Tri / Triathlon / Triathlons - do they float your boat?

Does Weymouth have one shorter than a half-IM?

Can you recommend a better one in the south with a swim in the ocean?

These are 'fun'
https://www.votwo.co.uk/salty-sea-dog-tri

edit - ah sorry, you wanted longer than a sprint.

Went back again to the Challenge Championship this year with a men's relay for the middle distance, and also done the olympic distance solo the day before.

The olympic distance was nice, this year I wasnt gonna push myself considering I had a 90k time trial ahead of me the next day. I caught up with my friend on the run (our swimmer in the relay & my brother's coach), and we caught my brother on the last 3k. He is pretty new to the sport, and this was first ever olympic distance, and we paced him in for a sub 3h result which he was very happy with.

On Sunday all three of us did exactly as planned. We wanted to place 3rd, as every year there are two teams of VERY strong athletes that are doing relays. Our swimmer did 31 minutes, I started the bike 2 minutes behind the current 3rd place relay. By the time I got off the bike after 2:17, we were in 3rd place, leading with 2 minutes. Our runner then extended this to over 4 minutes, stopped for a world record 1m37s shit, then got our lead back to ~3 minutes, and came in with 1:29.

We placed third with a 4:21:40, and only need to shave off 30 minutes from our time for next year if we want to contest the top 2 teams :D Interestingly the overall best relay team was a mixed one. The individual pros and AG athletes did insane times, its a really fast course even with all the running in the transitions.

Not bad considering I trained an average of 3.25h / week this year on the bike. Back again next year!

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I'm doing this. In the south with a sea swim 👍https://www.eastbournetriathlon.co.uk/standard/

Sick!!!!

In the swim in the Danube?

uhh this looks perfect... thanks for the tip

The same organisers do another one in Brighton in September as well with a sea swim. I'll probably do it as I live there unless there's a CX race in the south east the same weekend but I wouldn't recommend it as it has the worst bike course and it's quite expensive for such a shit course. Eastbourne bike course is nice.

September actually works better for me ( more time to practice getting the socks on)

Do you happen to have a link?

https://www.brightontriathlon.com/

Its a side-channel of the danube, right by the event venue:

For ~2/3rd of the way the current works for you, then you turn and it works against you for the last third. I think its a really nice experience especially for beginners, because theres well enough space no matter how slow/fast you are, you arent losing much time by getting out of the way.

Is anyone doing the London t100 races?
I did originally fancy it before it was t100 and I’m still tempted, but I’d like to watch the pros and race. Website implies all races start at 7 which seems unlikely?

Did Eastbourne triathlon this morning. Worlds AG qualifier standard distance. The races went of in AG waves so you pretty much know where you are. Needed top 5 but didn't make the cut. Was with the boys I needed to be with just about but feeling comfortable in 6th until the 2/3 mark on the bike but hit a pothole and dropped my chain and managed to jam it up trying to shift it back on so had to pull over and sort that out and lost a few places chased abit without burying myself and took one back but felt rough for the first half of the run and lost another couple of places then started feeling better and finished 10th so more long bricks and run volume moving forward I think plus a couple of bike set up changes should get me where I want to be. I thought the race was abit expensive at £110 but it was a big well organised race with plenty of facilities and closed roads and a decent goodie bag so maybe not so bad and would definitely recommend it.

Yeh I’d pay for closed roads!
Lakesman was fun at weekend, but traffic on the return leg of the bike was a pain, going 40km h between riders to overtake and a line of cars rolling along was sketchy!
My legs are toast today, lack of runs over 15km in training paid me back. Good event though, albeit Keswick is chaotic already without about 1500 people descending on the town!

So…. I had planned on doing a half triathlon next year with the intention to do a full the following.

To my surprise, I got in to do the London Marathon next year, so this has caused a bit of complication to training plans.

Has anyone got any recommendations of coach to help me work out how to combine a marathon and an half Ironman into 1 training plan?

Appreciate and help/advice.

Surely just do a half later in the year and you’ll be grand? Minimal bike whilst you do marathon training with a bit of swim, then drop the run right down and up your bike and swim for 2-3 months?

Pretty much ^

You’ll be able to keep up swim training as it won’t take much out of you for the run. Few long bikes just to keep things ticking over but your run fitness will see you through a 70.3 so just do most of a marathon plan then carry that fitness into the tail end of a 70.3 plan

Yeah I was thinking along the same lines as I’m an ok cyclists anyway but…

My main issue is that the half’s I’ve been looking at are around June, maybe July. With the London Marathon being the end of April I would most likely be tapering / recovering from the marathon when I should be peaking the cycling / tri training.

I agree a Aug / Sep Tri would be ideal but wanted the Half Tri to be Juneish because if i liked it and did ok, i may be mad enough to book a place to do a full Ironman the for the following June while tickets are available.

So, I ideally I want some grown up to tell me I’m being stupid or how to do it.

Should it be predominantly marathon training with some swim and the odd ride or should it be half tri training, drop a ride for an extra run and do a marathon run training distances in those run slots.

I'd say predominantly marathon training some swim and the odd ride as swapping a ride for an extra run at marathon training distances will make any half tri training plan alot harder than you think it will. As duncs said keep swimming it won't take much out of your run. Low intensity technique focused swims can actually be nice recovery for your legs. If your an OK cyclist anyway after recovering from the marathon 6-8 weeks with plenty of tempo should be enough to bring your cycling legs up a bit if your time frame is that short and you've kept your cycling ticking over and your running fitness will in a good place anyway. As said a later tri would be best after a couple of weeks recovery doing the last 10-12 weeks of a half iron plan should work. Better than trying to find a shorter half iron plan because you'll be coming in with a good level of fitness already and most plans start with a month of low intensity endurance training which you'll already have

In going to go from a different angle.

Why not just train for a half but have a coach incorporate longer runs ala a full training plan. Two birds one stone approach.

In other news I ended up in A&E last week with surgery now planned off it for a gallbladder failure. There’s a chance swimming has caused it and I’m now shit scared to try swimming again after surgery. Yay.

Race recommendations for next year needed please! Was going to do Bolton 70.3 but it’s moved dates so we’ll be on holiday.

Done lakesman this year, not desperate to go back straight away.

Half iron/70.3, safe or even closed roads, 3hr max drive from Manchester or short flight. What am I missing? I’m uninspired so far!

I’d say it depends on what your targets are for both, it definitely possible to run a marathon as part of 70.3 training, you probably lose 2 weeks of training to it and another few are sub optimal and equally if you go for optimal training for a marathon you’ll be fit enough to do a half decent 70.3 2-3 months later…

I worked with Chris for 3 years and in that time set 5k/10k/half and full marathon pbs plus pbs at 70.3 and full distance tri… at different times but all within that time frame…
https://www.facebook.com/cptfittri

Lost Sheep in Kenmare. Really well run event and Mrs kilo24 won hard cash there one year!

Bronze for Potter earlier, although slightly unpatriotic of me I think it'd have been a nice outcome for both French athletes to have won medals.

Gold for Lewisham!

TV director needs firing into the sun for missing events unfolding though!

Crikey that was a serious sprint. Very impressive to hold himself back the whole run knowing he had that in the locker.