- [Taren] All right, Sprints versus Olympics.
I should talk about the different distances of triathlon.
(whimpering) Hi.
And I'm just sitting here like, "No, man."
Morning Trainiacs, yesterday, question came up,
which is actually really timely
because I am deciding between a few different races
that I should maybe talk
about sprint triathlons.
I should talk about the different triathlons versus,
it's a good day to be back with a yellow kickboard.
I should talk about the different distances of triathlon.
(whimpering) Hi.
Okay, okay, okay.
Third try, the different distances of triathlon.
Today, Sprint versus Olympic.
Deal? Deal.
Just like that, 1,100 meters, done but you know what?
It's not the quantity of meters that you put out,
it's the quality, and that was some quality meters.
I mean I was energetic out there.
(cicadas singing)
I was energetic.
(cicadas singing)
I was angelic.
(cicadas singing)
Just spry, filled with enthusiasm and energy.
(beat music)
Forget everything I said earlier this week
about being well recovered from the 37K swim
on Sunday,
I'm not.
All right, sprints versus Olympics.
(snaps fingers)
Hi so the differences between sprint and Olympic
are not as big as, say,
Olympic and half Ironman,
or half Ironman and full Ironman.
Sprint and Olympic, you can train for one,
and still do well at the other because
the differences in time, distance, it's not so huge
but there are some small subtle differences
that will help you be a better triathlete
in those distances if you know them going in.
So number one, distance obviously.
Sprint is a 750 meter swim, a 20K bike and a 5K run.
Olympic, exactly double that.
Amount of time that it takes on average to finish
is somewhere around, I think it's an hour 27, 28.
Hour 30 for a sprint, and somewhere around
245 to 250 for an Olympic, that's on average
for age groupers.
Other differences in how you approach it.
Number one is nutrition.
On a sprint distance race you don't really
have to worry about nutrition.
Because it's only lasting anywhere from say
an hour to an hour and 40 minutes, you can get away with,
basically just in my case, all I take on the bike
is about that much in my bottle.
Because I'm not going to drink that much more than that,
that much more than that, over the course of the bike.
And then I might take a mouthful of water on the run.
In the case of an Olympic, because you are going
well past that glycogen store that's easily accessible
that happens within an hour 30, hour and 40 minutes
you do need to worry about nutrition.
So you might be taking a full bottle of electrolytes
on the bike, and one little gel, or chew, or bar
that happens on the bike, and then stopping
at a couple of aids stations
for that Gatorade on the run.
Speed wise, the speed that you're going to be doing
both races is fairly similar.
It's pretty close to break-neck speed in both races,
just a little bit dialed down for an Olympic.
In the case of a sprint, I'm basically trying to get to
as close to throwing up as I can possibly be
without actually doing it.
However, there have been times that in a sprint race
I've had jiggly cheeks like this, oh my god.
It happens, on a scale of like one to 10,
with 10 being blazing fast doing
a 200 meter sprint kind of thing,
kind of around an eight or an 8.5.
In the case of an Olympic, you're pretty close to that
but it's more like, say a 7.5.
You're getting really close to blowing up,
but not so close that it doesn't feel still
a fair bit aerobic, aerobic being
more cardio than it is like (puffing)
like really hard muscular work.
Then that leads into the difference with how you train.
A sprint you can do quite well in sprints training
six, seven, eight hours a week if it's really
purposeful training, you can get really fast
without a huge amount of volume.
Because you're focused on one, sole, key, important,
solitary, individual skillset, and that's going
as fast as you possibly can in as little amount
of time as you possibly can.
An Olympic, however, you're focused on two things,
you're focused on speed and endurance.
That's why the amount of training required
to maintain that speed over an Olympic distance
requires a fair bit of
more training.
I'm articulate today.
So to do well in an Olympic distance race,
your often doing over-distances.
You're doing 70, 80, 90k bikes.
You're doing 15 to 20k runs.
You're doing 3500 meter swims,
because you want to build that
base of endurance in cardiovascular fitness.
In a sprint, you don't have to worry about that.
So sprints, I was getting away with probably
seven to ten hour weeks, and getting
all the way down to a 1:07 sprint.
In an Olympic, I did a 2:14 Olympic
and that was closer to like 12 to 13 hour weeks.
Remember, you don't have to do what I do,
do what you can do.
What else, what else, what else?
Bragging rights, neither one of them
has Ironman in the title, so when you talk to people
who don't know that sprints and Olympics
are actually quite hard races, they're going to be like
"Oh well, did you do a real triathlon?".
Pfft, whateves.
As far as difficulty goes, I always recommend
that people do as difficult, i.e. as long a race
as they can possibly do while still feeling
in control of that race.
So I've mentioned quite a few times before
that I started bouncing back and forth
between sprints and Olympics.
I would just blow up in a bunch of Olympics,
and I ended up, after a couple of years, saying
"You know what, I'm just going to focus on sprints.
"We're going to back it off," because I know that
I can be more in control of that race than it is of me.
And eliminating a lot of those variables that come
with the longer distance of the Olympic
that was what allowed me to learn how to be
a triathlete because it taught me how to train.
It taught me how to manage my nutrition.
It taught me how to listen to my body, it taught me
how to recover, all of that.
And then once I had that base of fitness and training
knowledge in sprints, it was easy to translate
that up to longer and longer distances.
(beeping) The coffees ready, yeah!
I'm going to wrap this up because it's coffee time.
There.
We.
Go.
Now.
It's coffee time.
Do you like this, do you like this format?
Because if you like this format,
comment below about which race distances
you want to see the differences of.
Sprint versus Ironman.
Sprint versus half Ironman.
Half Ironman versus Ironman.
There's a lot we can get into here,
lots and lots of good stuff.
(snapping) Coffee!
So, Trainiacs, funny story about
fatigue and the long swim.
Earlier this week, I was like "Hey.
"Pfft, everything's easy."
Remember when I said that I thought we were in
like a nine hour long ice bath,
and that's why I didn't feel sore,
and everything was feeling good?
Yeah, yeah!
For the last three days I went for a little run,
three days ago, I went for a little bike yesterday,
I went for a little swim this morning.
And just those little, teensy, tinesy,
wussy little bits of training,
oh my god, taken a ton out of me.
So in Canada right now, it's actually our
annual biggest summer-long weekend around.
It's July long weekend, to some of you
this would be known as Fourth of July from the States.
And everyone around here is like,
"What are you doing for the long weekend?"
"Going to the cabin for the long weekend?"
"You going to the cottage for the long weekend?"
"You going to go get a suntan for the long weekend?"
"Are you going partying for the long weekend?"
"Downtown you going downtown
"for the Canada Day festivities?"
And I'm just sitting here like "No man.
"I'm going home, and I'm sleeping."
That's it, I might do a little bit
of working out with Chris.
You know Chris, ugly guy from TubTalks?
- [Chris] I just haven't spent that much time
today on my face, but.
- [Taren] But triathlon Taren, he needs rest.
Long swim has caught up to him.
Happy 150th Canada Day, Trainiacs!
I'll see ya.
I'm tired I don't want to bike home,
but we don't have Uber.
Bye!