Ironman Triathlon - Tips for Your First Season Part 1

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_Weinreich]Paul Weinreich
Having come to the end of my 3rd season in Triathlon and first season in Ironman, I wanted to share with you what I've learnt over my first 3 races.
I started the year racing in IM Lanzarote which proved to be tough. I finished in 13hr 50mins with my legs giving up on me with 10k to go. I walked to the finish and I was disappointed with how my legs reacted, but then spent the next hour on a drip in the medical tent. Welcome to the world of Ironman! I took everything I had learnt and went to IM Austria which was stunning and I loved every minute of it and finished in 11hr 35mins, which was a much more pleasurable experience. I finished the season at the inaugural Challenge Henley-on-Thames which threw up its own tests and I finished in 12hr 12mins, slightly disappointed.
My Ironman trilogy was over a year in the making. There where highs and lows, injuries, bruises, lots of frustration, DOMS and the biggest achievements and buzz I have ever felt. All in all, this was one of the best years of my life and here is some of what I've learnt to help you achieve the same.
SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE IN THE KNOW The first thing I did when I decided to race Triathlon was join a club. There are numerous benefits of joining a club and some are better then others. The best reason is, that if you don't know, surround yourself with people that do. Joining a club will help you meet people to ask all of those tri related questions you have - and you'll have many. You'll meet people to train with and hopefully they'll also have squad swim sessions. At IM Lanzarote, 15 members of my club were staying at the same hotel, some racing and some who just came to watch and cheer. Having all these people around me, made me very relaxed and I really wasn't worried about anything. I knew I had all the right stuff in the right bags, I knew where I had to be at what time, and it made the whole experience less stressful thaen it could have been.
COACH/TRAINING PLAN I took on a coach who wrote a weekly training plan for me to follow. You don't have to take on a coach, you could always read coaching books such as 'The Triathletes Training Bible' by Joe Friel. This book describes the different aspects of training and shows you how to create your own training plan. Personally I preferred to go with a coach (you can get coaches online from �60 to �100+ per month to give you bespoke training plans). The thing I liked about having a coach is that I did not have to worry about a plan and that I also had someone to answer to. He was that voice on my shoulder giving me that extra push and if they are a good coach you'll want to work for them.
TRAINING AND DIET You hear the term 101% or 110% a lot in the sports world. When it comes to the world of endurance training and you're training 15 to 20 hours a week, completing 100% is rare, additional training just doesn't normally happen. Let's be realistic, when you're putting in the hours everyday and sometimes twice a day, things don't always go to plan. You might have over trained and not recovered from your long bike ride, work and life can just get in the way. This is why you should be aiming to get things right 90% of the time. This goes for training and for whatever diet plan you are following. We are human, so don't worry about it if you get it wrong. Tomorrow is a new day, use that motivation to get it right then.
BIKE FITNESS This will make or break your race. The best way for you to look at it, is that depending on your swimming ability, you just need to get through the swim, an Ironman has never been won in the swim. After T1 you will spend the largest proportion of mileage and time in the race on the bike, so you want to have sufficient fitness to get you through in a decent time and leave you with enough legs to put in a good run. The more advanced your bike fitness, the better position you'll be left to run the marathon.
In Part 2, I will follow on from Bike Fitness by explaining how Brick Sessions are a fantastic way of replicating a race scenario in training.
I am Paul Weinreich owner of Titan Personal Training based in North London. I specialise in Strength & Conditioning for athletes in variety of sports, find out how I can help you increase your performance visit my website: http://www.titanpersonaltraining.com/
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Ironman-Triathlon---Tips-for-Your-First-Season-Part-1&id=6715106] Ironman Triathlon - Tips for Your First Season Part 1