Half Ironman Training Tips
The middle distance of triathlon
In track and field we have the sprinters, the middle distance runners and the distance runners. Middle distance runners are a special breed as they have to combine speed with distance. A difficult and sometimes very painful task, the half Ironman triathlon is the middle distance of triathlon. In fact Europeans call half Ironman races middle distance triathlons. Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons can be done without too much worry about running out of energy. Your body stores enough glycogen for about two hours worth of energy. This means that during the race you will only need minimal calories to carry you across the finish line depending on how long it takes you to finish.
At the other end of the spectrum, an Ironman race is a total energy management race. If you go too hard and race anaerobically you are very likely to have energy problems as it would be very hard to replenish stores for such a long period of time. Most smart Ironman competitors set their heart rate monitors to an aerobic pace and wait until the last hours of the race to push their pace. The half Ironman however is a very tricky race. If you go aerobic and play it safe you will be fine but most likely leave too much in the tank and not get your best time. This means that to get your best time you will have to go anaerobic but only to a level where you can get your nutrition right and replenish stores to avoid energy problems like bonking. As expected this is a difficult thing to master.
Develop your endurance
When planning your half Ironman training it is important that you first develop your endurance with a solid aerobic base. The speed and anaerobic training plays a role to get you ready for race day towards the end of the training program. However, remember that triathlon is an endurance sport. The most important training is your long training session. Speed is like icing on the cake. Get your body and your mind comfortable with the distance. You should definitely include some sessions in training that go as far as you will on race day. Each discipline will be discussed separately later in this article.
Brick training
Your ability to run off the bike is important for any triathlon and it cannot be overlooked for the half Ironman. Do a short run after your long bike sessions every other week for the last three months before your race. Start with an easy 15-minute run initially and build this run to 30 minutes over your training period.
Tempo and speed work
Tempo runs are very important for half Ironman training as they will allow your body to become efficient at an effort similar to the one on race day. The tempo runs will then lead you to the speed work where you can go anaerobic and develop your capability to flush lactic acid from your system. Remember that to get your best performance during a half Ironman you may have to race anaerobically. This is the painful part of racing and training. Get your body used to this feeling and see how you feel in training as it will provide a clue as to how hard is too hard.
Nutrition
A good nutrition plan for race day will allow you to race at a faster level during a half Ironman. Remember that we only have two hours of energy in our bodies to race at a high level. This means that the rest needs to be provided by you during the race. Take somewhere from 500 to 700 calories per hour. The more anaerobic you race the more you will need. The best tip here is to practice race nutrition in training. We are all different and some types of foods will not agree with you. Find out what will be provided on race day and practice with it. Perhaps you may have to bring your own if the food provided does not agree with your stomach.
The swim
You should build your long swim session up to 4000 metres. Practice efficiency with drills, perhaps get your swim coach to analyse your technique with a video analysis that you can review at the same time. If you have the opportunity, do a couple of open water swims with your wetsuit. If not then try it at the pool including a straight swim of the race distance. Do not swim the race distance all the time in training. Ask your swim coach to design training sessions to make you faster.
The bike
The bike is the longest leg of a triathlon and if you want to have a good race this is a leg that will break your race if you do not stay relatively close to the competition. As expected this is also the leg that will take the most time in training. Build your long sessions to about 130% of the time you think it will take you to complete the bike on race day. For example if you expect to finish the bike ride in three hours then your longest rides should peak at about four hours. Remember that you need to run after the bike so your endurance needs to be such that after three hours of riding your tank should have a lot left in it.
The run
Look at any race results and you will find the best runners usually take the top positions. The bike can break your race but the run will make your race. Build your long run until you can cover the race distance or about 110% of the race distance. Participating in a half marathon is a great idea. Do this about two months before the race. Be careful during your build up as running is also the sport that creates the most injuries. These injuries usually come from too much or too hard too soon. Be patient.
The taper
No good training program is complete without a proper taper. When planning your taper start your taper gradually. Your longest run should be five weeks out, your longest bike four weeks out and your longest swim three weeks out. Each sport is different and each sport poses different stresses on the body. If the training does not go well prior to taper time do not make the mistake of cramming training in at this point. It is better to arrive to the race 10% under trained than 1% over trained.
Race week
Your taper on race week should include a couple of days off. Definitely rest the entire day two days before the race. Then on race day do a 15-minute session in each sport to stretch your legs and have a final inspection of all your race equipment. One common mistake of race week is to buy new gear that you think will make you faster. Please finalise your race gear and outfit well ahead of race day. Buying new stuff in race week will just create stress and potentially cause trouble on race day if you are not familiar with the new items.
Have fun
The journey to your half Ironman is in the end as important and memorable as your race. Do not forget to have fun and enjoy your time in training. Be patient and do not let your expectations cause additional stress if they are not being met. Consult a good coach if training is not going well. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. The majority of training problems have simple answers but sometimes it takes a clear mind
Half Ironman Triathlon Training Program
Successful performance in a long and challenging event like a half-ironman requires many months of diligent preparation off a substantial fitness base. Following is a general overview of a sensible training program that will lead you to peak performance on race day.
Winter Training Program
Winter should NOT be a time for strenuous training. The goal is to develop an aerobic following the strict guidelines detailed in my book Power Month. Visit bradventures.com for information and additional extensive support for your triathlon training and nutrition.
Winter focus should be on developing good technique and economy of movement in the three events. Perform Key Workouts regularly that will help you develop the endurance to go the distance at goal events later in the season.
The timeline referenced for this article leads to a spring half-ironman competition. Naturally, you can adjust the times for your particular racing goals and season calendar.
For the months of December and January, you can shoot for the following time goals on your Overdistance Key Workouts:
Run: 1:30-1:45
Bike: 2:00-2:45
Swim: Focus completely on stroke improvement, no intensive intervals or strenuous sets
Suggested Monthly Schedule (follow for December and January)
3 Key Runs: 1:30-1:45 HR: 50-75%
2 Key Bikes: 2:00-2:45 HR 50-75%
2 Moderate Run: :50-1:15 HR: 65-80%
2 Moderate Bike: 1:15-1:45 HR: 65-80%
6 Swim Drills: 40 minutes, see below
2 Long Swims: 3,000-4,000 meters. HR below 80%
Other workouts:
Bike rides: under 1:15, under 70% heart rate
Runs: under :45, under 75% heart rate
3 Bike Drill workouts: :40 minutes on stationary bike (10 warmup, set of [2min Right leg only, rest one minute then, 2 min Left leg only]. Repeat 5 times, the cooldown for 10 min
Swim Drills:
Stroke count: 200 metres
Tennis ball in each hand: 200 metres
Catchup drill: 200 metres
Backstroke/Breastroke: 200 metres
Freestyle: 200 metres
= 1,000 metres
Remember that this is aerobic base building period, so all workouts should be performed at 80% of max heart rate or less. Notice from the total number of workouts and low intensity levels that December and January will be pretty easy months. The main goals are to get back into training in a manner that will not fatigue you in any way and refine the swim stroke. Heart rates will stay quite low, but you will get some nice long runs and rides in.
Spring Training Program
Here the difficulty begins to escalate as you leverage the work of your initial base period and start to develop the specific fitness required to race long distance triathlons. Note that the primary emphasis is still on aerobic heart rates, for this is where the most significant gains can be made in race performances.
Many triathletes make the serious mistake of hammering too many high intensity workouts. These workouts are fun and provide instant gratification, but they come at a great cost of energy. If you goals are Olympic distance, half-ironman and full ironman and you are below world-caliber performance level, you can improve by leaps and bounds by improving aerobic function. Conversely, anaerobic workouts will generate minimal improvement unless you have a strong base. Even then, the analogy fits that you can either 'fine tune a Volkswagen' (high intensity training) or 'build a Ferrari' (focus on aerobic development).
With a strong base developed, you can begin to introduce some race-specific training, such as long time trials on the bicycle or half-marathon running races.
Preparing for Peak Performance
When it is time to introduce intense training to prepare for peak performance, careful guidelines must be followed. Intense anaerobic workouts can deliver excellent performance benefits when they are conducted in the right manner. On the flip side of these outstanding benefits comes a high risk of burnout, fatigue and injury. Overdoing the hard workouts can easily result in you leaving your best race out on the training roads.
Following are my Four Rules of Intensity for anaerobic workouts. Observing these guidelines will enable you to properly absorb and benefit from your hard sessions:
Rule #1: Always build an aerobic base before introducing anaerobic workouts. The best way to determine that you have indeed built a strong base is steady improvement in MAF test results and generally feeling strong and energized from your training.
Rule #2: Always be 100% physically energized and mentally refreshed when you conduct an anaerobic workout. Never force your body to do intense exercise when your spirit is not willing
Rule #3: Never conduct anaerobic exercise for more than six weeks without a break. Benefits will dwindle the longer you exercise intensely without a break. This is true even if you are observing rule #4 and limiting frequency of anaerobic workouts in your schedule.
Rule #4: Limit anaerobic exercise to 10% of total weekly exercise time. Even during anaerobic training periods, time spent at high heart rates is only a fraction of total weekly exercise time.
After six weeks of anaerobic exercise, you should introduce a micro-rest period of at least two weeks. During this period, you should cut back on workout time and frequency by at least 50% to ensure that you are totally rested when you resume training.
During your anaerobic phase, total volume of training should drop sharply (at least 33%), and your basic standard fitness maintenance workout should drop too. For example, if your standard swim workout is 3,500 meters, drop down to 2,500-3,000 during the anaerobic phase. If your standard run is 1:00, cut it back to :40.
Types of Anaerobic Workouts
What are the best kinds of anaerobic workouts? I feel that it doesn't really matter whether you do intervals, hill repeats, time trials, group rides, etc. When you establish a strong aerobic base and conduct your anaerobic workouts sensibly when you are energized and motivated, you will benefit by going fast any way you want. In the old days before heart rate monitors, coaches and books about triathlon training books, athletes did pretty well just getting out onto the roads and going fast.
You can collect a file of magazine articles or dog ear book pages to conduct inspiring and effective anaerobic workouts. One sensible idea is to conduct workouts that approximate the challenge you will face in the race. In preparing for the Auburn International half-ironman distance event in May, consider sessions that reflect the competition distances and the hilly terrain. One of my favorite half-ironman workouts is an all-out 56-mile time trial on a course similar to the race course.
With a workout like this, you teach your body to complete the exact competitive distance at a pace superior to your race pace (because you are not saving anything for the 13.1-mile run). With this workout under your belt you will feel comfortable and confident when you settle into your race day pace. A half-marathon road race at full effort is another excellent example, as are brick workouts that stack a bike and run together just like on race day. I favor bricks of a 10:1 bike to run ratio (Bike 80, run 8 miles; Bike 60, run 6 miles). For half-ironman preparation, brick with at least the bike race distance and consider going all the way up to 100 mile bike, 10 mile run.
A long distance brick such as 100/10 can be conducted during the base building period (you ain't going to do too well if you exceed aerobic heart rates on a 100/10 brick anyway). As the race date nears, I suggest shortening the length of your workouts and increasing your intensity.
For example, a good key workout two months out from the race might be a aggressive pace 80-mile bike ride. One month out, the training should progress to the all-out 56-mile time trial.
Coming off of the base period and into fast paced efforts can be a shock to the body. You can prepare your body for speed by throwing in some prelude sessions where you get leg/arm turnover or cadence going quickly without overstressing your system. This is accomplished by interval work of very short duration, followed by short rest. Because the work effort is so short, your heart always has a chance to recover before lactate accumulates seriously in the bloodstream. These sessions should not be overly stressful; they should feel more like getting the kinks out before the serious stuff in the future.
As you transition out of the aerobic base period, here are some good workouts to prepare you for anaerobic sessions:
Swim: a series of 25-yard sprints followed by 25 metres of slow freestyle or alternate stroke. You will become accustomed to race pace and hard interval turnover rate
Bike: a series of accelerations lasting 1:00-1:30 with an equal rest period. It's nice to do these in the hills where you hard efforts can match terrain. Punch it up a short steep hill or rolling section and coast downhill. You can vary the accelerations to sync with the terrain. The drill is to acquaint the legs with a little pain before you go into long sustained hard efforts.
Run: a set of 40/20's lasting 10 minutes. This involves a brisk 40 second effort (at ~5k race pace), followed immediately by a slow jog for 20 seconds. This develops leg turnover without stressing the heart too much due to frequent rest
Remember that during the anaerobic period that all of your other workouts are characterized as "fill in the blanks". The top priority is to be 100% rested and motivated for your intense workouts. Volume should be a minimal consideration; accept that training volume should drop dramatically during the 6-week anaerobic phase. You use your experience and life variables to determine what you can do while ensuring that you are rested and ready for the hard stuff.
Race Day Tips
Peaking strategy before a race
The best way to get ready for a big race is to totally rest early in the week of big race, then steadily build in the final three days before the race. For example for an Olympic dist race - Mon moderate, Tuesday hard workout (like 20k bike time trial), Wed easy, Thursday off, Friday moderate, Sat moderate with 10 minutes of pickups at race pace in each event (like 10 x 50 in pool, 10 min time trial on bike at race pace, 5 x 2 min at race pace running), Sunday race. Just like in the pool with workout sets, the best performances usually come after you proceed thru a few warmup sets and then head into the main set.
Nutrition
The old school approach of ‘carbo loading’ for a big race has rightfully been discarded and updated with advice to always eat a healthy, nutritious diet. Especially in the final weeks before a big event, it is helpful to cut back or eliminate some of your vices like sweets, junk food and caffeine and make efforts to eat clean, healthy, natural nutritious foods.
The day before the race I counsel athletes to eat a huge breakfast, a big lunch and a very, very small dinner. It is critical to get your muscles and your liver completely fueled by race morning, but just as critical to have digestive system light and empty when the gun goes off.
Here are some quick tips to help you improve your diet:
1) Increase awareness of junk food habit
· Eat plenty of fruit for dessert
· Notice when you are satisfied vs. idle snacking
2) Eat more healthy food throughout day
· Stimulates metabolism, regulates appetite
· Large balanced breakfast and lunch, healthy snacks
3) Shop exclusively at an alternative grocery like Whole Foods or Trader Joes. These stores do the homework for you!
· Discover healthy snacks to have around at all times
· Discover replacements for common foods that contain offensive ingredients
4) Eliminate BIG THREE offending foods from diet:
· Refined carbs – replace with whole grain products
· Hydrogenated fat – TOTAL elimination (deep fried, frozen, boxed junk food)
· Caffeine – Build energy naturally and cut back immediately
On race day, the most important thing of all is to have fun and remain in a positive frame of mind at all times. Extreme endurance events like a half-ironman are a physical and mental challenge. If you catch yourself harvesting negative thoughts, look around and enjoy the scenery - an instant cure. Remind yourself how lucky you are to be healthy and able to swim, pedal a bicycle and run. Negative thoughts and verbalizations will make your tired and stressed and compromise your performance. Take the opportunity to re-frame every negative thought or statement into a positive one. This is a great lesson for not only triathlon but all of life!
Preparing for your first Half Ironman (or your first "Born Again" Half Ironman) · 1,930meter Swim | 90km Bike | 21k Run · Start this program if you can consistently swim 40min, run 60min and bike 90min. This half Ironman plan covers many weeks of challenging, but attainable training for someone who has some endurance experience, and ideally some Olympic distance races within the past season. This plan is also ideal if you have completed a half Ironman last season on minimal training and wish to improve while keeping a reasonable number of training hours. Since there's no such thing as an optimal plan which fits everyone's level of fitness and background, I'm going to have to make a few assumptions to create a plan that's not too generalized. As you look through the workouts each week, make any adjustments in length or intensity to fit your needs. Here's what I've based this plan on:
1. This preparation plan covers 20 weeks. It probably won't fit your race calendar exactly, but it's long enough that you should be able to adjust.
The Period Overview |
|
Training Period |
Week|Hrs |
"Complete Athlete" Preparation | |||
|
Prep |
20-17 |
Racing Prep: No racing planned for this period, but since you've probably identified your key half IM race, take a look at the course, predicted weather, swim conditions, articles on last year's race. Compare all these race components with your own strengths and weaknesses. Use online bulletin boards to get course tips from previous competitors. Know thy course. | |||
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20 |
7 | ||||
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19 |
7 | ||||
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18 |
7 | ||||
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17 |
7 | ||||
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Base 1 |
16-13 |
Racing Prep: Begin doing your some of your workouts on terrain which simulates race day. | |||
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16 |
7.5 | ||||
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15 |
8.5 | ||||
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14 |
9.5 | ||||
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13 |
5 | ||||
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Base 2 |
12-9 |
Racing Prep: Begin visualizing race morning-how does the course appear, how hard will you work during different segments, where will you seed yourself in the swim start? | |||
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12 |
7.5 | ||||
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11 |
9 | ||||
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10 |
10 | ||||
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9 |
5 | ||||
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Base 3 |
8-5 |
Racing Prep: If you live in an area with good hiking possibilities, schedule a 6-8 hour continuous hike in lieu of a long run during the month. This is great low impact endurance work which will leave you surprisingly sore if the terrain is hilly and it a great place to practice nutrition and hydrating with increasing exhaustion. | |||
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8 |
8.5 | ||||
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7 |
9.5 | ||||
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6 |
10.5 | ||||
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5 |
5 | ||||
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Build |
4-3 |
Racing Prep: We'll do transition practice during this build period. Also think about what you'll be wearing race day, what you'll be using for nutrition/fluids. We'll ractice these during training sessions, well before race day. | |||
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4 |
9 | ||||
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3 |
9 | ||||
|
Taper/Race |
2-1 |
Racing Prep: | |||
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2 |
6.5 | ||||
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1 |
3.5 | ||||
Appendix: RPE Chart
This chart can help with gauging intensities of daily workouts. Combine with your
heart monitor ranges if desired.
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RPE |
Description |
Bike HR |
Run HR |
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0 |
Complete Rest |
Resting HR= |
Resting HR= |
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1 |
Very Weak: |
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2 |
Weak: |
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3 |
Moderate: |
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|
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4 |
Somewhat Strong: |
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|
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5 |
|
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|
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6 |
|
|
|
|
7 |
Very Strong: |
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|
|
8 |
|
|
|
|
9 |
Cannot hold effort for more than a minute or two |
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10 |
Extremely Strong |
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* |
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Max. Bike HR= |
Max. Run HR= |