The Ultimate "Triathlon for Beginners" Training Checklist

Triathlon for Beginners is a short and sweet section on some training fundamentals, essential guidelines and hints and will be updated on a regular basis.

• Try to arrange your training in a group of like-minded people or find at least one partner to exercise with. This will make it much easier for you to follow through with your regular training. It should be a group were everybody treats you respectfully regardless of your current training constitution.
• Run and cycle that way, that you are still able to talk with your partners effortlessly. That doesn't mean though that you have to do so.
• Don't overdo it. Finish your training with the impression that you could continue to run, swim or cycle.
• It's okay to do a long training unit after a day with a short, but high-impact unit. But try to avoid high-impact units after long units the day before to avoid overstraining symptoms and injuries.
• Train in a way that is joyful and pleasant to you. That might sound like a no-brainer but you would wonder how many people torture themselves with the idea that "there is no progress without pain". Which is a very stupid idea and absolutely not true.
• Training is no competition. This goes hand in hand with the point above and it should remind you to not exercise as if you were in a race.
• Try to exercise no more than 10-20% of your training distance at the same speed you intend to do in your competition. Though you can slice this tempo part into little segments and insert active breaks of about 5 minutes within each. Then you can repeat the whole process 3-5 times. This is called interval training. More on this topic in the training methods section.
• Keep in mind: Whether triathlon for beginners or triathlon for the advanced and pros - it is first and foremost endurance training.