How do you train enough?

[sportaholic]

Triathlons are very long. How do you get enough time to train for them? Some triathlons take like all day. How can you train for that unless you are free almost all day, most days?

[drytriguy]

Anything up to a half Iron isn't going to take all day, only a bunch of hours (half Iron might take 8 hours for a novice and 4 hours for a professional).

And since you don't train by doing your full distance and all events each training day, you are breaking it down even further.

Think about a half iron:

1.9km swim
90km bike
21.1km run

Now break those down into a realistic training session for each. Say 3 training sessions per week per event. 1 tempo, 1 strength, 1 distance.

Swim:

Day 1- 1500m in drills with a chunk of steady state distance in the middle. 45 minutes
Day 2- 1500m in drills designed for speed/strength. Shorter distance drills focusing on breathing, stroke count, speed. 45-50 minutes.
Day 3- 2000m steady state. (Although I would suggest working up to 2500m instead of just 2000m if you can)

Bike:

Day 1- 1h30m Spin session
Day 2- 1h30m Hill session (ick, but SUPER important)
Day 3- 3h distance ride trying to incorporate as much terrain as you'll be racing as possible (hills, flats, whatever)

Run:

Day 1- Tempo run, 8-10km (1h)
Day 2- Speed work at the track or hill workouts for 5-8km total (1h)
Day 3- Long Slow Run day... working up from 12km to 24km in small, manageable leaps.

Swap out a practice from the list (not the distance ones though) to do a brick day at times.

Guy I know recently suggested doing a brick day like this:

2km bike, 400m run
3km bike, 800m run
5km bike, 1200m run
3km bike, 800m run
2km bike, 400m run

He suggested finding a track to run on that has some decent biking area around it. strap your run shoes to the bike for the bike ride, swap shoes at the track and run around your bike (safety).

He also suggested no big gaps in the session, but let's face it, make the run to bike transition longer if you have to make one of them longer to cool down.

I should note that this comes from what people have told me and not what I've done yet. I'm working on my first half iron this summer and this is how I'm planning on training.

Ironman, of course, is completely different! I have NO clue how that's going to work. The bike alone is something like 6 hours long!

[sportaholic]

Thanks for that great response! I just have a new question from something you said...

[lucaspolan]

I just finally complete my 1000m swimming and 60km running.