20 Km Sprint!

yodasm9

Hi all,

I'll be taking part in a triathlon in July as the cycling arm of a relay team.

Its 20km around Dorney Lake in Eton and I was wondering if anyone had any specific tips towards training?

Thanks.

vermooten

Try asking in the Training forum.

Anonymous

yodasm9 wrote:

Hi all,

I'll be taking part in a triathlon in July as the cycling arm of a relay team.

Its 20km around Dorney Lake in Eton and I was wondering if anyone had any specific tips towards training?

Thanks.

I think you might get more response if you posted this in 'Training'

First thiing, 20km isn't a sprint.
You need to train to manage a sustained effort for the duration.
Time yourself over the distance then work out your average speed.Add 5km to the distance then aim to achieve the same average over that distance , once you have managed to do this add 10km to the distance then 20km..
The object/goal is to get up to the same average speed over 40km as you did over your initial 20km.
Once you can do this you will find that your average over the 20km will be much faster.You then need to practice pacing yourself over the 20km to acheive the quickest time without blowing up.

method

Anton de Lacey wrote:

yodasm9 wrote:

Hi all,

I'll be taking part in a triathlon in July as the cycling arm of a relay team.

Its 20km around Dorney Lake in Eton and I was wondering if anyone had any specific tips towards training?

Thanks.

First thiing, 20km isn't a sprint.

.

It is in Triathlon terms.

drenkrom

Indeed, in triathlon, 750m/20km/5km is dubbed a "sprint triathlon". And they are contested at insane intensities in the higher echelons. The Training forum will yield more info, but you want your lactate threshold as high as possible. That is priority #1. Forget volume, forget sprints, you're doing intervals! Beyond the physical preparation, though, to get good results at that kind of distance, you have to find the place inside your head where you go when it's time to really hurt yourself. I raced triathlons of these distances for quite a few years, and the winner was not always the strongest guy, but it was always the one who could dig deeper on the day. And that is dictated entirely by your head. Don't underestimate that, and have a blast.,

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

I've you've got a good base of cycling behind you, then you want to do some short intervals for this distance.

What I find works best for me (and I've done a few sprint tris...) are 3 minute intervals.

Three minutes at above what you would consider race pace followed by 3 minutes of easy spinning. Try to repeat this process between 4 and 6 times. The effort should be such that by the time you've done the 6th interval you couldn't possibly manage a 7th.

You'll feel this in your legs for a couple of days, so don't attempt this more than twice a week.

Cheers, Andy

ps If you haven't got a good base of cycling behind you - work on this first.