Canberra Novice Triathlon Season 2016/17

[TonyMax]

I've just finished 8 weeks of a "novice" triathlon training program with one of the local clubs in Canberra.

We did a bit of everything (swimming once a week, running twice a week and cycling twice a week towards the end) and included a transition session complete with lake swim a week out from our first event.

The first event was on Saturday (we have two entries included in the price of the program) and I finished the swim (a record 300m for me), wasn't last out of the water, made up plenty of places on the 10km bike leg and struggled through the run to finish first in my age group (40-49 male). All of the top ten outright places were boys and girls aged 15 and under .

On looking at the results I had the second fastest overall bike leg only 12 seconds behind the fastest overall finisher .

I really need to improve my swimming as this is where I suffered the worst result (70th overall of 108).

I amazed myself that I was able to finish the event and to have a good result was an added bonus.

I'll keep doing short distance events for the rest of the season and then see what happens from there and how much my swimming improves.

[Derny Driver]

Swimming is the hardest leg. I did 3 years of Triathlon and had never really swum before I decided to take it up. But I worked hard on it, joined a squad, and ended up being able to swim top 10 in almost every race. Working on your swim will have a carry over benefit to the bike and run because it is so good for general fitness and breathing.
In my opinion you really need to swim 4 times a week to improve. Anything less than 3 times a week and you are wasting your time. A coach or a squad will help you with technique.
Start by just swimming the 50 metres and then rest and get you breath back. Swim back to the other end and rest again. See if you can do 10 laps. Do that for a few weeks.
After that see if you can do the 10 laps 2 at a time, 100metres without stopping. Eventually you want to be able to swim the 500 without stopping. And after that, do 500, rest, another 500, rest, and then a third set. It will take time but it can be done.
Well done on the bike riding too.

[MattyK]

Good on you.

I agree that swimming is the hardest, but have a look at the relative leg times and think about how much time you might be able to save if you were a better swimmer. You might be better served focussing on running speed. ie, with training you might save 1 minute on the swim, but with the same amount of run training instead, you might save 2 minutes?

[MattyK]

Nevermind; looks like you smashed the run too... Overall I'd say you did bloody well!

http://www.triathlon.org.au/Assets/Tria ... r+2016.PDF