Triathlon

What to say about triathlon?

As you probably know, triathlon is swimming, cycling and running. This is an interesting sport to train different disciplines and different parts of your body, which is really great.

A lot of people are thinking you need to be crazy to train or race for a triathlon, but for me it is not necessary to win the race. The most important is to share some time with my friends, enjoy doing some sport, complete the race and keep smiling.

There are different distances, allowing everybody to practice this sport. Some of the common distances are:

Sprint: 0.5km swimming, 20km cycling, 5km running.
Olympic Distance: 1.5km swimming, 40km cycling, 10km running.
Tristar 111: 1km swimming, 100km cycling, 10km running.
Tristar 222: 2 km swimming, 200km cycling, 20km running.
Half Ironman: 1.9km swimming, 90km cycling, 21km running (half marathon).
Ironman: 3.8km swimming, 180km cycling, 42km running (marathon).

How to start training?

When I first started training, I didn't do any sport since years and I was 115kg. I liked cycling, but never liked running and didn't really know swimming (never learnt crawl before). The big challenge was to complete a sprint the next year!

I started by going regularly to the gym and train with different engines. During the week-end, I took my old bike (it was a mountain bike) and went cycling. First time, it was only for 30-45 minutes, then I increased my training time. I also took some swimming lessons: I took an individual lesson (45 minutes) every week during 1 month. I asked the coach to show me how to swim crawl and he gave me a lot of tips to train by myself and improve my performances.

As you can see, at the beginning, I didn't run at all. I needed to loose some weight first, to not hurt my knees. Running is a sport you can do everywhere (you only need to have good shoes) but it could be very bad for your body. Even now, I'm usually not running more than twice a week, to not get injured.

For good progress, it is good to train each discipline 2 to 3 times a week. But if you do not have time, try to train at least once a week every discipline.

It is also important to vary your training sessions and do not always get the same plan. You always need to alternate with technical exercises, speed and long distance trainings for every discipline.

What is important?

First, it is important to enjoy what you are doing, watch your progress and be satisfied about yourself. It is also important to feel good in your body.

Doing sport is good to learn more about your body and this is really important to listen to it. This helps to know your limits and prevent some injuries.

Which equipment is required?

Polar:

This is really useful to register your trainings to know how long time you trained every week and see your evolution. This is also important to monitor your heart frequency, because your frequency will help you to determine the type of training session you want to do (for example: loose weight, or improve your performances).

To determine your working frequency, you need to calculate it. You will find an Excel file called "Calculate FC" in the documents available for download.

Polar is probably the most common system to measure heart frequency when you are doing sport, but this is not the only one. If you look at the Polar articles, you get different types at different levels. In my case, I bought the RS400 and I am very happy as it can also measure the speed when I am running.

Swimming:

To start swimming, you only need to buy goggles. Yo do not need to get a wetsuit, at least at the beginning (the wetsuits really helps for long distances or cold water).

A good idea would be to take some lessons and learn crawl. Crawl is really good to swim fast enough and keep some energy for cycling and running. You do not necessarily need to get a lot of lessons, but at least 3-4 lessons, to learn how to do the correct movements. It is easier to learn it correctly from the beginning, than correcting it later.

Cycling:

At the beginning, you do not need to buy a new racing bike... In my example, I took my old bike first and decided few months later to buy a new one, corresponding to my needs.

At a certain level, you can make a difference with your bike... but at the beginning, training is more important and will probably help you to loose weight too. It is really cheaper and easier to win weight from your body than on your bike (in my case, I lost 25 kilos the first year; I couldn't find any bike 25 kilos lighter than mine).

Running:

The most important recommendation I have is: Buy good running shoes! It is important to have good running shoes, to not get injuries (especially for your knees).

Food:

Eating & drinking are very important. You always need to get some food when you are doing sport and you need to adapt it in function or your activity. In my specific case, I am always taking a bottle of water when I am going swimming in a pool and drink when I need it. For cycling, I am adding an Overstim powder in my water every time and takes cereal bars and gels when I am training during 2 hours minimum. For running, I am only drinking water and take some gels during races only.

In triathlon, this is really common to eat gels. There are a lot of different types, I will describe it in a specific article. But why eating gels? Because you body need to assimilate your food and it shouldn't hurt your stomach. Eating something solid on your bike is not a problem but if you need to stop eating anything solid 1-2 hours before running (because of your stomach and digestion).

For this reason, you are usually not eating anything solid during short triathlon races, except for long distances like the Ironman.

If you plan to do a long race and be really good, you need to read different articles, because you need to prepare your body few days in advance to store enough energy.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. I will continue to develop it and add others articles helping to make a choice for your materials and food.

Enjoy your visit on this website.

Details: Written by Nicolas Buache; Created on Tuesday, 23 August 2011; Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 January 2012; Hits: 403