I don’t get to train everyday.But that’s ok. Neither does the majority of our population.
I keep reading articles about how many hours training it takes to complete a triathlon and they frustrate me. Why? Because I don’t believe them. Unless you’re going for a competitive placed finish, or qualifying for your age group, chill out, you can train for your first triathlon (as long as it isn’t iron / half Ironman!) on actually a fairly limited amount of time, but with concentrated effort.
Any given day for me is slightly different. A couple of reasons. First is two small children. Anyone that has them knows that some days are like swimming butter smooth water or cycling downhill with no headwind or running…um yea, running. Anyway. Other days are like swimming 10 foot seas or cycling in 30+degrees with cross AND headwinds trying to knock you off and umm running.
You don’t know if they’re going to be ill, needy, happy, content, needy again or just that you want to play with them. So best laid plans don’t always go to plan when kiddos are involved as any parent will attest.
The second is work. With my job I travel a fair amount nationally as well as internationally as I’ve mentioned before. I can normally pack a pair of running shoes in my bag, but not every hotel has a 25m pool to do some proper lengths in.
So how do you do it?
With my work and family life being pretty hectic I still fit in three triathlons in 2016 and my Olympic distance was under 3hours. By those very magazines standards, that’s “admirable.”
Over the coming weeks I’m going to break down my training under each discipline to show that, even from a relatively unfit background, you can do this.
As I put that together, what about you? What did you do on your first year of triathlon? Let me know.