The bike is most expensive piece of equipment you’ll buy. Technically, ANY bike will do for competing in triathlons. However, the more streamlined the bike, the faster your time will be during the bike portion of the triathlon. BUT, triathlon-ing may not be your whole life.  Before even going to the bike shop, think about what you want to do on your bike besides triathlons. Do you see yourself tooling around the trails? Riding long distances. Competing in triathlons hard core? Read the rest of this entry

The thing that mucks up a lot of people’s triathlon training schedule is swim practice.  The whole “production” of swimming is just more time consuming than the actual workout.

For a run, you can put on shoes, shorts and a shirt and go. For a bike ride, same thing, but you grab your your bike out the garage or carry it downstairs and go. For a swim, however, for most of us, we have to grab the swim suit, find a towel, go to the pool, change clothes, etc.–all this rigmarole before we even get into the work out. Read the rest of this entry

Woo Hoo! Finally did the last week of P90X and stuck with it!! It was NOT a perfect success. Like I said in another post there were days that had to be skipped or shortened.  I had to take a week off in December and in February for injuries which made this 13 week program about 4 months long.

I did start running again about a week ago and I’ve been running a little further without wearing out and at a slightly faster pace.  I feel stronger.

I recommend P90X off-season training for a few reasons. Read the rest of this entry

It doesn’t take that much to train to FINISH a triathlon.

You need to train hard to win them.

But if just FINISHING is a fine enough accomplishment–and it is when you are just beginning–then you can train in as little as 16 weeks if you are  a little inactive but reasonably fit.  I would say that means you can walk the dog for a mile (15 – 20 minute walk) with no real issues.

One of my favorite places for plans is beginnertriathlete.com.  You need to work out most days BUT most sessions are 20 to 40 minutes long for any discipline. There are several training free plans for those doing a sprint – the shortest triathlon.  Look at the time requirements then click on the plan you want to follow.

More later on your training plan.