New to Triathlons

[Speed_denom]

Hi everyone, I am training to do a triathlon( my first one) I am on a team and I got the bike part. I have a little over a month to train. I have started going to a spinning class. I am road training on a cheep mountain bike. I am borrowing a friends bike for the race. A lot of it is up hill.

Do you have any tips on building endurance and strength.


Thanks
Heather

[rplong]

Make sure you can bike longer than the race portion you will be doing. Do some hill repeats to work on those hills. When you do repeats try to start the hill at a pace you can hold all the way until the end. Another thing I like to do is start a set of repeats with a larger gearing in the back and then on each successive repeat move the chain onto a smaller cog, while trying to maintain the same cadence.

[Fivetenfrank]

I am doing the same things regarding the indoor training - I dont own a trainer so I am forced to take spinning classes. Its hard to replicate the race-day intensity in a spin class, so do yourself the favor and every now and then, do some seated big gear high cadence power intervals (i.e. time trialing) in spin class. My gym uses Keiser brand bikes and if you prop your forearms on the handlebar, its very close to a TT'ing position. Make sure you bring your seat as far forward as you can.

I tell the instructor that I am going to deviate from the class ahead of time. I only do this because I have actually had instructors get annoyed with me for not following the class. Spin instructors take these classes very seriously (too seriously).

That aside, see if you can get the guy who's lending you the bike give it to you a week or two in advance so you acclamate yourself to the gearing, positioning, etc. You dont have to go ballistic on it- you just have to spin around on it a couple of times to make sure you feel comfortable on it. Dont wait to the day of the race to set the seat height etc.