Triathlon Training For Dummies

by Deirdre Pitney, Donna Dourney

Shaping up for a triathlon is serious business. Triathlon Training For Dummies is packed with insider tips and proven methods for training for a triathlon and pumping yourself into the best possible shape by race day. It helps you find the motivation you need to stick to your program, eat better to maximize your energy, and prevent injures both before and during the race. This authoritative guide helps you evaluate your cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility, and to set manageable realistic training goals. You’ll learn how to establish a workout schedule, choose a target finish time get the right, affordable equipment you’ll need for each leg of the race, and maximize your fitness and form for swimming, biking, and running. You’ll also get plenty of help in putting it all together as you focus your training, add dual workouts, become a quick-change artist, and save time during transitions. Discover how Triathlon Training For Dummies comes complete with resources for finding triathlons near you, lists of items to bring along on race day, and tips on registration formalities and racing etiquette .

Genres: Sports, Fitness, Reference

368 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[Ojal Maps · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers a solid overview of how to prepare for a triathlon, especially for beginners, as the title suggests. It outlines the essential equipment a newcomer should consider purchasing to be race-ready. One particularly helpful tip is the emphasis on practicing transitions—both from swimming to biking and from biking to running. The book also includes several useful resources and even a rough 12-week training plan to help readers get started. Overall, it’s a straightforward and informative read.

[Jaiprakash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative book on how to complete a traithlon. Most of the information though is relevant when nearer to an event.

[David Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Triathlon Training For Dummies by Deidre Pitney et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is primarily for novices looking to enter their first triathlon for which it recommends doing a sprint event which if you are a good athlete you can do in 1 1/2 hours although some take up to 4 hours to complete. It's also of interest to those looking to up the type of triathlon they do and the ironman events cover more than 140 miles and take around 15 hours to complete. Triathlons are a combination of running, cycling and swimming over various distances. In the ironman events they run a complete marathon in addition to the cycling and swimming. If you are looking at increasing your endurance at running you should try fartlek which was developed in Sweden and consists of a combination of walking briskly and running which stops your body coming to a complete stop when you are worn out and is done over considerable distances. Swimming training in a nutshell should consist of trying to cover a distance in as few strokes as possible and you should aim to do 25 m in 14-16 strokes, many novices do it in 18 or more. At the beginning ignore how long it takes you and work on that at a later stage. The cycling should be done at a reasonably low gear to prevent lactic acid build up in your legs that too should focus on covering a distance with as few revolutions of the pedals as possible and look at reducing your time later. With both swimming and cycling these are the biggest factors in speeding up your time. With diet you should focus on complex carbohydrates as opposed to simple ones as that helps endurance. A lot of people don't realise fat is a nutrient and you need a certain amount. Energy drinks are important and you should twice what it appears will cure your thirst although obviously this is supplemented with water. I really enjoyed this book and thought it makes a great blog although I have no plans to do a triathlon at least not for the time being. It does contain a lot of information on health and fitness in general.

[Lance Schonberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read a few “for Dummies” books over the years, and while some have been better than others, they’re usually at least reasonably good introductory texts on whatever subject it is you’re looking at.

Triathlon Training for Dummies is, like most (all?) Dummies books, targeted towards novices, people who have never really even contemplated a triathlon before. Actually, it goes a little further than that, giving you an introduction to swimming, running, and cycling before it puts things together to add transitions and special workouts and equipment to set you on the path to an actual triathlon. So, if you’ve done much swimming, biking, or running, there may be big sections in the book that you don’t get a lot out of.

There have been several periods in the past where I’ve contemplated a triathlon, but something always seems to get in the way. Usually, it’s just the sheer amount of other stuff going on in a busy life, although once it was getting hit by a car while biking in Toronto. That screwed up a lot of things, really.

But this book breaks things down very nicely, almost to the point of giving you step by step instructions to set up a personalized training plan by sport to get you from the couch to the finish line. Yes, there is a certain base level of fitness assumed before you get started, but taking that into account, this is a good across-the-board introduction to the ideas and needs of triathlons and triathlon training.

Overall rating: 3 stars. Considering my comments above, this might seem a little light, but it’s about where things should be to my reading. I enjoyed the book, and it may have helped me define the path I want to set out on, but I need a lot more before I get to where I’m going, or where I think I want to go.

[Malin Friess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full neck to wrist to ankle wetsuits are required for water 60 degrees or below...
Aero-bars are not all that necessary
It takes a full 30 weeks to prepare for an ironman
A breastroke after 5 freestyle strokes would have helped me to sight the turns better and keep me from zig-zagging

[Bekah Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book although the information was more for stronger athletes. Lots of training logs and fun stories though.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy the dummis series of books. his one is a good all around book, complete with training programs if you need them.

[Jesse Spevack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Triathlong Training for Dummies was a useful resource. After reading the book, I feel like I have direction with my training.

[Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just casue I failedde.

[Justme · Rating 5 out of 5]

very helpful