cycles, 80-90 miles (not many of these) leaving the rest of the weekend free.

I know not everyone is lucky enough to be able to do their training at lunch but if you do it in the morning you can still keep your evenings free. Luckily for me my wife was prepared to entertain herself most evenings which allowed me to complete the first ¼ of a law degree this year whilst still training and working. This level of commitment does require ‘buy in’ from your partner, if you are not single, especially I would imagine if you have kids. You do not have any spare time although if I didn’t do my degree studies we would have had most evenings to ourselves or could have gone out.

N.B. those people who train before work normally sacrifice most evenings as they still need to get their sleep and are often in bed for 9pm.

You also spend most weekends training or racing. I was prepared to blow off the occasional weekend to go traveling with my wife (you can still normally squeeze in a run without ruining the weekend) and I would still go on holiday for 1 week at a time, just getting in training where I could. By sticking to a periodized training plan I had a successful racing season and achieved everything I wanted to and even managed to secure a couple of medals. I could finish in the top five in the small races and perhaps in the top 20-30 of the bigger races. My body was never overly taxed and the only time I felt fatigued was after the first month or two of long rides which I was not used to.

3. The third class of triathlete is were I see myself at the moment. I train an extra 5-6 hours on top of what I was doing before and will train more regularly in the evenings (Tues and Thu). I also do not get Saturday afternoon off as I now have a medium cycle in addition to my longish run and a Yoga and Strength session. My Sunday ride is unchanged. I now do 3 weeks of build before I have a rest week as opposed the 2 weeks of build, 1 week of recovery I was doing before.

I am also sticking more rigidly to the workouts as I know I have to try and compete at an Ironman in the not too distant future and that lots of people are going to see how I am doing. I am less likely to skip a weekend to go on a trip and I require more support/understanding from my wife when it comes to the lack of social life. I listen to ‘Ironman Talk’ podcast and on one of the recent episodes Coach John Newsom said that you could do 3 ‘things’ comfortably and I think that is true at the moment. You can for example work full time, train and recover but that is it. If you introduce another element like an active social life then one of the other 3 will suffer. The big difference for me moving from level 2 to 3 is that I now feel like I have to actively recover. I am noticeably more tired than I was before and will find myself falling asleep in front of the telly at about 9pm especially on a Saturday night (party on). I need to put my feet up and relax whenever I can or my ability to complete my training schedule suffers. This is obviously not conducive to a big social life.

I am still able to get out to Christmas parties but I often have to watch how much I drink if I am training the next morning and I will not be the last one lighting up the dance floor as I need my sleep. I would certainly not recommend trying to do a part time learning course if training at this level as I think it would be too tiring. To me this level of commitment is significant and it definitely impacts on your home life in a big way. This attempt to qualify for Kona will be an all or nothing shot. I do not intend to train at this level year in year out until I qualify. I will have a go and then probably drop back into a level 2 sort of training. I do not want to give up on Triathlon completely as it is great fun and racing is a real buzz.

4. The final level of triathlete is your pro or elite amateur who has a job which does not take up much of their time. I do not know a lot about this level and I do not think I ever will as I am too old to think about a career in Triathlon not to mention how difficult it must be to make a living when prize money is so little. Perhaps if I won the lottery I would consider training 30+ plus hours a week.

That is my take on what it takes to train for Triathlon. The longer the event the longer your training has to be and when you decide to take it more seriously you must allow yourself more time for quality recovery. Last week I didn't stick to my zones and probably overdid it slightly which resulted in my right calf seizing up a little. Holden added a little more rest to the program and this week I am fine. There is clearly a fine line between induced fartigue to improve performance and over-training.

There are obviously plenty of other points of view and I hear many athletes who work full time still manage to put in 20-30 hours of training a week but that cannot be easy and they must be very dedicated. I would definitely recommend to any one interested in the sport that they have a go at a sprint triathlon, some of them are very short e.g. 500m swim in a pool, 10km bike, 3-5 run and are great fun.