Friday Tri: 8 Steps To Making Your Own Training Plan

1. To make your own training plan, you need to make up a calendar starting with the day of the race you are targeting. I honestly think that choosing a race is the best way to get in shape. It means you are investing money in a particular goal, and let's face it, we all use money as a mark of what we care about. I remember when I was taking piano lessons, I was aware of the fact that it was important for me to pay for the lessons. It was important for me to be accountable on a weekly basis for having practiced. If I didn't pay for that accountability, I simply wouldn't do it. And it was important for it to be embarrassing if I didn't practice, so there were regular recitals that I participated in. Those are like races. It's not about you thinking that you are going to become an athlete. It's just making a commitment with a time limit.

2. Whatever your race distance is, from 5k to an ultramarathon, you want to use your Saturday as a long day. If you have a race 10k or under, your Saturdays should actually be longer than your race distance. Yes, even if you are a beginner. But you should plan on your long day being at a very slow pace, about 2 minutes slower per mile for running than your actual race.

2. You need to figure out how many days a week you are training. I have done training plans for races up to Ironman distance or even 50 mile running races with only 4 days a week training about an hour a day on weekdays Monday Wednesday Friday and a Saturday long day. Be realistic about what you can do. My husband can't train five days a week. When I was doing Ironman training, I didn't train on Sundays. That's my holy day and even though all the training plans I ever saw had a Saturday/Sunday block, I didn't do it that way. If you can only do thirty minutes three days a week, make that your commitment, but do it. You can't train for an Ironman on that probably, but you might be able to manage a marathon if you were intense, regular, and you were serious about your Saturday runs. When I wrote myself training plans, part of the plan was an estimate of what time I would have to get up to finish the workout in time to help kids get off to school. Once a week, I woke up at 4, but most of the time it was more like 5 or 6. And I needed a couple of days a week to sleep in a bit. Build that in to your time table.

3. Figure out your peak week. For Ironman training, this is five weeks before the race day. For marathoners, it is 4 weeks before. For a 10k or 5k, I would say 2 weeks before. For an Olympic distance, tri, it is 3 weeks before. You get the idea. Your peak week should be close to your race distance for a marathon (about 22-3 miles). For an Ironman or a half, you may do a little more than race distance on the bike one day, and you will do a near full distance the second day. You can't fit Ironman distances into a single day of long training. You need two days back to back. For a short triathlon, you would ideally do at least the bike and run distance completely on your peak day. If you can manage it, try to add in a swim, as well, to give you a mock experience at how it feels to move from discipline to discipline. It's also great if you can do your mock race on the actual race venue. Or any time you can fit in a workout on the race venue, it really helps you mentally to anticipate what is coming on race day.

4. Plan out an ascending set of workouts that will lead you up to your peak week, adding no more than ten percent per week to your overall distance. That means if you start with one mile, it's going to take a while to move up to 20 miles. If it is more than four months until your peak week, you will need to plan in several down weeks, in which you build up for four to five weeks, then take it easy for a week, then begin to build again. I know, that's complicated. But you don't want to exhaust yourself by continually building for too long. For a lot of runners doing a marathon, they build up from 12 miles or so and add a mile a week to their long run.

5. Schedule your weekday workouts so that you have one day a week in which you do hard, speed work. Many people have 2 days a week for this, one for shorter intervals, one for a longer tempo workout. I'm getting old, so I can usually only manage one a week. If you're doing triathlon, make sure that at least one workout a week is a brick, that is, one in which you move from one discipline to the other seamlessly. You don't need to do a long swim workout in order to get the feeling of what it is like to get on the bike afterward, but you need to get used to doing that to succeed in transition. Do a short warmup and a short cool down if you need to save time, two to three minutes. Then do some intense work for thirty minutes to fifty minutes.

6. Schedule a taper after your peak week. Continue the same format as your earlier weeks, but cut ten to twenty percent each week total. Keep doing some hard workouts, but not for as long. The Saturday before your final race, you should still be doing about half of your regular workout, maybe a little less if you're doing something really long. The point here is that you don't want your muscles to forget what race intensity is, but you want them to be rested up. If you taper too much, you may end up with a not ideal race pace. Ask my husband. He made this mistake with our 50 mile run last year. He thought if he followed the schedule up to peak week, he didn't have to worry about the rest. This was a big mistake.

7. Plan some yoga into your schedule. If you can do even ten minutes twice a week, you will be able to count on fewer injuries. If you can't find a class, get a video at home and figure out some of the workouts, then do it in the evening or during a lunch break or whenever. It doesn't need to be connected to another workout.

8. Twenty minutes once a week doing some weight lifting or core routines with a ball is a great addition. I wouldn't call this mandatory, like I consider yoga, but I think it's a good idea. I tend to do less during racing season in the summer and more in the winter as it becomes less pleasant to be outside. Weight lifting is also a great way to lose weight if you are watching your calories closely. You don't feel as hungry after doing it, and your body can get nicely sculpted. But when you are doing intense weight training, cardio stuff tends to get left a little on the back burner. That's fine. Doing different cycles of training is a great way to keep things fresh.