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Triathlons are for everyone

BY JOHN HANC | Special to Newsday

May 12, 2008

Who can do a triathlon? "Anyone," says Dr. Steve Jonas, a professor of preventive medicine at SUNY/Stony Brook and the author of Triathloning for Ordinary Mortals (Norton).

Well, almost anyone. There's that little matter of being able to stay afloat in the water.

"Of course, you have to be able to swim," he adds. "But anybody can ride a bike, and anybody can run if they don't try and go too fast." Which first-timers should not do, anyway. Go-slow, go-safe should be the mantra for the newbie. "The goal for the beginner should be to finish happily and healthily," Jonas says.

As the title of his book suggests, people tend to think that triathletes are all superhuman, an impression often conveyed by watching the annual broadcast of the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in October. Yes, Ironman is a triathlon-but an extremely long and grueling one (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run, done successively.) Not all triathlons, however, are Ironman triathlons. The sport comes in various sizes. In his book, Jonas offers a 13-week training program for the challenging-but-doable Olympic distance (the same distance athletes that will be contested in Beijing in August): 1.5 kilometer swim, 40k bike and 10km.

Even more popular now, especially with beginners, is the "sprint" triathlon, which generally consist of a 1/4-1/2 mile swim, followed by a 10-15 mile bike and a 5K (3.1 miles ) run. Refuting another fallacy-that triathletes must spend 20 hours a week of training-long-time tri coach and competitor Nancy Lipira of Huntington Station has developed a 12-week sprint build-up program that involves as little as 2-5 hours per week. In this simple program, you gradually build up your distances in the three disciplines until you can cover the race distance.

In simplified form here is:

Workout schedule: (try to alternate disciplines; not doing one two days in a row)

Swim: 2x a week

Bike: 2x a week

Run: 2x a week

(One day a week rest).

Workout distances: (increase your total distance in each of the disciplines by no more than about 10 percent a week)

Swim: Start with 15 minute workouts, build up to 50 minutes over 12 weeks.

Bike: Start with 20 minute ride, build up to 1.5 hours

Run: Start with 15 minutes build up to 40-45.

Starting in week 4, do a "brick" every other week. (BRicks are "bike/runs" consisting of a 10-20 minute run right off the bike.)

Lipira will be on hand with others from Long Island Tri Coaches at the Runner's Edge-TOBAY Triathlon Clinic, this Thursday (May 15) at 6:30 p.m. This free clinic is being held at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Library, 899 Old Country Road in Plainview, and is geared towards first-time triathletes. (516) 349-7646, no advance registration necessary.