LSUAnthony

Ok so I am a newbie at Road/Tri bikes and even triathlons. I did my first sprint triathlon at the CB&I tri in the woodlands,tx and did about average hour and a half...now I have an olympic triathlon coming up in september and find my self struggling training for it, I am not sure why it just doesnt feel like I am getting anything done.

As for the bike, I do not have one but plan on purchasing one soon. I do not want a 1000-2700 dollar bike something more along the lines of 400-500 dollars. I look on craigslist and the local classifieds but dont want to get ripped off. Any suggestions on a good tri/road bike that will get me through triathlons? And i am not talking about ironmans and stuff like that, just simple bike rides with the occasional triathlon.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,
Anthony

900aero

I'm going to approximate wildly here but here goes:

For the purpose & budget you outline, just get a regular roadie and then you can add clip-on aero bars if you want to get a TT riding position for longer races. This will be a much more versatile bike all round.
If you only want one bike, the Cervelo S1 is a bike which has the ability to be readily converted from roadie to TT by flipping the seat post around to make the seat tube angle steeper. These come with a pretty bullet-proof alloy frame and older models may be in your price range.
With bikes (like most things) you get what you pay for. If your budget is modest, stick with brands that you know or which might be serviced by shops around you. You may pick up an exotic bargain but odds are against you once you start looking at anything too esoteric.
Try & get a knowledgeable friend to look at a prospective bike for you or at worst, post a link here to one that you see online.

LSUAnthony

I have been looking at cannondales and scott road bikes, then just thought about adding aero bars on there, but didnt know if it looked official. But i guess in the end its all about comfort? Thanks for your help.

Tundra_Man 

Even at the Olympic length tris, you're still going to see a fair amount of hybrids and mountain bikes. Don't worry about looking "official."

If you're only going to own one bike, it's purpose being "simple bike rides with the occasional triathlon" then you're more than likely going to be happy with a road bike. Add clip-on aerobars if you want.

I've got a dedicated tri-bike, but outside of racing and training for upcoming races, it doesn't get ridden. If I'm going on a leisurely bike ride or commuting, then I ride my other bikes. My tri-bike is good for one thing only: going really fast in a relatively straight line. A road bike is much more versatile.

LSUAnthony

Ok see I was thinking if I do get more and more serious with triathlons, and end up doing Half IM and full IM's then I would def get a serious Tri bike prolly made to fit me, but for now with just the sprint tri's and olympic tri's a road bike would be just fine. I just want the best bike for what I am willing to pay for right now.

Do you have any training tips for this olympic triathlon as well? Seems like you have done these a few times.

Thanks

Tundra_Man 

Swim lots, ride lots, run lots. And practice your transitions.

Seriously, I like to build my weekly volume in the three disciplines to three to four times the race volume. So for example with an olympic length tri I like to make sure my weekly training base can handle about 3 miles of swimming, 100 miles of biking and about 24 miles of running. I find this level of base allows me to put the three disciplines together on race day and have the fitness to push myself a little.

Build to this base by increasing weekly volume by no more than 10%, especially with running. Every 4th week, schedule a recovery week where you pull back on your volume to about 70% of the previous week. This will give your body time to heal and reload for the next build cycle.

The #1 rule of triathlon: nothing new on race day. Make sure you have practiced everything you plan to do on race day beforehand to see if it will work or not. In the middle of a race is not the time to discover you the new flavor of goo you picked up doesn't agree with your stomach, or that new tri suit chaffs you after 15 miles of riding.

If you haven't been there before, check out https://beginnertriathlete.com/ Tons of great information and a wonderful forum. Despite the name, triathletes of all levels frequent and post there. I've learned a ton from that site.

LSUAnthony

Wow I actually havent even thought to try and reach goals each week for each event, thats awesome, I am going to do that. My transition times were decent, my longest being swim to bike which I think was 2-3 minutes...running is my biggest problem, I have a hard time with running, but iIthink if I set a goal weekly I think I can do it.

So you would do these work outs to reachyour weekly goals in a period of 3 to 4 times a week? Mon, weds, Fri, Sun?

900aero

One simple thing that I recommend ( along with some of the excellent advice above) is to get one long, serious training effort on each discipline per week. I don't mean to kill yourself with 6 hour rides but, 2-3 hours in the saddle can teach you a lot more than lots of 1 hour sessions. If you can fit these three major workouts in your week and then schedule smaller ones around them it seems to help.

Tundra_Man 

The runner's mantra is: Run often. Mostly easy. Sometimes hard.

IMHO, running four times per week is the bare minimum a person should do if they're interested in improving their run. Most "couch to 5k" or "couch to sprint triathlon" programs I've seen have a person running three times a week. I believe they do this to make the program appealing to people, not because it's the best way to train.

What I do is run five or six times per week. Two medium days, a long day and two or three short days. The long day is 33% longer than the medium day. The short days are 33% less than the medium day if I'm doing two shorts per week, otherwise they're 44% less if I'm doing three. On the medium days I'll run slightly faster than the long or short days. Six days is optimal, but if I feel I need a rest the day after my long run, I'll drop one of the short runs and make up the volume on the remaining two short runs. Ideally, you don't want your long run to be more than 30% of your total weekly volume.

So here's an example schedule from what I ran last week. Obviously, you have to adjust your miles to your current fitness level/goals. Also, this isn't gospel so I might swap days around a little bit if there's a conflict in my schedule:

Monday: 6.14 miles
Tuesday: 6.14 miles
Wednesday: 8.17 miles
Thursday: 3.08 miles
Friday: 3.08 miles
Saturday: 3.08 miles
Sunday: off

As far as how fast you should be running these, here's a great pace calculator: https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmil...calculator.htm Most people are surprised when they see how slow their optimal training pace actually is.

To reduce the chance of injury, never increase your weekly volume by more than 10%. In fact, I found I get injured at the 10% rate, so I had to pull back to 7%. This makes progress painfully slow, but I'd rather have slow progress than no progress. You don't make any gains laid up at home on the couch.

Also, I don't recommend doing any speed work until you get a solid base of at least 20 miles per week. Doing speed work with an insufficient base is a recipe for injury. Being somewhat injury prone myself, I don't even do speed work as I've found satisfactory performance gains simply from ramping up my volume.

Running used to be my biggest struggle as well, but once I really started a focused training program and began seeing results, it's now my favorite thing to do. A couple weeks ago I had to skip a couple runs because of torrential rains and found myself a very cranky person until the weather cleared up.

Obviously people write whole books on running, so there's more info than what I can outline in a post, but hopefully this gives you a basic idea of a run training plan.

LSUAnthony

Yea I think starting monday I need to start a new work out regiment that fits to my training in this triathlon, I think the reason I find running difficult for me is because of the damn treadmill, I think if I go outside and do it, without all that information infront of my face, and just running, then I think itll be easier. The problem is that in Houston, TX is so damn hot now, but I think I can manage that.

So for a beginner, would you recommend, 3 miles of swim a week, 100 miles of bike, and probably 18 miles of running just basing that off my abilities right now.

Tundra_Man 

You'll probably find running outside more difficult physically, but much easier mentally. You have the increased impact of the pavement, wind, hills and (as you mentioned) elements to deal with, which make it more difficult. However when you're on the treadmill (at least for me) there's not much to look at other than watch the clock tick by and maybe stare at some mind-numbing TV. I find hour runs outside seem to pass faster than 1/2 hour runs inside on the treadmill.

What you listed is probably a minimum base that you should work towards in order to comfortably finish an Olympic length tri. As far as where you should begin, I can't really make any recommendations without knowing what you're currently doing for weekly volume in each of the disciplines. A beginner with no fitness base whatsoever should not jump right into that listed volume. However, if you have a certain amount of fitness base already built in one or more of the disciplines, you don't necessarily have to start at the same level a couch potato would.

pharasz

And I only run twice a week. Three miles on Wednesday, as fast and hard as possible, in pain the whole way. Six miles on Sunday, easy to moderate pace. This enables me to complete the 10K on an Oly distance race in a reasonable time. By reasonable, I mean my run time comes out right about in the middle of the pack for my age group.

The thing is, I have flat feet and I'm heavy. I spent years doing track workouts, upping my weekly mileage, everything I read about how to run better/faster. Yes, I was faster than I am today, but not by much. Never once did I ever run down another competitor in my age group. Every time my weekly mileage went over 18 to 20, I acquired a new injury somewhere. I finally realized it just wasn't worth it, and now I'm much happier with my simple 9 mile per week routine. And I haven't had a running injury in years.

In the end, you do what works for you.

pharasz

Oh, and my first "tri-bike" was a five year old carbon fiber road bike (Specialized) I found in the want ads for $500. I put clip-on aerobars on it and used it in races for six years. For your price range the best thing to do is look for used bikes.

LSUAnthony

Thats exactly how I feel running on a treadmill, its really boring, I find running on trails more distracting and time goes by fast. I am pretty fit, not a couch potato, so you would recommend up-ing the distances on my work out?

LSUAnthony

See I want to be able to run half marathons and full marathons but its something about running that isnt fun to me, but I think I just need to get over that runners block or whatever. I think the longest I have ever run was 4 miles in about 50 min, pretty slow about 12 min mile but I felt decent afterwards. Like you said, just on what works for me.

Tundra_Man 

How many miles per week are you currently running? Are those miles primarily on a treadmill?

LSUAnthony

Honestly, prolly about 9 miles a week, thats how bad it is, and they are all on a treadmill.

Tundra_Man 

This is probably what I would do: start at 9 miles total volume, but move it outside. Your race is going to be outside anyway, so you might as well train outside.

Day 1: 2 miles
Day 2: 2 miles
Day 3: 3 miles
Day 4: off
Day 5: 1 mile
Day 6: 1 mile
Day 7: off

The second week add 10% to each day: 2.2, 3.3 and 1.1.
The third week add 10% to each day: 2.4, 3.6 and 1.2
The fourth week back off and only do 70% of the 3rd week: 1.7, 2.5 and .9

Then repeat the cycle, only use the previous cycle's week 3 mileage for the starting week mileage of week 1. Keep doing this until you reach your goal. Resist the urge to add more than 10% on the build weeks, even if you feel good. Only adding 10% or less is how you keep feeling good.

I know the percentages aren't exactly 33% above and below the medium run, but at the lower volumes this isn't as critical. As the base mileage is built adjustments can be made to get the numbers evened out a little better.

Anyway, that's my suggestion. Take it for what it's worth. I'm not an expert or a personal trainer or anything like that. Just a guy who's been running for a lot of years and figured out what works for him.

LSUAnthony

No that is great help I really appreciate it, Im going to try that system out and see if it works, I will let you know how it goes and what not, and post my Oly tri results and stuff. I appreciate the help, Ive got some ideas as to what to do now so time to put it into effect now.

jordo_99

Lots of great advice given by Tundra_Man. Only thing I would really even consider changing is maybe the day off. When running very competitively I would always do long runs on Saturday and have Sunday off.

There's a difference between building endurance/mileage and building speed but this is an example of speed training.

Race Distance: 5k-10k

Monday: 4-5 miles
Tuesday: Speed workout *
Wednesday: 4-5 miles
Thursday: Tempo 3-4 miles **
Friday: Race Day or 4-5 miles
Saturday: 6-10 miles ***
Sunday: off

* The speed workout would be 400m, 600m, 800m or mile repeats. Run as hard as you can and then walk 1/4 and jog 1/4 of the sprinting distance. I normally did 4-6 800m or 2-4 mile repeats. I honestly dreaded doing these solo. They aren't much fun unless you have someone with you or you just enjoy pushing yourself to the limit, but will help drastically so long as you take precautions to get enough rest on other days to recover so you don't not get injured.
** The tempo run was supposed to be about 80-85% of race pace.
*** Long runs should be done slower. Take a regular day and add 30-90 seconds per mile to it. You should be able to hold a conversation with someone during these runs.

Misc Notes: Instead of adding 10% to this kind of workout you really only want to add to long run, tempo and speed days. Make sure you get a good warmup run. probably 1/2 a mile or so before doing any kind of tempo/speed workout.

No workout should ever set in stone as you don't always feel as strong as the last day. Workouts should be reviewed day-to-day and adjusted for how you feel. That goes for pretty much any athletic training but is especially important for running where you can get injured easier by overworking yourself.


Basically, there is a point where running longer distances starts to taper off as far as performance is concerned. When you get to that point this sort of schedule is going to be what you're looking for.

jordo_99

I had that exact same problem. I used to love running and and was good enough that I could just go outside and run 4 miles in 24 minutes on a whim. It was empowering and felt amazing, but when I started running again after a 4 year hiatus (I was burned out due to bad experiences while collegiate running) I hated it. It was just terrible to run "slow" and have trouble with it. (FYI, I'm nowhere near as fast as I used to be)

Long story short, nearly everybody feels this way when they start. It's not like a parting of the clouds where all of a sudden you love running but if you keep at it you'll find yourself starting to like running. Usually this goes hand-in-hand with "running fitness".

LSUAnthony

Thanks man, whenever I see people running on the roads or what not, it just looks so easy to them, so I get jealous pretty quick, but I guess I jsut need the discipline to start and keep it up.