Where To Fit In Workouts in Training Plan?

Hi!
Your question really struck my fancy as I am also a X-track and XC runner (I still hold high school records in the 3k-love that race! I now coach high school XC and Track as well as students in triathlon-and a few adults). The 3x plan has a short day for all 3 events and you can use those 'short' workouts for your speed days. If your coming off of track you probably already have plenty of speed (did you do indoor or are you about to start outdoor season?) so you could focus on just maintaining your speed once a week after track is over by doing your short day as 'fartleks' or doing some 'tweaking' on the track and run those 400's. You know the routine and what works best for your body. As for swim, you can also build speed on the 'short'days and do repeat 50s or 100's to increase speed. Same on the bike, there are all sorts of fun intervals you can do to increase speed.
Ultimately you don't need the same type of speed work for a 10k at the end of a tri that you need to run a 3k, so you can decrease the amount of intervals you do a week once track is over and use some of that time to get your bike and swim strong. I think the most sound advice is to use a skeleton program like you find on this site, and put your speed workouts in where they work for you. Keep a journal and make sure that you rest when you feel overdone.
I love speed workouts and made the mistake of overtraining for my first couple years of tris which caused me a lot of physical problems so I can't emphasise enough to start with less and build up if your feeling good.
Also, how old are you? I generally can give my students more intensity with a bit less rest as they recover way faster, one of the great things about being young. I am over 30 and need at least a week between hard track interval workouts.
I'd love to hear how your training and season progresses! I'm about to start track in a couple of weeks. CANT WAIT!

I'm another former 3K/5K runner (in HS, 5K and 10K in college) turned triathlete. Agree with Mochachick that the kind of speedwork that would be useful for tri is a bit different than for 3K on the track. You could still do similar workouts to what you do for 3000m to maintain speed for track season, maybe once a week, but if your goal is to have the strongest run possible at the Olympic distance, the kind of speedwork one would do for 10,000m or even half marathon is much more useful. This is because in an Olympic distance tri, you're running AFTER maybe 2 hours of effort including well over an hour of biking, so it places more premium on being able to maintain good form and pace when fatigued than on pure speed. I've found that incorporating tempo runs and fartlek into my longer runs, sometimes doing "2/3 runs" (i.e. do the first 8 miles of a 12-mile run at normal pace, and the last 4 at a faster pace), and hill repeats help with building the strength/endurance specific to running well off the bike, even for sprint distance. You can find examples of these kinds of workouts if you look at the intermediate and advanced Hal Higdon plans (online) for 10 km and half marathon, maybe also in some of the other free tri plans on this site. If you have a solid run base but are running only 3X a week, I would use one to focus on speed, one as a longer endurance run (maybe with a little tempo or fartlek work thrown in), and one more of an easy recovery effort.

As for biking and swimming, people do similar things in workouts to running. If you don't have a heart rate monitor, you can still train by effort and time. For biking, I'd start by building long ride volume to at least race distance (50-60 km would be better) and then incorporating some tempo intervals at harder effort. For example, 5 minutes hard. 5 minutes easy, building to 10-12 minutes hard/2 minutes easy. Or alternate 10-20 minutes of moderate and race-effort riding. You can do much more precise workouts with a HR monitor or power meter but it's not necessary for a beginner.

Swimming--depends on your level. Technique is important if you are a beginner, plus building endurance if you haven't swum 1500m continuously before, and building comfort level with swimming in open water. Beyond that, most workouts involve intervals similar to running. A typical workout for me would be a mix of different intervals like 100, 200, and 400 with the shorter ones below race pace and the longer ones close to it. You can find ideas for workouts on this site (search the training plans and swimming articles) or sites like [email protected].

Hope this is useful. Have fun! I swam and ran competitively in HS and really wish triathlon had been around back in those days (it was, probably, but not that popular and pretty much unknown in rural Ohio where I grew up).

Edited by Hot Runner 2014-02-14 10:17 PM

Thank you both so much for your detailed, thorough, and extremely helpful responses! S
Since i'll be training on my own, I probably won't have to worry about overtraining regarding speed work since I hate it (it's a necessary evil however lol). I'm very glad too that I don't have to focus on training on the track, since i'm much more of an XC girl, which is why the olympic distance triathlon appealed to me. I guess what i'll do is when I start, i'll throw in 1 workout per week for running, but for swimming and biking, just focus on the volume until i'm comfortable with it, since i'm a beginner.

I'll be 18 once I am able to begin training (though at the moment my legs feel like an old man's, due to some nagging hamstring tendonitis). Thank you for the interest in my season too! I'm really excited for spring track as well. My winter season did NOT go nearly as well as i'd hoped (my PR overall is 11:23, and I only hit 11:40 once this year), so here's to spring!

Also, one more question. With biking, how do you guys do it? I was injured during XC and I tried to bike outside, but it was near impossible with all the suburban traffic to go, let alone go fast. How do you do it lol?

Also, in the program, could I increase the run volume in the first month (ex it's a 24 min run on a short day for week 1 month one; could I increase that by 10 minutes? And does that amount of time include a warm up?)

Sorry for all the questions! Wanna make sure I do this right

Edited by Charlatte987 2014-02-15 7:36 AM

I'm in the same boat! Except I graduated last year... I was an alright runner. 10:50 3200m. Anyways, lately I've been going to my local fitness center and biking on their stationary bikes. Having access to a gym is great because you can swim and weight train if you don't have that at your high school.

These are great questions and that is what the forum is for so don't feel bad! Remember the 2 and 3x week plan are for beginners and though you are a beginner triathlete your not a beginner runner. The general rule is don't increase by more than 10% a week total volume so if you are already doing tempo runs or say interval workouts in high amounts (I'm going to guess your getting at least 4500m of speed work in intervals at the end of your season, right) you should be fine increasing your minutes a bit. Just remember your cycling in 2 new sports (no pun intentded) so you may try it one week and find that your legs are fatiqued due to the new bike workouts, and decide that the beginning amount is going to be fine after alll! The plan is a general outline, most important for you is to make sure your recovering right, keep a journal of how you feel each day, and rest if you have a day that you just feel too tired. This is the most important thing in my opinion, and because people who do this type of sport tend to be type A and like to achieve, we often feel 'guilty' if we don't do all the prescribed workouts. Its better to be overrested than overtrained.
I live in a really wet climate so I have a junker bike I train on outdoors, but sometimes when we get 50-90 mph wind and rain I do spinner workouts at the gym. They are great for building speed and hot runner gave you some good tips on interval workouts on the bike, you can do those indoor too.
Don't get too legalistic, balance all three events and realize that you will be running less than you do in XC season because of the added volume in the other events. This is ok and good!
I found as a runner that even though I posted fast 800m-5k times, my times off the bike werent too impressive. I am finally learning how to build speed in all three events without overdoing it in any one. I've had professional coaches, clinics, seminars and I"m a trainer, coach and fitness and nutrition specialist but I've still had tons of 'bumps in the road' so just remember to be patient because its a journey that can last for a very long time, no need to be in a hurry.
Keep the good questions coming and would love to hear how your season goes!

If you are tired and feeling some niggles at the end of track season then I would back off running for a while (esp. speedwork) and focus on the bike and swim until your legs are feeling better (well, except for tired from biking LOL). I've been doing this since January owing to some issues that developed last fall training for a half marathon. Make your runs easy ones and dial back the mileage at first. Everyone needs some recovery time and it will probably benefit your run more in the long range to take the rest than to keep hammering the speedwork. Build the mileage back up gradually as you adapt to the biking and then gradually add in the run speedwork again. Hamstring tendonitis is nothing to play with--I've been fighting it in some form for years.

You could either join a gym and use the spin or stationary bikes, as others have suggested, or buy a bike trainer. This is like a stand that you put your bike on that allows you to pedal at resistance levels similar to cycling on the road. They are usually in the $200-$300 range but you could probably find a used one cheaper, and it might be competitive with the cost of a gym membership, if you're joining only for the bikes. Some of the stationaries at my gym have power meters on them--if you have access to one, you could then do a power-based program like the Jorge Winter Cycling program on this site. Otherwise just go by time/effort. I live most of the year in a big city with crazy traffic and pretty much ride outside once a week; the rest is on a gym stationary or my trainer at home. I'm not an amazing biker but I can hold my own--usually in the top 10-20% of women in the race.

There's definitely NOT much correlation between 3000 speed and running off the bike. My short-range speed is awful now (I'm 44) and I'm not sure I could break 12 minutes for the 3000 these days. (9:47 PB for 3000m, at age 17). But I'm usually the fastest woman off the bike in my races (admittedly, not really high-powered ones), and faster than many of the top guys. It's really a different skill and depends much more on endurance than speed. For example, the women's marathon record is pushing 2:20 (or am I out of date?), but everyone raved about Mirinda Carfrae's amazing running when she won Ironman World Championships and broke the run course record with a run in the low 2:50's. Not dissing her or anything, but the tri run is a different animal from a run-only race and rewards a different kind of ability and training. You might find, since your forte is endurance, that after appropriate training, it would reward you.