JPonthe.NET

Training for Endurance Events

Some disclaimers...

Contributors

I got a lot of guidance on putting together a training program from Ian Murray, who one night back in 1999, sat down with 3 triathlon newbies and got us ready for Wildflower and Ironman California (back when it was one at Camp Pendleton). Some is just stuff that I've picked up over the years from friends, books, fellow athletes, etc. We also had a talk about this at the South End, and I got some great feedback from Bill Wygant, Joel Lanz, Dianna Shuster, Dan Needham, MaryAlex, John Walker, Jim Knight, Mark, and Brenda Austin. (Apologies for those I missed.)

An overview

In my opinion, there are three things that one needs to work on when training for endurance events:

Planning

Example Training Week for a really long swim:
**Note - I'm beginning to rethink my training plan listed below, but am still working it out in my head. I think one might call this the working-man's training plan, where the workouts during the week are 'relatively' short, and the big stuff happens on the weekend. I've heard that a lot of people are having a lot of success with doing fairly big workouts every day of the week - 2.5-3 hours every day. The weekend workouts aren't so big for the vast majority of the year, but do get a little bigger towards the end of your training. This is obviously a lot harder to do with a job, family, school, etc., but seems to be working very well for some people.

  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
AM Masters or Ocean Swimming Short Run and Lifting Yoga Short Run REST Long Swim Long or Recovery Swim
PM REST REST Masters Swimming Masters Swimming REST Long Swim or REST REST

Aerobic Fitness

Anaerobic/Strength Training

Form

Rest

Miscellaneous

Suggestions / Comments / Changes

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