Sprint Triathlon Training Plan - Week 1

Most novice plans have you training for a mere 8 weeks leading up to the event, so backing into the one i'm considering, I'm already a tad behind schedule!

3/18 - Week 1

3/25 – Week 2

4/1 – Week 3

4/8 – Week 4

4/15 – Week 5

4/22 – Week 6

4/29 – Week 7

5/6 – Week 8/Triathlon

But, I'm ok....sure I haven't ran since Sunday (outside left leg/knee is still a tad sore when descending stairs, but I feel great walking everywhere else), but I don't think I need to worry too much about my conditioning considering my running as of late.  After all, the plan below calls for 30 minutes of running on Sunday.  Yeah, I did that and about 2 hours more after that!  Now, the swimming part....I know our pool is not nearly long enough, but darn...its still cold in there!  Sure, the kids have played in these last 2 weeks, but its still frigid!

The training schedule above really is flexible.  You can change the number of swim-bike-run workouts each week, but you should always focus on the one segment that is most challenging to you.

The time intervals suggested assume you are a novice.  30 minutes inlcudes 5 minutes of warm-up, 20 minutes of conditioning and 5 minutes of cool-down.  If you have more experience (not sure if I qualify here or not), the target is 10 minutes of warm-up, 40 minutes of conditioning and 10 minutes of cool-down.

The conditioning "zone" is color-coded:

Blue = Go easy (can speak in full sentences)
Yellow = Go harder (can speak words)
Red = Go all out (eg race pace...don't even bother to try to speak)

It should also be noted that the training schedule being used uses slightly different nomenclature than running for their phases:

Running/Base Building = Tri/Skills
Running/Sharpening = Tri/Endurance
Running/Tapering = Tri/Tapering

I still  haven't determine if I want to do a sprint or a super sprint.  Now, I'm leaning towards a sprint, but the darn water part still intimidates me!  I suppose I need to swim this week to see how I feel about it.  Or, am I just trying to find a way to talk myself out of this?