Customer Reviews

Triathlon Training Basics

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book had lots of good starter information. It gave me a good foundation to really start planning for my first triathlon. The training routines were well divided into fitness levels. This is a good starter book to build a knowledge base on.

I've found other triathlon training books to be either too detailed, or too simplistic. This book really covers a lot of necessary information in an easy to follow manner for the beginner or intermediate athlete.

The training plans in this book for "fit" (there are two sets of plans for each distance: "fit" vs. "unfit") are way too conservative. I found myself using the Olympic distance plan to train for a Sprint distance triathlon. There is no way following the "fit" Olympic distance plan I could have completed that distance. It's suitable for training for a Sprint however but that's not what is intended by the author.

I also find it annoying that so much of the book is dedicated to these different flavors for both individuals and for teams. It began to feel like me that the author was padding the book to make it longer.

Since most folks (like me) would buy a beginner book for the training plans I cannot recommend this book to a beginner to formulate a plan unless you feel like under-training and slogging through your first event.

This book is OK but is certainly padded with a lot of irrelevant info. The main problem is that there are too many training plans with little to distinguish them. The criteria for "fit" vs. "unfit" are almost identical and the plans themselves seem very conservative. A previous reviewer mentioned the "team" training plans, and I agree that these are redundant.

Another issue is that there is minimal emphasis on swimming; for beginners, swimming is probably the most difficult discipline to get comfortable with, so this seems like a poor approach. There are some useful tips on bike fit and nutrition, yet probably far too much info for a beginner. I strongly recommend the training plans, info and general style of the "Complete Idiot's Guide" ahead of this book.

This book is good for beginners and does provide several different training plans. While using it to prepare for my first Olympic-distance race I ended up running a Sprint-distance race *slower* than I had before. You race like you practice and this book didn't suggested enough intensity.
That and there is no errata. The "Fit Beginner Plan for an Olympic Distance Triathlon" plan has a couple mistakes in it that can be found by cross-referencing the table to the text.

I found this book very easy to read...in fact it only took me about 1.5 hours to get through the whole thing. I don't consider this an attribute. So much of this book is dedicated to the training plans! There is really no reason to waste so many pages on training plans when each person only needs to pick one. The other big waste of pages was the overly long and descriptive chapter on equipment. The book is called "basics" - why does it need to go into such detail on equipment that most beginners won't want to invest in anyway?

I was very disappointed in the amount of good substance in this book. Glad I didn't buy it but instead checked it out from the library!