«Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life...»
In 2013, my training efforts were based around a "70.3"-distance race. In my second year in triathlon I will be targetting my first Ironman-distance event.
After some deliberation I decided on the Ironman event in Klagenfurt, Austria (pictured) not only because the location lends a certain tone to the occasion but because the course is suited to my relative strengths within the three disciplines.
I've made the following conscious changes to my race scheduling and selection this year:
- Fewer races overall to allow for generous spacing between events, allowing more training, recovery and life.
- No sprint-distance events as they do not provide enough enjoyment or appropriate training for the IM distance given their logistical outlay.
- Prefering cycling over running time trials: performance in triathlon—paradoxically including your run performance—is primarily based around bike fitness.
- Prefering smaller events over "mass-participation" ones.
Readers may observe that despite my primary race finishing with a marathon-distance run, I am not racing a standalone marathon in preparation. This is common practice, justified by the run-specific training leading up to a marathon and the recovery period afterwards compromising training overall.
For similar reasons, I have also chosen not to race a "70.3" distance event in 2014. Whether to do so is a more contentious issue than whether to run a marathon, but it resolved itself once I could not find an event that was suitably scheduled and I could convince myself that most of the benefits could be achieved through other means.
- April 13th
Cambridge Duathlon (link)
Run: 7.5km, bike: 40km, run: 7.5km
- May 11th
St Neots Olympic Tri (link)
Swim: 1,500m, bike: 40km, run: 10km
- May 17th
ECCA 50-mile cycling time trial (link)
50 miles. Course: E2/50C
- June 1st
Icknield RC 100-mile cycling time trial (link)
100 miles. Course: F1/100
- June 15th
Cambridge Triathlon (link)
Swim: 1,500m, bike: 40km, run: 10km
- June 29th
Ironman Austria (link)
Swim 2.4km, bike: 190km, run: 42.2km