Triathlon Training From A First Timer

On Saturday September 10th I'm going to try out my first triathlon at the Olathe Medical Center Women's Triathlon, if you're a women and want to try something new you should totally join me! Last Saturday I attended a great event where we leaned about outfit options and training plan options and the importance of good nutrition and fueling your body.  After taking in all the information we headed outdoors for a brick workout consisting of a 7 mile bike ride and run around the block.  When we finished our workout we had yogurt parfaits and a great yoga stretch from Regina Casner an instructor at  Yoga Six.  Really loved that!

It's hard to figure out what to do and how to get all the training in when you only have so much time in a week.  You are most likely drawn to one of the 3 events involved for a variety of reasons.  For me it is clearly running.  I love running the most and it is the easiest to do.  I can literally run anywhere and running shoes are fairly easy to tote around with me. This is a short tri.  A 500m swim, 10.6 mile bike ride and a 5k.  If this is your first tri I think it is probably more important that you just get yourself doing each sport enough that you have confidence to finish each distance on race do.  At races you can always do more than in training even if your tired.

 That said at the Tri training Tri coach Don Herron talked to us about everything Tri, clothes, training plans and what getting through race day might be like.  It was a lot to take in.   A few key points I got about training from Don: -Endurance should be the foundation of your training plan. -Run hill repeats. -Do one brick workout a week. Bike then Run.  Try for 50% percent of race distance, then working to close to race distance as race day approaches. -When going from bike to the run start slow and give yourself a little time to speed up. -Practice short fast repeats in the swim. -Try for race distance when practicing the swim but take breaks as needed. -Train your body to perform on fatigued legs.   Kansas City has a Triathlon Club, Trikc, need to check that out.  They do regular group workouts and you can find lots of useful Tri info on their site.