2008 was my first year in triathlon. It’s a very addicting sport and I got really into it in 2009 and 2010. All this culminated with the Half-Ironman distance Superfrog Triathlon, sponsored and run by the US Navy SEAL’s. That was one of the craziest days of my life. I have done a lot of races, mostly Olympic distance, but the half was a whole different level of commitment and work.
My training includes a lot of strength training using P90X, P90X+ and Insanity. In March of 2009 I put together a 14 week program to prepare for the San Diego International Triathlon (“SDIT”). The SDIT is my favorite race of the year, and I’m on a quest to do it 10 years in a row. I have attached two schedules below. The first is a very generic 14 week training plan for an Olympic distance race (1,500 m swim, 40k bike, 10k run) that incorporates P90X. The second plan is the customized training plan I used in 2009 for the SDIT. My customized plan does two things: (1) focuses on the run, which is my weak point; and (2) includes a variety of races. There are running races, swimming races and a sprint triathlons built into the plan. There is no way to simulate race day conditions and racing is the fun part!
Generic 14 week Olympic Distance Triathlon training plan.
SDIT 14-week-triathlon-training-plan
If you are interested in doing an Olympic or International distance race, I encourage you to check out the 14 week plan and tweak it to meet your needs. It is designed for the Olympic distance race, which is a bit longer, but will work for either. Find some local races and mix them into the plan. I’ve attached my schedule as an example of how to do that. Most of my strength training will come from yoga. Swimming and cycling make the shoulders very tight. Cycling and running make the hips very tight. Stretching can combat some of that and yoga will really help to relax your body and mind as well.
The other aspect of racing that I did not excel at my first year in triathlon was nutrition. My nutrition was not bad, but it was not focused. That is going to be different this year. Nutrition is a topic we will discuss regularly in the blog section of The Fit Club Network.
The 2009 SDIT was a lot of fun and I was really happy to see that the gang from Beachbody came to film my story. My goal was about 2:10. I did the race in 2:14 in 2008 in almost perfect conditions. It was overcast and cool. Once I saw how windy it was and that the sun was likely to come out early, I knew that was going to be tough. The wind did kick up on the bike and the sun came out right as I was leaving T2. My time was 2:08:44. Had I not suffered some cramps on the first 2 miles of the run I would have had a shot at 2:05, which would have been great. Here’s the video story that Beachbody did following me on race day.
All of this stuff predates the release of Insanity, the program created by Shaun T. Insanity is a cardio based conditioning program that uses Max Interval Training. I feel that it is the best sports conditioning cross-training that you can do. My heart rate levels have increased dramatically since I first did Insanity and every time I revisit the program my performance gets better.
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