Triathlon/Ironman/Half Iron Man Thread

Olympic distance in August.

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Do you have a bike trainer?

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I don’t have a trainer, but I live on White Rock Lake in Dallas so I plan on doing as much of my riding outside as possible.

It’s freezing today so I’m going to ride the C2 bike, which is not ideal, but it should work for now. Weather will turn soon anyway, but even this weekend it’s supposed to be about 60 so I should have ample opportunity to get enough rides in before June and I’ll just supplement with the stationary as needed.

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Last recommendation (again not my experience) is to get your bike fitted to you otherwise you’ll leak a ton of power.

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I’ve had my bike for a couple of years, should be good to go there.

I’ve done the bike and run portion separately in the past, just never at the same time with a swim. I’m looking forward to switching up my training and doing something different, it should be fun once we get through February, and there is 5 of us doing it so have some training partners as well

Take this advice from someone who is currently completely out of shape, but did do triathlons including half and full ironman up to 2019 when I took a break that hasn't ended. You can probably get 70% of your training done while still doing strength training and not much negative side effect. I'd say about 2 months out though, you really want to focus on recovery between workouts as workload increases. Not as critical for half ironman, but very important if you ever get to a full. If you are following a plan that includes rest after a long weekend, I'd imagine strength training is going to limit the recovery you need.

My coach for an ironman still included deadlifts and stuff in my training, but very light stuff to just keep all your muscles balanced. Even still, when I quit, I ended up with more injuries than when I was training. Back issues and such because I didn't focus on that training enough. I truly believe squats and such are where I dropped the ball. Once I started doing that again in around 2020, all my pains and aches went away.

Louisiana triathlon in May in new roads. Unless yet another birth/ death/ wedding.
etc interferes.

Had to hit the C2 bike because it’s as cold as the dickens. Did 20k in 45 minutes then worked up to 2 sets of 5 deadlifts at 275 and finished off with 3 rounds of 5 power cleans and 15 toes to bar.

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Just ran my first half marathon, no problem. I’m not a strong swimmer. Can probably swim like 100m before I need a break. Realistically if I started focusing on swimming how long would it take for me to get the swim distance down and actually start training for a half Ironman?

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I’d defer to someone with more experience, I can only tell you about myself, but I feel like I’m similar. I’m comfortable in the water and a decent swimmer as far as technique, I had just never tried to swim for distance. In the two weeks I’ve been swimming, I’ve made vast improvements to where I’m not really that concerned about it. The biggest thing I’ve had to get used to is the changing of breathing pattern in the water. I’m really good in aerobic activity of controlling my heart rate and breathing, but when you are swimming the breathing technique is so different, but I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable really quickly. I did several open water swims a couple of weeks ago in the ocean and I can tell you not being afraid of sucking in salt water definitely helps being more comfortable in the water.

Ultimately it’s going to vary greatly on how long it would take somebody.


Also, 45 minute recovery run today. Tried to keep the heart rate in the 130 range. Short and easy

Oh yea I don’t plan to just jump right in. Probably do some sprints then an Olympic. Was just curious if I was like 1 year out or 5 years out.

I had no experience swimming when I started, and it became my strongest leg. The difficulty lies in learning technique over just purely building endurance and/or speed. The technique is what allows you to conserve energy. If you can swim slowly without your legs falling, you can easily build distance. From there your endurance increases to the point of swimming faster. Once I swam several hundred yards, a mile was easy. Didn't take much more and 2.4 miles was easy. Then I worked hard on the speed through intervals and didn't need to focus on the long and slow technique. I might check my 1000 yard swim time once every few months.

I loved cycling. It was the fun part. But what I kick myself the most for not keeping up with was the swimming. Was a great workout I could do at lunch without showing up to work overheated and sweaty.

I started with a bike just to get in shape. Then just enjoyed the bike. Then as a mechanical engineer, I got fascinated all the parts and technology of bikes. Invested in a power meter. Probably way before I had enough competency on the bike to need one. But it took cycling to a different level. Before you could go on a ride and get 20 miles in, but slack most of the time and make whatever excuses. And you just dont get better. But with a power meter, you have a target and you hit it or you don't. You can hold yourself accountable. Add a coach who knows what to prescribe and your 45 minute trainer workout can be a killer that boosts your performance more than noodling around for 3 hours.