Your first race of the season is coming up, and it’s time to start training.
You know that picking the right training plan is going to make a critical difference to your race experience, but you also know that your boss’s only joy in life is shoveling last-minute work onto your desk, your kid’s afternoon activities all happen at opposite ends of town, and dinner isn’t going to cook itself.
With the right strategies in place, you can fit regular training into even the busiest schedule.
In this article, we’ll look at how to establish a realistic training plan, balance work with exercise commitments, and maximize your available time – as well as avoid common mistakes made by beginner triathletes.
Work out how much time you have to train each week
Time is a valuable resource for any athlete, but seeing as we have to fit three different sports into our lives, it’s even more valuable for triathletes.
So when considering a training plan, the very first step is to take a look at your schedule and work out how many hours you can consistently make available to train in any given week.
These hours shouldn’t be lumped into weekends or days off work; ideally, you should try to find four or five days in a week where there are chances to train, and then establish how many hours (or minutes) should consistently open up on each of those days.
Knowing how many hours you have to dedicate to triathlon not only helps you plan. It’s also a critical piece of information a triathlon coach will ask you about, should you ever decide to sign up with one.
Establish Your Goals
Usually, you’d expect to come up with your goals first and then look at your training plan options, but it’s good to start with hours in a week as this helps ground your goals in an element of reality.
In other words, the time required for adulting doesn’t usually leave much left over for lofty athletic aspirations, but realistic, progressive goals are very definitely attainable.
If you have three hours a week you can consistently free up without something else in your life falling over, then your goals should reflect that.
Are you going to successfully attain a goal in one of the longer distances, say a sub-10-hour Ironman® in six months? No.
Can you get out there and be competitive in a sprint or Olympic-distance race? Quite possibly.
Another factor to consider as you think about goals is how consistently you plan to race.
Are you looking at your first sprint triathlon or super sprint triathlon as a once-off event, and competing for fun or for a challenge?
Or are you keen to participate in a series of races in the coming season, and want to continue to improve race by race throughout the year?
If you’re looking at a one-and-done, then you can probably free up more time in the short term to train. If you’re looking at a whole season of races, however, then you will need to have a bit more balance.
Now that you know the outcome you are looking for and the hours you have available to reach that outcome, you can look at establishing a training schedule.
Establishing a Training Schedule
To maximize your training time and reach your goals, having a plan is essential. There is any number of triathlon training plans available on the internet, but unfortunately, the odds of any of them meeting your exact needs are pretty low.
There’s more to fitness than hammering out a bike and run every day and a swim every other day. We cover the fundamentals of fitness here.
When it comes to establishing which beginner triathlon training plan works for your schedule, the key is to focus on the duration of each workout rather than the distance.
For example, instead of planning a 3-mile run, plan for 30 minutes of running. There are several reasons for this.
The first is simple planning. You’ve already established how much time you have available, so it’s a relatively simple process to fill up those blocks of time with time-based workouts.
The second is that everyone is coming into the sport from a different starting point, and so a 3-mile run you found on an internet training plan may be easy for you and take 25 minutes at a low heart rate.
Or, you may not have any running in your background at all, and so the same distance will take 45 minutes, push your heart rate way up, and leave you wiped out for the rest of the day.
Cardiovascular fitness develops in line with duration and intensity, and so to get the most out of your triathlon training plan, you want to balance how many hours per week you spend at each relevant intensity level.
Anything up to 80% of the hours, not the miles, you spend on triathlon training should be in the lower intensity zones, and you’ll spend fewer hours training hard.
Where to focus your training when time-constrained
Rather than just honing your strengths, concentrate on training workouts aimed at developing your weaknesses, particularly if you are very time crunched.
For example, if you have a running background, focus on the bike leg of the race in your training. Some of the aerobic capacity developed on the bike will carry across to the run, and getting stronger on the bike portion leaves you fresher, and ultimately stronger, on the run.
Swimming is almost always the most difficult of the three sports to slot into your triathlon training, as it’s usually the only one you can’t do from home or work.
Unless of course, you’re totally loaded and have a lap pool in your backyard.
Assuming most people reading this aren’t totally loaded, try to get into the pool at the very least once a week, even if it’s just for a short workout.
For a weak swimmer, there is no better way to spend the time than on swim drills. While technique plays an important role in running and biking, for swimming, technique is everything.
Spend the time you have available to practice swimming efficiently rather than simply hammering out laps, as your potential improvement in swim speed from a high volume of swim training alone is unfortunately quite limited.
Balancing Life and Training
Once you take a fine-tooth comb to your weekly schedule, there are usually several viable opportunities to train for a triathlon.
If you have been around long enough to remember the computer game called “Tetris“, this really is quite similar as you aim to slot in whatever you can, wherever you can.
See our tips for combining training with family commitments here.
Time hacks for run training:
The great thing about run training is that frequent, short runs can still do a lot for your run fitness and speed, particularly for first-time triathletes or if you’re coming off a low running base.
Aim to run often if you can’t run long – a 20-minute run before or after work, done three or four times a week, will do more for you by the time the race begins than a single long run on the weekend does.
And with much lower injury risk too.
If your kids have activities in the afternoon, see if you can run while they’re busy. All you need is your running shoes.
Yes, this includes doing laps around your daughter’s soccer field while she practices. Because parents are meant to be embarrassing, remember?
Add in a little bit of speed work once or twice a week to these short workouts and you’ll see significant gains.
Another great time hack for run training is to mix in some indoor training on a treadmill.
Yes, treadmills don’t fill anyone with joy, but they’re there for you when it’s dark or the weather is bad, and with your phone or tablet in hand give you an amazing opportunity to binge-watch all the terrible TV shows your family won’t let you watch when they’re around.
Time hacks for bike training:
Biking unfortunately is kinda the opposite of running, in that the longest of your weekly workouts is likely to be on the bike.
You’re likely to spend at least half of the few hours you have available for training each week on the bike but can mix these sessions up to build out both aerobic endurance and power.
If you’re able to commute by bike to work, this can help maximize your time spent on two wheels. Even if you only aim to commute this way once a week, that’s still valuable time spent building out your aerobic base.
Additionally, if your workplace has showers, then you don’t have to go through the rest of the day explaining your helmet hair to everyone, or why you smell like you work in a deodorant factory.
As with running, many triathletes train indoors on the bike, particularly during the week. This can be done reasonably cheaply by buying a simple turbo or indoor trainer and connecting your road bike or triathlon bike to it.
An indoor trainer is the single best time hack you can get as you prep for your first triathlon and beyond. Getting in your longest bike ride of the week on a trainer isn’t fun, but at 5 pm, it’s a whole lot better than being outside in the traffic.
Time hacks for swim training:
Getting your swims in usually comes down to hardcore planning, as it’s much, much easier to be flexible with your runs and even your bike sessions when you can simply roll out of the front door and get started.
Having said that, it’s important to incorporate swim workouts into your routine regularly.
First, look for the open time on your schedule that is most likely to stay free each week, review that time alongside your local pool’s schedule for lap swimming, and commit to prioritizing your swims during these times.
You’ll have to add in travel time to and from the pool, and shower time if you have to go anywhere after – deodorant mixed with chlorine is at best, smelly, and at worst, flammable.
Okay, it’s probably not flammable, but you get the picture.
And then, once you’re there, really emphasize workout quality over quantity, as we discussed above.
Time hacks for strength training and flexibility
As we discuss here, strength training for any of the triathlon distances doesn’t have to involve pumping iron in the free weights section of the gym.
There are a lot of gains in strength to be made from body-weight exercises such as squats, pushups and core work, all of which can be done in 5-10 minute bursts after other workouts, or in front of the TV at night, or really anywhere that you’re comfortable doing them.
There are also several inexpensive options for resistance training at home, for example purchasing resistance bands such as these.
Resistance bands give you great options to build upper body strength, in particular helping you become a more efficient swimmer.
As for stretching, there is no better place than in front of the TV. This allows your kids to take great joy in commenting on your inability to reach anything even close to your toes.
Avoiding Common Mistakes
Whether you’ve been competing in triathlon for a few seasons already or are looking to train for your first triathlon, many of us make sub-optimal (okay, bad) choices as we try and shoehorn triathlon training into everything else we do.
There aren’t always elegant ways to make these trade outs work, but at the very least it’s good to be aware of the pitfalls of each of them.
Skipping out on sleep
We all know this, and yet we all make the same mistake, particularly when it comes to squeezing our longer sessions.
If you aren’t sure of the value of sleep, there is a brilliant book on the subject by Matthew Walker called Why we Sleep which you should check out if you have time.
The only real advice we have is to be aware of where you’re cutting corners and proactively manage your available hours to sleep.
If you’re waking up at 4 am to fit in a long indoor ride (hey, it happens), then make sure you’re in bed by 9 pm at the latest. If you’re sharing your bed with your significant other, make sure you’ve discussed both the early night and early morning with them first.
Skipping Recovery Days:
Let’s be honest here – most of us aren’t as young as we used to be. Well, technically nobody is as young as they used to be, but anyway.
We’re old(er). And with age comes the wisdom to know that recovery is one of the most important elements of your triathlon training program.
Ensure you’re granting yourself a break each week from any form of physical activity – even if that implies missing a planned session altogether.
The Weekend Training Binge:
It’s Friday afternoon, and your well-planned week turned into a dumpster fire of angry clients, angry bosses, and emergency orthodontist appointments.
You missed all your sessions for the week, but never fear – you have a 5-hour block open between 4 am and 9 am on Saturday morning where you can fit them all in back-to-back if you play your cards right.
Doing this can lead to injury, burnout, and exhaustion, and will set back any progress you have made rather than help move forward toward a successful race day.
You will also be in a ton of trouble at home when you’ve fallen asleep on the couch at 11 am that same Saturday morning instead of doing the yard work you promised to do several weekends in a row.
This is a hard one, but the only advice is to let it go. A missed session is a missed session, and while you can make up one or two key workouts on a weekend, you can’t do them all.
Your fitness level doesn’t fall off a cliff in a week, so it’s best to get your training routine back together next week and move on.
Triathlon training vs. real life
Unfortunately, triathlon is a pastime for us. We’re not pros, other than in our dreams.
Equally unfortunately, we’ll almost always be racing people who are faster than us, fitter than us, younger than us, or all of the above.
Where we’re going with this? Triathlon shouldn’t mess with the other things in your life, as it’s ultimately a (totally awesome, life-changing) hobby.
With the right prioritization and planning though, it is a ton of fun that doesn’t have to involve your partner death staring at you as you drool on yourself on the couch on a Saturday morning.