As I mentioned in a recent post, over the last few weeks I’ve started getting ready for the upcoming triathlon season, and am focusing on preparing for the Peterborough Half-Ironman on July 6th.

I have been following a slightly modified training program from Triathlete Magazine’s Week By Week Training Guide. This is a great book, as it contains programs for any distance of triathlon (from sprint up to Ironman), and for any level (there are 10 different programs for each distance). The programs vary based on your skill level and time available for training.

I am currently on Week #7 of the 20 week training plan, and decided to try Level 5, which is for somewhat competitive people who don’t have a huge amount of time to train. I thought it would be interesting to share how my week shapes up (Source: Triathlete Magazine’s Week by Week Training Guide).

Monday:
REST

Tuesday:
Swim – Base Intervals (6×100) + Swim Sprint Intervals (11×25)
Bike – Short Hill Climbs (11 x 1 minute climbs, 80 minutes total)

Wednesday:
Run – Speed Intervals (13 x 30 seconds, 52 minutes total)

Thursday:
Brick Workout: 1 hour bike, 30 minute run

Friday:
Bike – Foundation Ride (90 minutes)
Swim – Fartlek Intervals (6 x 150 build / descend, 1900m total with warm-up and drills)

Saturday:
Bike – Long Ride (2 hours 15 minutes)
Run – Foundation Run (35 minutes)
NOTE: I will break these workouts up into morning / afternoon

Sunday:
Swim – Base Swim (1500m continuous)
Run – Long Run (1 hour 5 minutes)

There you have it. Assuming the swim workouts take me an hour, it’s about a 12 hour training week with 3 swims, 3 bike rides, 3 runs, and a brick workout. It’s definitely more volume than I have done in the past, and hopefully I’ll see the payoff come July!!

While I’m on my training runs, I like to know what sort of pace I’m running and, which when combined with my heart rate, tells me if I’m working hard enough, or too hard. I’m not lucky enough to own a GPS-enabled watch, so I’ve had to resort to other methods to tracking my distance on the run.

Early in my running career, I used to get in the car and drive my regular routes, which gave me a good idea of the distance. Not to mention being environmentally unfriendly, the big problem with this method was that a lot of my runs included trails and off-road areas. While I was tempted to try to drive these routes too, I figured the chances of my little Japanese-made sedan surviving the bumps and hills were pretty low, so I settled for taking a guess.

A couple years ago, I found a great website which let me plan and and calculate my running routes online. Check out: www.gmap-pedometer.com, a nice, easy to use program that lets you plot a series of points. It is built on top of Google Maps, so the interface might be familiar. You can use the Satellite and Hybrid views to zoom in to street level, and for most major cities, the resolution gets high enough that you can even follow your favourite trails through the woods! I also try to make a mental note of where the kilometre markers are located (or mile markers, if you prefer), and use these to help work out my pacing on the run.

This little tool (www.gmap-pedometer.com) has been a great benefit to me over the last couple years, so if you’re looking to calculate how far you are running, check it out!!

After a relatively inactive year in 2007, I am looking forward to getting into a few more races in the summer of 2008. I have already decided to try the half-Ironman again, and will be returning to Peterborough on Sunday July 6th. I had been thinking of signing up for the new Ironman 70.3 race in Muskoka in September, but the quick sell-out of that race helped me make up my mind.

Looking back on my first attempt at the half-Ironman in 2006, I am sure that I made two crucial mistakes in my preparation and race day:

1. Not Enough Training
2. Poor Race Day Hydration / Nutrition

Heading into the race in 2006, I was definitely under-trained. I had only done one 90km-plus bike ride (ever), had run a half-marathon that spring but nothing more than 15km for a couple months, and had only swam 2km once. I definitely hadn’t tried putting them together, or even doing long brick workouts.

This year, in an effort to make sure I am better prepared come race day, I am following a program from Triathlete Magazine’s Week by Week Training Guide. This book has training programs for all distances of triathlons, with a number of levels to choose from based on your experience and available time for training. I choose a mid-level half-Ironman training program, which has me training about 10-12 hours a week. I’m six weeks into it, and I’ve already noticed that it’s a lot more volume than I used to do. After a letting myself get relatively out of shape, I feel like I’m slowly getting there, though still have a long way to go to be able to handle the half-Ironman again.

As for nutrition, the biggest mistake I made was not replacing electrolytes during the race. This year, I’ll experiement a little more with my nutrition during the long training rides and runs, and make sure to take salt tablets or a sports drink with electrolyte replacement during the bike ride. I’m hoping that with better training and better nutrition I’ll see a better performance and maybe knock a few minutes off my previous time!