Triathlon - Triathlon Plans in a few years, wondering about my current triathletic fitness level

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Madmallard
09-01-08, 03:36 PM
Hey, madmallard here. I've been doing swimming, biking, and running for about a year now. I was on the swim team in highschool for a year and have been road biking for 9 months. I've never done too much running training and it seems to be the hardest of my three workouts to really progress in.

Right now my individual workouts are at...

Biking either 21 miles in about 1 hour 15 minutes. about 6 miles of hills ranging from 3% - 10% grade.
Biking 40 miles in 2 hours 30 minutes, with about 12 miles of hills ranging from 3% - 15% grade.

Swimming 100 lengths in a 25m pool in about 1 hour 5 minutes, or 96 lengths in a 25m pool in 1 hour.
I split the swimming up into 33 lengths free, 33 lengths, breast, 33 lengths fly (killer ><).

Running is where my issues are at it seems >.<
My comfortable jogging pace is about 6 miles an hour and if I do a 1 hour jog I usually intake about 1Liter of water to not feel thirsty.

Longest Jog I've ever done was only 8 miles, took about an hour and 15 minutes, was pretty painful >.< My legs were sore for about 3 days after.

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Makes me think I just need to do strength building for my running, some stress-and-recover, to get my running up.

It doesn't really seem Like I can do much strength building for swimming >< Unless I just do butterfly or freestyle sprints. But when I do my 100 length swims I'm never sore the next day.

For Biking....... I don't ever really get much sore the next day unless I do tons and tons of hills.
My only concern I sort of have with biking is after about 2 hours, or 32 miles, if I continue to do hills, my legs start cramping up pretty bad, like it will feel like if i put any more effort into the hill my quadracep will just clinch up and stop working >.< But those are only if I bike for more than 2 hours pretty much. The cramps still happen even If I'm eating like every 15 minutes the whole ride and getting fluid intake.


bikinpolitico
09-01-08, 04:07 PM
What distance are your trying to do? Sounds like you already have the fitness to complete a sprint level and working up to an Olympic distance does not seem unreasonable with a good training plan.

As for running, it is definitely the discipline that requires the most time for adaptation. Your total weekly milage and long run milage should never increase more than 10%/ week. You should also scale way back every 4th week to recovery and let your body adapt to the increased milage. I think you should always train your weakness and race your strength, so I'd focus on improving your running over the winter. Look for a training group centered around the 10K to 1/2 marathon distance races to get a good intro to how to train for running.

I'd also check out the Beginner Triathlete website or books like Triathlon 101 by John Mora or My First Triathlon by Joe Friel for workout plans, how to train (it's different than just one discipline), and to answer questions about racing such as transitions, equipment, etc.

Treefox
09-01-08, 08:34 PM
You could do an olympic today.

Bear in mind that at most open-entry triathlons up to olympic distance, there will be people on mountain bikes with little or no physical training who will complete the course - slowly, of course, but they finish.

People even show up to Iron-distance events not having done triathlons before. There was an amusing article about it not long ago on, I think, Slowtwitch.


WxGuesser
09-01-08, 09:47 PM
I was like you at one time... you need to at least get a training plan... i remember the days of thinking... humm.. i'll run today.. or maybe i'll ride.... damn i hate swimming.... no swim this week... those days are long gone..... get a plan... you'll be glad you did..

bikinpolitico
09-01-08, 10:09 PM
Yes get a training plan, but your fitness level indicates that you could finish a sprint without focused training. Olympic or about have a plan or race day is going to suck.