My Training Week : How do I fit it in

  Firstly I don’t just do triathlons of course I have a job but also have some other interests that take up my spare time. I work as an IT project manager and am lucky to live close to work so commuting doesn’t hamper the time I have for training. The other 2 things that take up my spare time are family (of course) and my local rugby league club. To start with I am chairman of the club (the only reason I do this is to stop committee meetings taking hours and hours), I help run the men’s 1^st team and coach mini rugby (under 7s through to under 9s). When you add triathlon training into the mix most weeks I am busy every day.

Training I have Been Doing

  Let’s start with swimming since doing swimming lessons to sort out my front crawl I have been progressing through the lessons and classes that are provided at my local pool. I now take part in 2 triathlon focused swimfit sessions each week. These are Wednesday and Friday mornings from 6:30am for an hour. When I say the sessions are triathlon focused what I mean is most of the swimmers are triathletes and the coach takes this into account planning them. It’s an early start but it’s really improving all aspects of my swimming. We normally get through between 2km and 3km in a session.

  Next of course there’s cycling. I have been getting out on the bike at least once a week since the spring. When the weather wasn’t so good I used static bikes at the gym. I have been doing anything from short fast 20km rides up to longer 60km rides depending on the weather and the time available to me. My rides are normally on a Sunday after I have been coaching under 7s rugby. Between work and rugby I haven’t been able to fit a 2^nd ride into my week very often.

  Lastly there’s running. My running has been a massive focus for the past 12 months as it was defiantly my weakest leg in 2013. Most weeks I have been running 3 times and always in the morning. I find it much easier to get up and get on with whatever type of training I have scheduled rather than doing it later in the day. On Tuesday mornings I do my long run at or around race pace to help with stamina. When I say long run I mean longer than race distance so as I have been doing sprint distance triathlons my long run is between 6km and 8km. On a Thursday I have been doing either a short fast run or an interval run to help improve my speed.  My last run of the week if my Saturday morning 5km parkrun for a few hundred other people in my local park. This has been great for tracking my running progress. I have dropped my parkrun PB from over 28 minutes to under 25 minutes this year. I am now regularly running 25 minutes for 5km with no problems.

Training I Will Be Doing (Changes I Am Making)

  There aren’t any massive changes I am going to make to my swim training going forwards. I will be continuing with my twice weekly early morning swift sessions. What I will be doing a few weeks before each of my races in 2014 is visiting one of Wakefield triathlon clubs open water swim session at Pugney’s country park. My pool swimming is good but at each race this year I have had problems with the open water swim. This should help sort out the issues I have had and I will be better prepared for each race I do.

  For the bike it’s simple I need to do more. I have recently moved from a hybrid bike to a full road bike. I found a road bike big enough for me (I am 6 foot 6) that I could afford. I have got a turbo trainer for the winter months. Also the gym I am a member of has a new myride cycle studio. For the winter I will be using a turbo trainer with some programs I have found on youtube and the myride studio classes. When the weather improves I will get out on the bike as much as possible and supplement that with myride classes at the gym. Whatever the time of year I am aiming to be cycling in some form at least twice a week and up number of miles I am doing.

   On the run in many ways it’s more of the same. Over the winter I am dropping the Thursday run but keeping the Tuesday morning and parkrun on Saturdays. I am making the Tuesday morning run longer and longer with the aim of getting it over 10km by the new year. I am planning to enter a couple of road races in the new year before the triathlon season starts. These will be at least 10km races. After these I will reintroduce the Thursday interval/speed sessions and see where that takes me.

  Lastly over the winter I am working on my core and flexibility. At least 2 mornings a week (normally Monday and Thursday as I have nothing else planned) I am doing a half hour core and flexibility circuit session. The aim of this is to of course improve my core strength as I suffer lower back pain when swimming for over half an hour. Secondly I need to be more flexible as after 20 years of planning rugby I am not very bendy. The overall aims of all of this training are to improve my triathlon performance and fitness. I currently weigh just under 17 stone and hopefully I can get another half a stone off and get somewhere near 16 stone (which would be lightest I have been since I was about 14).

So the hard work has just begun!