I don’t care who you are, what you do, or how you like to spend your free time: smart planning, working hard to follow through and turning setbacks into opportunities will make you successful.
And if you’re dreaming of dominating an Ironman triathlon like I am, sticking to a smart training regimen is crucial.
But the funny thing about plans is that they almost always change. As much as we try to cover every angle, account for all hours of the day and avoid surprises, Life will inevitably distract us with a few curve balls to jumble up our schedules: an urgent project at work, a spontaneous trip to Vegas, a family emergency, an injury or my upcoming binge on the next season of Arrested Development (I’m fine with that).
So what’s the point of planning if the times always be a changin’?
Because the value of planning lies as much in the process as it does in the product.
Going through the exercise of mapping out your training plan gets you thinking strategically about your quest to become an Ironman. You’ll spend time researching training exercises and techniques, talking to experts, planning your weekly routines, plotting checkpoints and uncovering potential barriers.
At first it seems trivial and unproductive to spend all that time scheduling, list-making and over-thinking things. But keep at it!
Take an hour every week to plan out the next seven days by scheduling the essential goal-oriented tasks on your calendar. This’ll help you not only ensure you’re going in the right direction, but you’ll also be more prepared for work appointments and all the other stuff going on in your life that week. Once your weekly schedule is set, you just show up, and do it.
Think through your training strategy, be honest with how much time it will demand of you, and the amount of time your schedule allows for training. As conflicts arise you’re going to have to prioritize and – as painful as it may be – cut out the stuff that doesn’t help get you across that finish line.
There’s no immediate reward, but you’ll see the benefits soon enough. In my case: less stress, confusion, puttering about and feeling like I have to get everything on my list done NOW.
This post is part of my planning process and I hope it gives you some ideas to try out when setting up your own workout program. Keep reading to see my Ironman training plan, a sample weekly workout schedule and links to some of the resources that helped me get this plan together.
I originally planned to start training much earlier, but thanks to one of those lovely curve balls, a foot injury in late February after the Ragnar del Sol Relay, my program has been pushed back a couple months.
Yeah, I hit a wall. But we’re getting through it by channeling all that training motivation into physical therapy, stretching and research. And until I’m feeling comfortable and confident running again, I’ll be focusing most of my training on swimming, cycling and mobility work.
A couple months ago I laid out the major races for the year leading up to my “North Star” of Ironman AZ on November 17. These checkpoints included a DIY olympic triathlon at Saguaro Lake, Ironman 70.3 Boulder in August and Nathan Tempe Olympic Triathlon in September.
Aside from tweaking the DIY Tri for Les Fuller Olympic Tri a bit – I only did the swim part, but Cecily dominated the full Olympic distance with a PR of over a half an hour – those major race checkpoints are still attainable.
So with those milestones in mind, I devised the following weekly training routine, which is taken from the Crossfit Endurance program, the template in Brian Mackenzie’s book Power Speed Endurance and the swimming formula in Terry Laughlin’s book Triathlon Swimming Made Easy
Sample Weekly Training Schedule
Monday
- Morning: Rest
- Evening: Mobility or Yoga or olympic lifting form practice
Tuesday
- Morning: Swim + 15-minute Run Brick
- Evening: WOD: Weights + Sport
Wednesday
- Morning: Bike *Short or *Long Interval (Spin Class)
- Evening: WOD: *Gymnastics or *Weights + Sport
Thursday
- Morning: Run: *Short or *Long Interval
- Evening: WOD: *Gymnastics + Weights or *Gymnastics + Weights + Sport
Friday
- Morning: Swim Long Interval
- Evening: WOD: Weights
Saturday
- Morning: Bike *Time Trial or *Tempo + 15-minute Run Brick
- Evening: Mobility
Sunday
- Morning: Run *Time Trial or *Tempo
- Evening: Mobility
A few notes on this schedule:
- *Indicates an exercise that is alternated weekly
- Bricks are light runs of no more than 15 minutes
- Evening Session WODS will be a variety of high-intensity CFE workouts
- Time Trial means complete the workout or distance as fast as possible
- Tempo means maintain about an 85% effort the entire workout
- Friday, Saturday and Sunday are “Stamina” days and cover longer distances
- This is a modified version of the general Crossfit Endurance schedule
Every Monday over lunch, I schedule every one of these workouts in a Google Calendar. I also break out my triathlon training notebook to jot down a few other Ironman-related tasks we need to get done that week (for example, replace spare tire tube, research race-course details, buy lacrosse ball), along with general notes about how training is going, to reference later.
Another way I keep myself on track is by documenting the journey with #triforles tweets and Instagrams. It’s a fun way to track progress and share (brag about) the workouts and training program.
I’ll look to Crossfit Endurance for the interval, strength and mobility workouts in the template above. But the weekend stamina workouts will be tweaked slightly to incorporate longer distances. Here’s how I’ve mapped out those longer distances.
Stamina Timeline
May:
Swim: 1,500m / Bike: 90 minutes / Run: 60 minutes
Swim: 2,00m / Bike: 2 hours / Run: 70 minutes
Swim: 6x500m / Bike 2 hours / Run: 80 minutes
Swim: 15x100m (rests: 7 deep breathes) / 90 minutes / Run: 60 minutes
June:
Swim: 20x100m (Rests: 7 breathes, Fast last 3-400m) / Bike: 80 minutes out, back / Run: 70 minutes
Swim: 2×1,500m / Bike: 3 hours / Run: 80 minutes
Swim 20x100m (Rests: 7 deep breathes, Fast last 3-400m) Bike: 3 hours / Run: 90 minutes (fast last 25 minutes)
Swim: Open Water 1,000m / Bike: 2 hours / Run: 70 minutes
July:
Swim: Ladder 300, 275, 250…25m / Bike: 3 hours / Run: 80 minutes
Swim: 20x100m (Rest 6 deep breathes, Fast last 6-800m) / Bike: 3.5 hours / Run: 90 minutes
Swim: 3x600m / Bike: 4 hours / Run: 100 minutes
Race: BOULDER HALF IRONMAN 70.3
August:
Recovery week: strength, mobility workouts
Swim: 15x100m (Rest 5 deep breathes, fast last 6-800m) / Bike: 4:20 / Run: 90 minutes
Swim: 20x100m (Rest 5 deep breathes, fast last 6-800m) / Bike: 5 hours / Run: 100 minutes
Swim: 25x100m (Rest 5 deep breathes, fast last 6-800m) / Bike: 5.5 hours / Run: 110 minutes
September:
Swim: 25x100m (Rest 5 breathes, fast last 6-800m) / Bike: 100 miles / Run 90 minutes
Swim: 30x100m (Rest 5 breathes, fast last 6-800m) / Bike: 100 miles / Run 18 miles
Swim: 30x100m (Rest 5 breathes, fast last 6-800m) / Bike 100 miles / Run 110 minutes
Race: NATAHN OLYMPIC TRIATHLON
October:
Swim: 30x100m / Bike: 100 miles / Run 60 minutes
Swim: 35x100m / Bike: 2×4 hours / Run 18 miles
Swim: 35x100m / Bike 8 hours / Run 90 minutes
Race: METRIC IRONMAN (Swim 2.4k / Bike 112k / Run 26k)
November:
Swim 35x100m / Bike 3 hours / Run 18 miles
Ironman Taper: light in all sports, strength training and mobility work
The general thought process for this stamina timeline is three weeks of steady increases in distances, followed by one relatively lighter week. As noted in my weekly training schedule, I’ll alternate the Time Trials and and Tempo workouts between bike and run every week.
Also, keep in mind that these stamina distances are mainly placeholders and subject to change, depending on how many curve balls we see along the way. I’ll most likely focus more attention on the bike and go easier on the runs as my foot heals – since bike training feeds run strength, with less impact and stress on the sensitive El Gimpo.
It seems like a lot when you look at it all at once like this, but whittling it down to those weekly training schedules makes it easier to digest – one step at a time.
Some good resources and references:
- Rich Roll talks CFE with Brian Mackenzie on the Rich Roll Podcast
- Triathlon Swimming Made Easy
- Crossfit Endurance and the book Power, Speed, Endurance
- A Theoretical Template for CrossFit Endurance Programming on the Crossfit Journal
- A blog post: Revisiting Minimal Ironman Training
- 10 Ways Ironman Triathletes Can Avoid Chronic Cardio Self-Destruction – Good stuff via Benn Greenfield on the Robb Wolff blog
- Interesting discussion of CFE vs LSD training on the Crossfit Endurance forum
- Stock LSD Half-Ironman training program via Tri-Newbies
- A stock LSD Ironman training program via BeginnerTriathlete.com
Now that it’s all mapped out, I’m looking for honest feedback on my training plan.
I especially want to hear from you – or anyone you know – if you’ve done your first Ironman with the Crossfit Endurance approach. Please post your thoughts in the comments, or send me an email (adamsfuller at gmail). Thanks!
Update: Read Part 3 of my Road map to Ironman AZ series, and see how it went putting this plan into action.
– Live every day –
Adam