How To Train For Your First Half Ironman

Making the step up from an olympic-distance triathlon to your first Ironman 70.3 or middle-distance Tri can be a formidable task. We’re here to help you use your time efficiently when preparing for the longer event.
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A half iron man is a big challenge, more than double a standard triathlon, but it’s more than achievable for most people with the right preparation. Well, if you’ve got a middle distance triathon on your bucket list, we’re here to help make it a reality with some tips and tricks on how to do your first Iron Man 70.3. A 1.9 km swim, a 90 km bike, and a 21.1 km run is no small challenge. A 70.3 mile triathlon is, of course, half an iron man, but it’s more than double a standard distance triathlon. And that is what makes it a perfect challenge for many people, requiring planning, dedication, and of course, preparation to complete without necessarily the extreme level of sacrifice that a full iron man requires. That said, it’s a big challenge just to fit that into your life, but it’s doable. So, let’s take a look at what you need to consider in preparation for your Iron Man 70.3. [Music] Now, the first question most people ask is, “How much should I be training? How many hours a week and for how many weeks?” Unfortunately, there’s no one answer to this question. It very much depends on your sporting history and particularly your triathlon history and also of course your current fitness. But as a starting point, we’d suggest you choose an event no closer than 3 months away, preferably 4 months, so about 16 weeks. You can of course aim for something even longer in the future. But if you do, you maybe want to set some intermediate goals to keep you motivated along the way. And then you want to look at starting around 6 to seven hours a week and building to 10 to 11, maybe even 12 hours a week as you reach your peak training. Of course, these numbers very much depend on the time you have available and your goals for the event. You probably also want to add in some easier weeks as you go. So maybe at two to three harder weeks followed by an easier week to recover and absorb that training. So now that you have that broad outline, how will your actual weeks look? Well, you want to start by dividing those available hours up into something like two to three swims, two to three bikes, and two to three runs. Now, naturally, we’ll lean towards our stronger discipline. So for instance, if you’re a relatively strong runner, doing four to five runs in a week may not seem like much, but you actually want to try and focus on keeping a nice balance throughout the week and also focusing on those weaker disciplines because at the end of the day, that is where some of the biggest gains can be made. So let’s take a look at each of the disciplines individually. First up, the swim. The swim in a 70.3 is actually not that much longer than a standard distance, only adding 400 meters to the 1500 meters that you already did in a standard distance. So if you’ve already done a standard distance triathlon and manage that, you can pretty much do what you did for that triathon and you’ll be fine. Maybe add a few longer reps at 200 m, 300 m, even 400 m reps to build your endurance for that 1900 m swim. But unlike the bike and run, the swim in at 70.3 is not double the distance. [Music] Now, the bike is where you’re likely going to notice the biggest difference when stepping up from standard distance to 70.3. You simply won’t be able to comfortably complete more than twice the distance on the bike with pretty much the same training. I mean, just for the bike section alone at 70.3, you could be spending more time on the bike than it took you for the entire standard distance triathlon. 3 to four hours on the bike is going to require some serious training and preparation. [Music] Now, whilst the power and the strength sessions are still going to be beneficial, you are going to want to increase the duration of your longer ride. So, roughly up to 4 hours in duration and probably looking at over 100k in distance. As you’re building that up, you probably also want to think about building up the time you’re spending in the arrow bars. Again, start off with short intervals and then hopefully over time you can build that up to almost indefinitely staying in the arrow bars comfortably. And obviously with that, a good bike setup is going to be invaluable here, allowing you to make the most of that aerodynamic position and hold it for the full 90k. [Music] the run. Of course, when you start running a half marathon, when you’ve already been going for four, five, maybe even 6 hours, it’s going to be a real challenge. The primary concern when running in a 70.3 is endurance, the ability to keep going when you’re tired. Build up your mileage and your long run distance gradually to somewhere near race distance, maybe 20 kilometers. But you may also want to add in one longer run than race distance if for no other reason than just to get comfortable with the distance you’re going to have to tackle on race day. And never skip a run because you’re tired. Because this is exactly what you’re training for, running when you’re tired. And to add to this, you can practice running when tired by doing some brick sessions. That is running immediately after a cycle. Not only does this help practice your legs running when tired, it also helps that transition from cycling to running, which can be uncomfortable. Well, it will be uncomfortable, but you can make it a little bit less less uncomfortable by practicing it. [Music] Ah, now one final point to consider is nutrition. Now, obviously, fueling becomes more and more important as the distance goes up. So for a half iron man, it’s pretty important. You want to make sure that you’re fueling early and often. Of course, this isn’t something you want to be throwing at your body to deal with for the first time on race day. No, it is something you need to practice and train. Use your long rides and runs to try out various fuel sources and find the one that works best for you and importantly the one that you enjoy. Yeah, absolutely. We hope you found this video helpful towards your challenging goal of completing a middle distance trial or IRM 17.3 this season. And of course, if you’ve got any more questions, please do drop them in the comments section down below. We have tons of videos here already on the channel to help you through this journey towards your first 70.3. But make sure you subscribe so you catch some of those subsequent videos and also some of those that are here already on the channel. and make sure what’s right, give it a thumbs