How to Prepare for Success in Your First Triathlon

I first got interested in triathlon way back when I was finishing high school. That year, Dave Scott and Mark Allen raced in the infamous Iron War race. They battled shoulder-to-shoulder for nearly the entire 140.3 miles of the course. Allen finally broke away near the line to win and break his losing streak at the big island. 

  

 

Stop Making Excuses

Not long after that, an Aussie named Greg Welch broke through in Kona to win, and that put triathlon on the map in a big way in Australia. Suddenly we had some of the best talent and racing in the world right on our doorstep, with multiple world champions like Emma Carney, Jackie Fairweather, Michellie Jones, Greg Welch, Brad Bevan, Miles Stewart, and Chris McCormack. 

 

"Like many, I had all kinds of delusions about what was and wasn’t needed for triathlons and kept second-guessing myself every time I signed up to do a race."

Triathlon became so popular that our domestic race series was telecast live on commercial television like other major sports events. (And it’s way more exciting than cricket, by the way.)

 

But despite following the sport, it took me years to jump in and do a triathlon myself. Like many, I had all kinds of delusions about what was and wasn’t needed for triathlons and kept second-guessing myself every time I signed up to do a race. I had all the usual excuses - work getting in the way, not having anyone to train with, and not being able to afford it.
 

So here’s my advice for the best way to get started in triathlon, or any new hobby for that matter. 

 

Join a Club

Because I start work at 6:00am when most squads train, I am forced to do the vast majority of my training solo. That’s not a bad thing, as I actually enjoy the time spent on my own, but there are days when even I don’t want to train. Having others there to talk you into the work will help you enormously.

For example, last weekend I was standing at the start line of a half-Ironman and it was just miserable. Cold, rainy, windy, and generally shitty, with a forecast for huge winds on the bike course. If I had gone to that race on my own, I wouldn’t have even started. But because I went with my girlfriend, who was determined to finish, I felt obliged. On top of that, I ran into friends who were also 100% focused on finishing no matter what. So I started - and once I was swimming everything wasn’t so bad.

"[I] actually enjoy the time spent on my own, but there are days when even I don’t want to train. Having others there to talk you into the work will help you enormously.

That kind of peer pressure is a good thing when it comes to the hard times in training. There are days I’ve been so exhausted before even riding that I’ve literally prayed to God (and I’m an atheist) that I would get hit by a car so I didn’t have to train. The fatigue can be that bad. But when you have training buddies to lean on during these times, it makes it so much easier.

 

The other aspect to joining a club is that they’ll usually be able to get you discounts for gear (more on that later) and there will be people with experience for you to learn from. 

 

You Don’t Need All That Gear

Even though you see professionals using bikes that cost as much as most people’s cars, you don’t need one of those bikes. The same goes for an aerodynamic helmet. For proof, go watch Chrissie Wellington win in Kona multiple times with a standard helmet on a Cervelo P2, which is a far cry from their top-of-the-line P3 (at the time) and current P5.
 

I’ve seen people at local events riding mountain bikes with the knobby dirt tires. The reality is that a local sprint triathlon is only a 20km ride, and if you’re just seeing if you will enjoy the sport or not, you just need a bike, any bike, and you’ll be fine. 

 

Chrissie Wellington

 

The gear you really do need makes for quite a small list:

 

1. You’ll need a bike and helmet that fits. 
2. You need running shoes. 

 

You don’t need a tri suit or a two-piece combination with shorts and a top, but you will be substantially more comfortable in them than any other gear you may want to wear. Ignore the idea of wearing a cycling top because it is also Lycra. These jerseys normally have three large pockets on the back, which will act as a parachute while you’re swimming. 

 

The same goes for most brands of compression wear. Most have a seam that runs directly through your crotch. Without wishing to be indelicate, if you’re unused to sitting on a bike seat for a period of time, you will likely already feel like you’re going to rub a hole in yourself. Don’t make that worse by adding a seam to cut you in half, too. Trust me on this. 

 

"If you’re a beginner triathlete, I will guess the swim isn’t your best leg. The extra buoyancy offered by a wetsuit is well worth the small investment to rent."

The one exception regarding equipment is a wetsuit. Many companies and shops offer rental deals now and I highly recommend you do this. If you’re a beginner triathlete, I will guess the swim isn’t your best leg. The extra buoyancy offered by a wetsuit is well worth the small investment to rent. Do not try to use a surfing or water-skiing wetsuit as an alternative. They’re a different kind of rubber, are designed differently, and will actually make swimming harder, not easier. 

 

Most wetsuits have multiple sizes that are all close to each other. Using 2XU as an example, I can fit into three different sizes, and also a fourth that fits me perfectly. Take the time to get your size right and make sure the person helping you understands the suits and how to make them fit correctly. 

 

When put on properly, a wetsuit won’t have any restriction in the shoulders or rubbing around your neck where the zipper closes. A poor-fitting suit will leave you fatigued and chafed, so don’t be shy about making sure this is absolutely correct - especially if you decide to buy, as they are a big investment. 

 

Learn to Swim

For nearly everyone who starts triathlon, and even for regular competitors, the swim is the discipline that holds the most fear. It’s easy to understand why, especially in Australia. The swims are open-water swims where you can’t see the bottom and the water can be quite cloudy. Down under, that means people worry about sharks. 

 

 

This fear is compounded during wave starts where you have a hundred or more people starting together in a small space. (An Ironman swim will have 1,800-2,000 people all starting together and it’s like being in a wet mosh pit.) This leads to jostling, occasional punches and kicks to the head, and then a panic that starts to set in. Adding fear of deadly creatures surfacing from the dark depths to eat you and the swim can really set people on edge. 

 

"It’s very different having to lift your head to sight, having to deal with waves and other people, and not being able to see the bottom"

If you’re not a confident swimmer, then the experience can be confronting even for short distances like those in sprint triathlons. So spend some time in the water prior to your race, and in open water, if you can. It’s very different having to lift your head to sight, having to deal with waves and other people, and not being able to see the bottom. I’d even suggest a few lessons from a reputable swim coach just so you develop some confidence and learn to relax when things get bumpy. 

 

This is another great part about being in a training group, as you’ll be able to join in on swim squads. These groups often work on these exact elements so that you’re relaxed swimming in close proximity to others on race day. 

 

All Are Welcome

Triathlon is one of the most open sports I’ve seen. From absolute beginner to top professional, everyone races on the same course and all are welcome. 

 

The distances for sprint triathlons are only an 800m swim, 20km ride, and 5km run. For most people, that will take between an hour to an hour and a half. If you can survive a Spin class and a short run after, then you’re fit enough to do a sprint triathlon.

3 No-Nonsense Ways to Build Fitness Through Swimming

I grew up at a time when we didn’t have all the information in the world at our fingertips, just a press of a button away. If you wanted to know something, you either went and found someone who knew all about it or found one of these things called a book on the subject. If you did the latter, you then tried whatever it was you were reading about to gain some experience.

The "Expert" Dilemma

The closest we get to this these days is watching a ninety-second clip on YouTube. On rare occasions, people may attend an actual workshop or certification to learn more about a subject in greater depth, but I’m often left feeling like most fitness certifications are equally as bad as watching clips on YouTube. Without standards, which represent skill and experience in the field, all you have is a bunch of theoretical knowledge. And as anyone who has been around training for a while will tell you, there’s a big difference between some of the things that work in labs and things that work in the real world.

Training can really be broken into three big chunks: flexibility, strength, and conditioning. And while someone can be an expert in one area, it is rare to find someone who actually knows what they’re talking about in two areas, and even rarer to find someone who can talk shop with authority in all three.

The biggest disconnect seems to happen between the endurance and strength people, with both at seemingly opposing ends of the scale. And when it comes to endurance activities, swimming is the hardest for people to understand.

Swimming Is Watery Jiu Jitsu

Just about everything you normally apply to training can go out the window when it comes to swimming. For starters, swimming is difficult because unlike riding and running, you move through water, which has far more resistance than air. Secondly, you aren’t even partially weight bearing, unlike in cycling or running, as the water carries your weight. Finally, the muscles used to power swimming are much smaller and tend to be predominantly upper-body. In normal distance work you use the legs, which have a higher percentage of slow twitch endurance fibers in them.

For this reason, I see a lot of mistakes for people who add swimming to their training. One mistake is that people want to use swimming as a recovery from their regular training. Unless you’re already a good swimmer, you won’t recover much by trying not to drown as you struggle from end to end. While cold water is good for helping sore musclesrecover, most public pools these days are set far too warm, as they want to make sure the kids won’t freeze during swimming lessons. If recovery is your goal, you’ll be better off just getting in and moving around for half an hour, unless you're already a good swimmer.

If your goal is to use swimming to gain fitness, I have bad news for you. Swimming is incredibly technical. Think of it as being like watery Brazilian jiu jitsu – sure, you can muscle your way through it for a while, but ultimately technique wins out. That's why when you start swimming, every session will feel like an all-out effort to avoid drowning, aven though you won't actually be working that hard. What you’re feeling instead is local muscular fatigue from asking muscles to do something they’re not accustomed to.

If you are looking to increase fitness in the pool, here are my three pieces of advice for doing it effectively.

1. Work on Technique

My first piece of advice for anyone who wants to swim for fitness is to put in the technique work. It's going to take some effort on your behalf to become more skilled at swimming. I found this out a few years ago, when I was “lucky” enough to have shoulder surgery. I wasn’t allowed do anything with my arm for three months, so I spent that time doing body alignment and kicking drills. Then I was allowed use my arm gently, so I did other drills focusing on hand placement and how to catch the water.

All in all, I did nearly five months of skill training before I was swimming in earnest again. Funnily enough, I was faster at that point than I had been prior to surgery, yet had done no swim-specific fitness work. The difference was all in my technique and feel for the water.
 

2. Swim Hard

The next thing to keep in mind when swimming for fitness is that while your heart may feel like it’s going to leap out of your chest, you’re simply not working as hard as you do when you run or ride. Your maximum heart rate while running is always going to be higher than it is swimming. The more upright you are and the more load you carry, the greater your heart rate. This is one reason why using normal heart rate zones that you calculated for running won’t help much for swimming.

The second part of this to remember is that you use far smaller muscle groups for swimming than you do for running and cycling, so the load on the heart is less. The moment you stop doing that thing you call swimming, your heart will return to normal. Compare this to good swimmers, whose bodies will glow red from heat increases (because you can’t sweat to cool down in the pool) and who will drip sweat once they’re out of the pool as the body tries to cool itself down.

It might sound a bit odd, but all this means that even a hard session in the pool may only have the same effect on your fitness as a moderate running session, provided you’re actuallya competent swimmer in the first place. Have you ever wondered why swimmers spend so much time in the water? It’s because they need to develop the feel for the water, and because even at high levels of perceived effort they’re just not getting the same adaptation to the heart as a runner might.

If you are swimming for fitness, you need to bust your butt to swim hard. That’s the only way to get your heart rate high enough to get the top-end fitness you can get from running. While the impact on the body will be far lower doing this with swimming than running, the hard fact is that many people will never get to this point without years of dedicated effort.

3. Add Load to the Legs

Years of hard work can be somewhat mitigated if you choose to swim with fins. It may seem like fins would make swimming easier, and you will certainly go faster. But adding resistance for the leg muscles will jack up your heart rate tremendously. I actually recommend that clients who aren’t habitual swimmers only swim with fins for this reason. But don’t do this if you’re training for an open water swim or triathlon – you need to spend time swimming without fins for that purpose.

The three biggest things you can do if you’re looking to increase fitness in the pool are to get some technical coaching, swim hard, and use fins to add load to the legs and drive up the heart rate. Above all, though, put technique first as it will make the biggest single difference to your ability to swim hard for extended periods of time.

Review: Misfit Shine

Key Features: Bluetooth 4.0 LE; Waterproof to 50m; Multiple sports tracked; 4-month battery life; No charging or wires required Manufacturer: Misfit Wearables Misfit Shine review What is the Misfit Shine? The Misfit Shine enters a rather crowded fitness tracking market with a selling point that will stand it apart from the competition – it’s fully waterproof. It’s also an attractive all-metal disc that can be worn anywhere on your body using a dinky little magnetic strip that holds the Misfit Shine in place. It was launched as an IndieGoGo campaign and achieved its $100,000 project goal 9 ½ hours after it launched. At close, the Misfit Shine had raised its goal eight and a half times over, which just goes to show how interesting the device is. But can the £99 fitness tracker stand out against its popular rivals? Misfit Shine – Design and Features One of the most striking things about the Misfit Shine is its design. Made from aerospace grade aluminium with a distinct groove running around the middle for using the Misfit Shine’s various accessories, it is small, light and compact. Misfit’s choice of material means the Shine only weighs 9g on its own, or 16g with the included wrist strap. The company, Misfit Wearables, is co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley, and there is definitely a touch of Apple in the design of the Shine, especially its simplicity and clean lines.  Misfit has made sure the Shine can be worn anywhere on the body, and even supplies both the sports band and clasp as standard with the Misfit Shine in the UK from John Lewis. The clasp is a rubber loop with a magnet on one end that folds over to couple with the back of the Shine. You can attach this to any item of clothing, even a swimsuit or shorts as it is completely waterproof to 50 metres. This is also pretty handy if you forget to remove it from your clothes and it happens to take a washing machine trip. The sportsband is a rubber watch strap that the Misfit Shine simply pops into and is designed to look much more like jewellery than your average fitness tracker, which is one of its key benefits. There’s also a leather strap and a necklace option to purchase separately if you feel the need. Its waterproof nature and the fact it is so very light means you can pretty much forget about the Misfit Shine when you’re wearing it, especially when it’s strapped to your wrist. However, it is useful to remember, any fitness tracker worn on your wrist isn’t going to be as accurate as one worn on your clothing as you tend to move your arms more than any other limbs, or you could stop moving them altogether, such as when you’re gripping a bag strap – both of which can cause inaccurate results. This is why Misfit includes the clasp for attaching the Shine to your clothing, which is especially useful when at the gym. When in sleep mode, the Misfit Shine looks like it has no display at all, but with a double tap on its face you’ll be presented with a ring of LED lights around the edge, which are used to indicate your current goal progress and the time.  Each LED light is an interval of five minutes or 5 per cent completion of your customised goal. It can be a little difficult at first to work out what time it is (the hour is a solid LED but the minute indicator flashes), but you soon get used to it. Your goal progress is shown in a ring that runs clockwise with your sporting activity until the whole ring of lights is completed, which is a simple but effective way to keep tabs on it without having to look at the app.  On the rear of the Misfit Shine is a handy 12 logo, to show you which way up the fitness tracker should be placed in your watch strap for accurate clock readings.  The Misfit Shine connects to the Shine app for iOS devices via Bluetooth 4.0 LE, which doesn’t require pairing. Misfit assures us there’s an Android app coming “in the next few weeks”, but there hasn’t been any joy there as yet. Bluetooth LE keeps the power consumption low and combined with the fact the Misfit Shine uses a standard cell watch battery with a battery life of at least 4 months, you’ll be using it for ages without having to charge it or replace the battery. There are some features that are lacking in the Misfit Shine, like an altimeter to count the number of stairs you climb, which features in upcoming trackers like the Fitbit Force. Misfit Shine – Tracking and Apps The Shine app is a very simple but effective way of monitoring your daily fitness activity. Periods of activity are shown in colour coded panels that show the type of sport you are doing and low, medium and energetic patches of activity. There’s a highlights panel that offers you a look at your daily milestones, broken down into a handy activity chart and the aforementioned coloured blocks. You can also take a look at a weekly overview of your activity, which also compares your achievements to the previous weeks.  Overall, the Misfit Shine is very accurate and can tell when you are performing any of its recognised activities – walking, running, cycling or swimming. It does tend to be far more precise when worn on your clothes, as when on your wrist it can suggest you were more active than you actually were – but that sometimes isn’t a bad thing. Within the app you can not only personalise your activity goal, but also let it know where you’re wearing the Misfit Shine for more precise data gathering and whether you want the fitness tracker to display the clock or progression lights first.  You can also utilise the Misfit Labs Activity Tagging. This allows you to triple tap the Misfit Shine to tell it you are doing a specific activity for more accurate readings. Although this feature is still in Beta, you can use it to tell the Shine when you’re sleeping, cycling, swimming, playing tennis, basketball or football and the results are far more accurate – if you remember to triple tap before you start doing them.  The Shine app also presents information on the amount of steps you’ve taken, calories burnt and distance covered in a single day or whole week.  What is disappointing about the Misift Shine is its sleep monitoring functionality. Unless you tell it you’re going to sleep using the Activity Tagging it won’t monitor your sleep pattern whatsoever. We always forgot to triple tap before we fell asleep so we’d wake up with no data for our slumber.  When you do remember, it lets you know how many hours of deep sleep you’ve managed to get in between patches of tossing and turning. How accurate this data actually is is very hard to calculate, but they are interesting statistics to peruse in the morning. As the Misfit Shine uses Bluetooth LE you won’t need to pair it with your smartphone or tablet. When you enter the app, the data automatically updates and fills in all the fitness tracking information since you last logged in. it doesn’t matter whether that’s a week or 5 minutes ago, it is all updated regardless.  It is very speedy to update, which is a bonus. We will say the data provided is a bit limited, but that’s pretty standard for what is basically a glorified pedometer like its competition. The app is laid out in a straightforward and accessible way and unless you’re a proper fitness freak it is more than sufficient for those looking to monitor their activity. Should I buy the Misfit Shine? The Misfit Shine is a great activity tracker but is a little more expensive than some of its competitors and currently has limited smartphone and tablet compatibility if you don’t have an iPhone or iPad. It’s still a strong contender, but you might still want to consider some of the alternatives. At £79.99, the Fitbit Flex is another successful fitness tracker that offers a great app, a 4 – 5 day battery life and is water resistant if not entirely waterproof. It is a bit basic though and lacks a full display, altimeter and can’t even tell the time by itself. It works with (select) Android devices as well as iOS though. At the top end of the price bracket is the £99.99 Nike Fuelband that is specifically optimised for Apple’s device range. It uses Bluetooth LE and is now water resistant and more flexible for a more rugged device. It can offer a lot more information on your wrist than the Misfit Shine, but still lacks an altimeter. The Jawbone UP works with iOS and Android devices and is around the same price as the Misfit Shine at £79.95. It offers detailed feedback via an app and has a vibrating alarm function alongside sleep monitoring. You can even take pictures of your meal to convert it into calories with the Jawbone UP. Verdict If you’re looking for a fully-functional and completely waterproof fitness tracker, the Misfit Shine is a great choice, especially for the fashion conscious. The lengthy battery life just sweetens the deal.

A Beginner’s Guide to Structuring Your Swim Workout

When you head to the pool for a swim workout, do you ever wonder what you should be doing? Many athletes tend to think they only need to jump in the pool, swim a certain distance, do some speed work, and then hurry on with the rest of their day.

This is not the best way to train, but not everyone can afford a personal coach to provide specific workouts designed to meet certain goals and time demands. So, to help you, I put together a set of guidelines to help you make the most out of every segment of your swim workout.

How to Warm Up for Your Swim Workout

When you get to the pool deck and get situated (kickboard, water bottle, and gear set out), do a few quick arm rotations and dry-land swimming drills. Even some exercises with elastic bands can help get your upper body prepped and ready for your swim workout. You wouldn’t think of going for a hard run without a warm-up and dynamic stretch, so why should swimming be any different?

Personally, I like to do about ten shoulder shrugs and some imitation swimming with my arms to get my upper body going. Then, to get my lower body geared up, I’ll do ten knee bends and then flex, stretch, and loosen my ankles. After that, I’m sufficiently warmed up and ready to swim.

Once you’re in the pool, you should start out with some in-water, warm-up work that is easy. Some examples are:

 • 200m swim, 200m kick, 200m pull, 200m swim

• 400-500m swim

• 2-4 x (150m free, 50m non-free)

• 2-4 x 400m (150 free, 50 non-free - repeated twice)

• 400m swim, 300m pull, 200m kick, 100m drill choice

• Or an easy 10-15 minute choice of whatever you feel like doing.

How to Add Drills to Your Swim Workout

After you have done a thorough warm-up and ingested some fluids, it is time to move on quickly to a drill set to get your arms moving and heart rate up. A drill set will be a bit faster than your warm-up, but not as hard as your main set. The primary goal is to focus on good swim technique before fatigue sets in.

I like to give my athletes pretty standard drill sets by only changing up the number of repeats or distance in the set. The drill set rest/recovery period should be no longer than fifteen seconds. Here are a few examples:

• 4-10 x 75m with 15 sec rest (kick, drill, swim by 25m; could also be pull, kick, swim or drill swim, drill, etc.)

• 3 x (100m pull, 50m swim)

• 2-4 x 150m (25m drill, 50m swim)

The Main Set of Your Swim Workout

After your drill set is complete, a quick one-minute break is all you need to determine your main set, the goal of your workout. Your swim workout goal can be broken into three types:

1. Speed/sprinting/lactate threshold sets

2. Technique/strength sets

3. Distance/endurance sets

Each workout should focus on one of these three goal types, which will determine your main set. Below are some examples of how to structure your main set:

Speed Day:

3 x (100m swim HARD, 50m easy)

10 x 100m at lactate threshold effort

2 x (5 x 100m FAST at descending effort, 100m easy)

Distance Day:

4 x 300m at moderate effort with :20 rest

6 x 200m

Odds: Max distance per stroke with focus on good technique

Evens: Moderate effort for 4 x 400m

Technique/Strength Day :

4 x (100m pull, 50m one-arm drill, 250m pull)

3 x (4 x 50m band training with :10 rest, 300m pull with :15 rest, 50m easy) at moderate effort

2 x (4 x 100m with :15 rest, breathing every 3/4/5/6 by 25m)

#1 - Pulling

#2 - Swim

How to Cool Down After Your Workout

After completing your main set, perform a quick cool down to end your swim workout. It’s easy to finish your main set and hop out of the pool to leave, but I would highly advise against this. A cool down can be short, no longer than 300m, and will help prevent injury. For my athletes, I generally advise a 100-300m of easy freestyle with emphasis on good technique.

To make for an effective workout, once you’re done swimming, do some quick core work. I tell my athletes to do this either right on the pool deck or right when they get home:

• 3 x :30 of holding plank position

• 3 x :20 of side plank

• 2-3 sets of your favourite core exercises

The workouts we’ve provided above should be used as a guide to help you learn more about how and what you could be doing at the pool. Staring at the black line can get boring, but if you take charge of your workout, getting bored and losing focus don’t have to be excuses anymore. Now you know how to properly structure your swim workout. So stop doing 30 x 50 or 100 free repeats all day and make a new plan.