Firstly thank you for taking to time to look over this plan or even purchase it, I’m sure if you follow this closely you’ll achieve your goals and also learn a thing or two along the way.
I coach several Triathletes and one of the key issues for them is trying to combine all the disciplines around a busy work and family life.
You don’t need to be training 20 hours a week to achieve a very good level of fitness, the key to becoming good at anything is firstly to be consistent, and that is train most days if you can. 10-12 hours a week will get you to a very good place.
Those days don’t all need to be super long or super hard. But they should have a certain quality about them. In particular the swim.
In this early base phase I would encourage that you really do work on that swim technique, it will save you lots of time and energy in the long run. I suggest several key drills within the plan to help improve this aspect.
For the bike this is where most of the intensity will be. Unlike most base plans I’ve adopted a reverse periodization approach in that we ride quite a bit harder than you would during the event. In the build and peak phase that’s when you want to be more specific with your intensity, particularly with the bike.
For the run, it’s all about time on the feet at this point, keep intensity in check to avoid injuries. You will get faster by being consistent.
The plan covers a 12 week period with most weeks being in that 10-12 hour duration. Some days there are two sessions such as a morning swim and then afternoon run or vice versa. At this early stage I think the key is to build some consistency and momentum and don’t over think how you periodise each day.
The plan does make a couple of assumptions, in that you’ve got some sort of base fitness, i.e. you’ve not just jumped straight off the couch and that you have a good sense of your threshold power, speed and pace for each of the disciplines. If you don’t know these then you can do a ramp test to find your approximate FTP setting for the bike. For the run I do indicate in the plan to do either a 5 or 10k type effort and same for the swim. You need these anchor points with which to determine the correct intensity to train at.
It also assumes you have a power meter for the bike and also GPS watch or device for the run and swimming.
Ideally after this 12 week block you would then go into a specific build phase lasting 6-8 weeks where the training intensity becomes very specific to mimic the target race pace. You would also look to do more brick work where you link up all three disciplines. The sooner you do that the more prepared you will be come race day.
Hi, my name is Colin from Tried and Tested Cycle Coaching. I've been cycling for 15+ years and my primary focus has been on the road, both in terms of road racing and time trials with a high degree of success. I've learnt a lot in those years from reading and studying the science and from listening to others, that journey never stops. I still enjoy racing at a high level in the amateur ranks as a master and I'm now looking to pass on that knowledge and help others achieve their goals.