Training plan selection and general approach

A lot depends on your goals and how much you want to get the most out of your training.  If you want to get in better overall condition, and finish your triathlon in July, the free 2x (or any of the others) will be good.  Just follow the times and keep the effort low-no speedwork or anything.  You can build-in your own drills into the times (swimming for example) from the posts or articles or other sources to improve form.  My plans don't necessarily have periodization (cycling intensity with volume) as they are pretty basic and not really needed if all you want to do is get into better shape and finish a tri regardless of time.

Now, the other option is to do the Silver/Gold plans where drills and periodization are a very important part of them.  There is no guesswork, you do what the workout tells you.  These plans will allow you to get the maximum benefit out of the time you put in.

Just to go  http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=629 , select the level and look at the 'first two week details' of all the plans you may be interested in to see exactly what they include workout/timewise.  Also the calendar view is good to see the amount of training time per week for the entire plan.

Thanks for the information, Ron.  I'd looked at the Performance Member plans and what seems most appropriate for me is the Olympic 2X Balanced 20 week.  It seems most of the Silver plans are either sprint, Du, HIM, IM, or are only 12 weeks for an Olympic and designed for an experienced triathlete.  I like the specificity of these plans (takes some of the guesswork out for me) but, again, it doesn't seem like most are appropriate for me.  Thoughts?

FYI, I will be some level of a performance member.  The features are too good to pass up for the price.

Thanks!

Tom

Another option, with your current condition, you may also be able to start midway into the 7-10 hour winter maintenance, then follow with a 12 week oly - if you want the specificity of workouts.  Mike Ricci recommends the maintenance followed by the actual race plan (12 week) for best performance.  Figure out what week to start the maintenace on to follow up with the 12 week to correspond to race day then look at the 'calendar' times of the particular week of the winter maintence to which you would be jumping into...is it doable?  Remember, if your run is not up to par, you can also do a portion of it using the run/walk method.

Just some thoughts...I'm sure others can chime in as they have used all of the plans discussed in some form or or another.