Earlier this year, when I was training primarily for the Patriot half iron, most of what I was doing was brick workouts - starting with a short 15 mile (or so) bike ride, then a mile or two run. Each week I increased the distance of each activity a bit, and I'd visit the pool once or twice a week for about half hour or so to work on swim technique, but for the most part that was all I really did for the triathloin disciplines. If someone were to ask me how much time I spent per week training, I'd have responded with 'around 8'. In my mind, there was the two to three hours on the bike, the one to two hours running (both times varying greatly depending on whether it was still March, or closer to May), and maybe an hour swimming. Even on the high side of the estimate, that is two hours short of 8. However, I considered the hour and a half of yoga per week, plus the one or two P90X workouts into my overall time calculations as well.
It's come to my attention recently that when discussing how much time is taken to train, most people are only talking about time in the three disciplines - in other words, not counting cross training that might help with triathlons (either via strength or flexibility improvements). When thinking of training time in those terms, I started to think about how much time I actually spend training now, as I prepare for a full iron.
In my mind, I'm spending virtually all my free time on training.
Saturday/Sunday: LSD run (3.5 hours) or ride (7 hours) with the other day being rest
Monday: swim (30 minutes)*, yoga (90 minutes)
Tuesday: Lower body and core strength (90 minutes)
Wednesday: swim (30 minutes)*, mid week run (90 minutes)
Thursday: Upper body and core strength (90 minutes)
Friday: swim (30 minutes)*, rest
* - sometimes the swim takes the form of a long swim, in which case on those weeks I have been doing fewer pool sessions that week.
Obviously, a significant chunk of time is spent on yoga and strength training, which normally wouldn't consider into overall training time - but they are things that I am finding helpful in order to avoid injury.
That led me to thinking - am I taking a minimalist approach to training? I feel like I have little extra time to put into this effort, yet it only tallies up to either 6 or 10 hours per week, depending on whether its a run or bike weekend. And while there is actually more time on the weekends and Friday, we all know that rest is important.
So in my pondering, I came across this article regarding minimalist training. There are five main points:
1) Swim is about technique, not power
2) Swim isn't that important
3) Cycling fitness crosses over to running
4) Cycling indoors at a high intensity is time efficient
5) Doing a lot of century rides isn't necessary
One of the main reasons why this article was of interest to me was that I immediately found #1-#3 to be true, based on my experience. My whole focus in swimming, ever since I discovered Total Immersion, has been how to move through the water more easily, as opposed to building up the muscles to power myself through the water. A main focus of my swimming over the winter was swimming about one mile per session until I got to the point where my stroke and body positioning was efficient enough that I wasn't fatigued coming out of the water. Contrast this to my first triathlon, when I was heavily winded and already fatigued getting out of the water after only 1/4 mile. Earlier this year I rented a wetsuit for the first time, and I'm glad I did - because I found that with my current form, swimming the 2.4 miles was going to be quite a bit easier than I had thought.
Regarding #2, there can be some debate. I've heard it said that you don't win a triathlon in the water, but you can lose one. Well, I'm just not good enough to be worrying about winning one any time soon - but I've always reasoned that the difference in swim times between those who might win are usually fairly small. In a mile swim (for olympic distances), that difference seems to only be 2-3 minutes or so, unless a race has a particularly strong swimmer that day. Generally, I find that a strong swimmer is usually overtaken by a strong cyclist. Furthermore, the longer the event, the lower the ratio of swim time to overall time.
For #3, I feel as though I definitely discovered that this spring. In my attempts to avoid running too much, on account of my IT band, I limited myself to once/week, and no speed work. The only runs I did were distance extending, yet I still managed to PR a half marathon in early June, on a hillier course than my previous PR a few years ago when I ran 4-5 times per week and did speedwork. The biggest difference was that I had built up to 2-3 hour long bike rides that I was doing on a weekly basis - so there was a huge degree of cardio conditioning that I felt helped with the running abilities.
#4 is something I can't do directly, but I can leverage some of the concepts. I've tried cardio training indoors - it bores me to tears. I had a set of rollers, but I sold them because even 30 minutes on a bike indoors makes me want to shoot myself. So I decided that this offseason, when I can't run or bike any longer, I'd concentrate on the strength training and yoga/flexibility. However, there is still a valuable takeaway from #4 - specifically the high intensity interval sessions of 45 minutes. As the days get shorter, and the temps get cooler and my ability to be out on the bike for 5-7 hours comes to an end - I can still bust out a quick 30-45 minute, high intensity ride. I may have to contend with pauses at traffic lights and what-not, but as I'm not a world class athlete, I'm willing to bet there are still significant gains to be made. This touches on something I mentioned in my last post regarding my 2nd century, when I mentioned I made a conscious effort to keep spinning and not allow myself to take coasting breaks. The one benefit of indoor trainers is that there is no free ride provided by gravity - so I was trying to simulate that by not allowing a lackadaisical coast on a downhill.
#5 - the timing of reading this article couldn't be better. My intention for the remainder of this season was to do a century every other week to build up the endurance, and do that as long as possible into the fall season until snowfall or low temps finally forced me off the road. However, reading this makes me think that I might be better off figuring out logistical stuff for long rides (like fuel and so forth) by doing another one or two before the end of the year, and spending the new-found weekend time working on either high intensity rides (ala #4) and/or more running.
The other nice thing about this article and its approach is that it might also be helpful in the spring, when I'll only have about 4 months (March to about June) to build back up to the distances required for a full iron. If the higher intensity workouts on the bike are that helpful - and if I'll be coming out of the off season stronger due to the strength training - my legs may just be able to handle the interval work without aggrevating the IT band.
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