SY is looking to complete his first 70.3 in June, with no specific time goal. He already has the basic elements of a solid weekly training plan and has been training well for the last 6 months including a couple of marathons. He is primarily a runner, although starting to find his gears on the bike. Like many his weakest discipline is the swim but has joined a once-weekly masters program as well as doing a swim lesson per week. Ideally he’ll be putting in another easy swim at the weekend to build the frequency. The importance of these extra swims will increase as the race approaches as it will be warm enough (hopefully) to get out and do some open water swimming.
SY is very methodical with training and it makes a coach’s life much easier. We managed to put together a long term training plan together to take him all the way to the race and we have confidence that he’ll hit most sessions and can come back to the drawing board if he has any injuries or long absences.
I pasted the training plan below (originally done on pen, then Excel) but couldn’t format it as I would like because I’m too cheap to spring for the full WordPress license (at this point in time anyway). There’s a lot of detail missing here because it is implicit so didn’t require writing down zones, heart rates, etc.
Some notes:
- Monday’s are swim lessons.
- Tuesday are hard trainer sesisons on the bike (e.g. Sufferfest)
- Wednesday is masters
- Thursday is nice and easy
- Saturday and Sunday’s are VERY easy to get SY used to being active for that period of time. May will become race-specific perhaps taking away intensity from during the week depending on how he adjusts.
- The races before MT 70.3 will be dress rehearsals looked upon as workouts. It’s always difficult to hold back if others are racing around you however, so we’ll have to monitor his progress after the first race to make sure he doesn’t accumulate too much fatigue to take away from his endurance adaptations that are the primary focus.
| Week Starting | Week Highlights | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
| 02-Mar | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike | 1 hr swim | Rest | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr run | 1 hr bike | Swim Sat/Sun | |
| 09-Mar | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Park City | Park City | Park City | Park City | Park City | ||
| 16-Mar | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | 30 mile ride / 13.1 run |
Rest | Swim Sat/Sun | |
| 23-Mar | Recovery Week | 45 min Swim | 45 min bike | 1 hr swim | 30 min run | Rest | 2.5 hr ride | 60 min run | Swim Sat/Sun |
| 30-Mar | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | 3 hr ride | 75 min run | Swim Sat/Sun | |
| 06-Apr | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | 3.5 hr ride | 60 min run | Swim Sat/Sun | |
| 13-Apr | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
PERU | PERU | PERU | ||
| 20-Apr | Recovery Week | PERU | |||||||
| 27-Apr | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | OWS, 1 hr run |
2.5 hr bike, 15 min run |
||
| 04-May | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | OWS, 1 hr run |
3 hr bike, 30 min run |
||
| 11-May | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | Harryman Tri | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
||
| 18-May | Recovery Week | 45 min Swim | 45 min bike | 1 hr swim | 30 min run | Rest | OWS, 30 min run |
2hr bike, 10 min run |
|
| 25-May | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | 2hr ride easy | Black Bear Tri | ||
| 01-Jun | 45 min Swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
1 hr swim | 1 hr bike, 30 min run |
Rest | OWS, 60 min run |
3 hr bike, 30 min run |
||
| 08-Jun | TAPER | ||||||||
| 15-Jun | TAPER | Drive to Tremblant | Test everything | RACE | |||||
UPDATE 4/21/15: SY has been going really well on the bike/run portion of his workouts. His swim workouts however are in need of attention. His current 400yd swim time is ~14-15 minutes despite having weekly lessons and doing a weekly masters workout. We’ve taken out one of his brick sessions and added in an extra swim. I haven’t seen him swim for some time so he’s coming to swim with me next week so we can film his stroke and give him some visual feedback.
Tired Legs Empty Mind 