What week to start at to compete in Eagleman Half-Ironman?

[Michael Ryan]

Hey Mike- I just got married and came back from the honeymoon a few weeks ago and want to follow the International Distance program. But I don't know which week to jump in at since the programs are 39 weeks and there about 28 weeks until the Eagleman. I read your post and am going to mix in some of the long training days from the Ultra workouts. I have a base running about 25-30 miles/week, biking 75-100 miles (3-4 hours indoor) and swimming about 4000 yards. So far I'm following from about week 6 and jumping every other week. Do you have any better suggestions for where to start and what to follow from here on out?

[Mike Llerandi]

Hi Mike,

Congrats on the nuptials - hopefully triathlon is something that you both can share into a wonderful future...as for the workout plan, the nice thing about the International Distance program is that it has a nice summary grid on the homepage that you can use to see what to expect on any given week. This is easier than just printing them all out, particularly as you have to trim away certain weeks to make the plan fit into a time frame that is shorter than 39 weeks.

To figure out how to trim it back, I would make sure to do at least the last 6-8 weeks leading up to Eagleman, pretty much as-is. I'd also make sure to do the weekend workouts from the Ultra Distance plan, as that will help you build endurance for the 70.3 distance that you'll be racing.

After that, the only thing you'll have to do is trim away some extra weeks to make sure that you get where you need to be by 6-8 weeks out. Which ones you trim away from the program isn't the thing to focus on, really -- just make sure that you don't skip over too many that are adjacent, since the program has some built-in progressions. For example, if you need to skip over 7 of them over a 21-week period, then skipping over every third one is fine.

Hope that helps -- have fun with it!

Mike

[Michael Ryan]

Thanks for the help Mike