Over decades of competing in cycling, running, and triathlon, I’ve put together a training schedule that works for me. It needed to be time sensitive because I was working – a lot. It also needed to be more sophisticated than go outside and run around until I’d had enough. The preparation time I spent on triathlons, cycling and running ranged between 8 hours and 20 hours per week.
Since retiring I have replaced “work” with archery on my calendar. Obviously, I can’t shoot all day, but I shoot about 4 hours per day. That leaves me time to train for cycling, running, and triathlons.
Because I’ve been asked, often enough to make me think there is interest, here’s an example of a week’s worth of my training plans. These are prepared in advance and based on tournaments and upcoming race. This is, in fact, for the week of April 17th – April 23rd. Not on this list are the specifics about the time spent in each activity. For example, swimming is only swim, where in reality the swim session is divided into sets of activities [i.e., 5-8 x 100 (:10RI) at T1 pace, 1:00RI – which you can see is irreverent to this post.]
Sunday: AM archery, dots at 35 – 50 yards. 40 – 60 arrows
Mid-day, cycling, 2 hours moderate pace
PM archery, 3D, unknown/known yardage, 40 – 50 arrows
Monday: Morning 1K swim, lift weights
Afternoon – 3D archery practice
Tuesday: AM archery, dots at 35 – 50 yards. 40 – 60 arrows
PM archery, 3D, unknown yardage, 40 – 50 arrows
Run 1 Hour 15 Minutes
Wednesday: AM archery, 3D, known yardage, 60 – 80 arrows
PM archery, 3D, unknown yardage, 40 – 50 arrows
Cycling – 1 hour and 30 minutes
Thursday: AM archery, Indoor, 18 Meter, 60 – 80 arrows
PM archery, 3D, unknown yardage, 40 – 50 arrows
Swim 1 hour, mid-morning
Lift weights
Run 30 minutes
Friday: AM archery, 3D, 20 – 45 yards. 20 arrows
PM archery, 3D, 20 – 45 yards. 20 arrows
Run 30 minutes
Cycling 1 hour
Saturday: Archery – 3D tournament
The total training time, this week, breaks down like this: archery @ 24 hours, multi-sport @12 hours, essentially a workweek. This doesn’t include the time on the range at Saturday’s tournament. You can see Saturday is somewhat like a rest day. The training varies, of course, with travel, race plans, and archery tournaments. Because I have “serious” racing on my calendar, the morning easy runs with River have been dropped. When I do run, she runs with me. There are times, early in the morning, she refuses to reason with me and I will join her for a short (1-2 mile) wake-up play run even though it might not be part of the plan. It’s all flexible. (And now I’m heading out for a ride.)