Triathlon is a race against the clock involving swimming, cycling and running. There are 4 standard distances of triathlon race:

• Sprint; 300m swim, 20km cycle and 5km run
• International or Olympic; 1000m swim, 40km cycle and 10km run
• Half IronMan; 1.8km swim, 90km cycle and 21km run
• IronMan; 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42km run

Although I have competed in all these race distances my preferred event is the IronMan. One of the greatest things about triathlon is that each person has their own race for that course on that day. At an IronMan each of the 1600 competitors has the same conditions and rules and everyone, professional and amateur, starts at the same time.

The IronMan is definitely an endurance event, taking anywhere from the record 7 hours 50 minutes to the cutoff time of 17 hours. Because it takes so long it is a tough race that requires both physical and mental preparation. The physical preparation mainly involves training the body to endure hours of continuous exercise whilst drinking large quantities of water and eating a lot of calories (food). It also includes testing and using the race gear (bike and shoes and clothing) to check that it works and fits properly. The mental aspects of the race, often forgotten, include preparing to race for so long, imaging or visualizing everything going perfectly but at the same time being prepared for things to go wrong. A lot of races have not been finished because of a small hiccup that should have been easy to overcome.

Developing the endurance required for an IronMan event involves a long-term training plan. There are three basic measures of physical fitness and thus three factors to train, aerobic capacity, lactate threshold, and economy. Top endurance athletes have excellent values for all three of these physiological traits. There are many very well qualified resources to guides to this type of training.

These years of race preparation have provided a set of basic rules that I follow.

1. Get enough rest to recover from training. Recovery happens during times of rest. During recovery the body mends the damage of training and grows a little stronger than before. While sleeping, growth hormone is released which is necessary for the body to regenerate. Damaged cells take longer to heal raising the risk of injury and illness. Rest time is also when glycogen stores are replenished between workouts, not allowing adequate rest leads to decay in endurance performance. If the training workload remains high with decreased sleep time, overtraining becomes a real threat. Just like injury, overtraining can destroy a training schedule and demoralize the athlete. I believe that most athletes don’t rest enough. Most amateurs, especially those with families and demanding jobs, try to squeeze more workouts into the day. This often means that sleep time is cut.

2. Vary the training regime. Make the hard days hard and the easy days easy. Most athletes end up doing exactly the opposite. They push too hard on their easy days, then because they are tired, the hard days end up too easy and all workouts end up in the middle gray zone. Get adequate rest, try to make the easy days really easy and the hard training days harder and performance will improve.

3. Stretch, please stretch, stretch every time, stretch a little longer, stretch in the evening, I’ll say it again, don’t forget to stretch. Most injury comes as a result of not stretching, an injury often means no training and not being able to train is torture for an athlete! Because triathlon endurance training takes a lot of time, athletes try to save time cutting corners wherever possible, often this includes stretching time. I advocate stretching after each workout, the duration and intensity of stretching should be appropriate to the type of workout, easy limbering up after easy days, gentle stretching after very long training and long duration stretching after hard sessions. As an absolute minimum ensure that all the major muscle groups are stretched, do not bounce and hold the stretch for 45-60 seconds.

4. The penultimate recommendation is set clear and simple goals for the year. Pick an event or two and try to improve on the time for that particular event. A good goal provides direction for training and prevents the monotony of just working out and racing. Once goals are set, a plan is required to achieve those goals. The training plan is an ideal route to the goal. It will certainly need adapting and enhancing as training progresses each person discovers the things that work best for them. Keep track of the goals, recording the training times and how you felt to measure the improvement over time.
5. This leads to the last piece of advice, which is to make everything you do count. Every part of training has a purpose. The purpose of training is to improve conditioning to achieve the goal set in the previous step. When you train hard make it hard, when it’s an easy recovery run ensure it is easy and when it is rest time allow time for your body to recover, so that the next training session serves its purpose to the fullest.

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