Here's what a lot of you are looking for, a basis from which you can build your own triathlon training plan. You likely have questions like; How long do I base train?, At what point do I start to taper before a race?, When should I add speed work? You'll find many answers in Triathlon 101-2nd Edition, reprinted here by permission of Human Kenetics.

"Setting up your triathlon training calendar and log can be the two most important actions you take, perhaps more important than any swim intervals, long rides, or morning runs you do.

Your Triathlon Training Calendar
Your training calendar can be a preprinted calendar, a poster board, an appointment book, or a calendar software program that prints out customized monthly grids. Just make sure that you have enough room to write down your daily workouts. Your training calendar should also be on paper, as opposed to just on a computer screen. Although a software program is great for creating customized calendars, make sure it can print out monthly grids. You want your training calendar to be within plain sight, not hidden away somewhere on a computer hard drive. Dedicate a space for your calendar—someplace that you know you’ll see every day. Once you’ve chosen your calendar and picked a place to put it, it’s time to make the commitment and put pen to calendar (scary, huh?).

Work Your Way Back From Race Day
First, write your race goal on your training calendar. How much time does that give you to train properly? Again, take into account your current fitness level and skills. If you need to reassess your race goal and set your target on something more realistic, now is the time to do it.

Divide Your Calendar Into Phases
Although part II covers training in much more detail, you’ll need to know a little bit about what experts consider to be the optimal way to train. Training in phases or cycles has long been considered the best way to condition the body to the rigors of endurance exercise. Each phase has a specific objective, and the workouts fulfill that objective.

Coaches and fitness experts don’t always agree on the exact number of phases and objectives (largely because training differs among sports and elite athletes require more complex training plans). However, if you are a multisport novice or future triathlete looking for your first finish-line crossing, you should integrate some basic phases into your training calendar. Following is a brief description of each of these phases.

If you think you have a good handle on how much time you need to devote to each phase after reading this section, plan your training calendar accordingly. If you’re super organized, you might even want to use color highlighters to block off phases, using a different color for each one. Don’t worry about writing down specific workouts; that comes later. For now, just get familiar with the phases, objectives, and estimated time frames.

Initiation Phase (Beginners Only)
Objective: Learn a new activity never or rarely performed before.
Estimated time: Depends on level of inexperience. If you are learning to swim the front crawl, this phase can take three months or more.

Base Phase
Objective: Create a foundation of training with gradual, safe adaptation to a physical activity.
Estimated time: Three to six months, depending on current conditioning, skills, and the distance for which you are training.

Speed and Technique Phase
Objective: Increase both the pace you can maintain and the efficiency of your exercise.
Estimated time: Three weeks to several months, depending on current conditioning and performance goals.

Race Simulation Phase
Objective: Boost race day confidence by completing workouts similar to what you will be doing in the event.
Estimated time: One to two months, depending on current conditioning and race goals.

Tapering Phase
Objective: Feel mentally and physically fresh for a race.
Estimated time: One to four weeks before your event, depending on the distance. Sprint-distance races usually only require a week of tapering.

Your Training Log
When you think of a journal or log, the first thought that might occur is sentimentality about the past. Part of the value of keeping such records is to remind you of your accomplishments, but keeping a record of your triathlon training and racing has more practical applications as well.

Training logs can help you avoid injuries and improve your performance. Maintaining an accurate log of your daily and weekly workouts is one of the best ways to keep on track. A log that chronicles the variables that affect your energy level and performance can help you achieve your triathlon goal.

You can purchase preprinted training logs. Some have motivating quotes and pictures and space for many variables. If you’re a computer geek, several workout log programs are available.

There’s no one way to keep a training log. Whatever you think are the most applicable variables are fine. Consider these variables for your own log:

• Hours slept. Current research suggests moderate sleep deprivation has little effect on performance during the adrenaline high of competition. Still, that ragged feeling during a three mile training jog might be the result of too little snooze time.

• Waking pulse. Record your beats per minute when you awake, preferably while you’re still in bed. An increase of more than three or four beats can signal overtraining.

• Distances and times. Tracking correct distances and workout times can keep you honest. It is also your most reliable measuring stick to check your progress.

• Time of day. Studies show that our energy levels fluctuate during the day. As long as all other variables remain the same, you can pinpoint your peak time of day for a workout.

• Intensity. Use descriptive terms or a scale of 1 to 10 (1 is very easy and 10 is extremely difficult). Monitoring intensity levels is a key in avoiding too many back-to-back killer workouts (or in avoiding that crippling disease couchus potatoeus).

• Feelings. Though many things can affect your mood, a change in mood is sometimes a precursor to sickness and an indication of overtraining. For example, irritability can be an early sign that you’re pushing yourself too hard.

• Injury flags. Pay close attention to any unusual pain, especially around the joints where most injuries occur. Note any such aches and pains in your log.

• Weight. Get on the scale in the morning, after you’ve relieved yourself. A 3 percent or more loss of body weight might mean you’ve lost too much fluid. Take an easy day or, better yet, a day off.

• Weather. If you are easily affected by heat, cold, humidity, or other weather variables, keep track of these conditions.

• Notes. Perhaps the best part about keeping a training log is flipping back to read about that special swim, ride, run, or race."

Unless you live in a part of the country where it doesn't rain, you will encounter days you don't ride outside.  Maybe it's too hot, too cold, too wet, or you just want to ride in front of your TV (this includes none of you, I'm sure).

On the occasions you do ride inside, you can make the most of it by following the steps outlined in this excerpt from Serious Cycling-2nd Edition, reprinted here by permission of Human Kenetics.

The biggest problems with cycling in the winter are early sunsets and foul weather. For most of us, who must juggle training with real-world schedules, indoor cycling on a wind or magnetic trainer is the only real choice. Coaches  such as Arnie Baker, MD, author of Smart Cycling, incorporate indoor cycling into their athletes’ off-season training by using either these trainers or rollers. Baker’s athletes enjoy working out at home because it gives them time to concentrate on specific exercises to improve their cycling performance. He has his athletes use indoor training during the season as well because he likes to
accurately control the workload from one session to another during certain workouts. This can be done easily on indoor trainers.

Before you complain about indoor cycling as a boring alternative to
"real" cycling, acknowledge some specific benefits. The controlled
environment of a trainer allows you to isolate and concentrate on
specific areas of cycling fitness and technique.

Rollers
Rollers consist of three round cylinders mounted on bearings and fixed to a frame. A belt connects one of the rear cylinders to the front cylinder to keep the front wheel spinning at the same speed. Rollers sharpen your bike-handling ability because you must rely on skillful steering and balance. They teach you to work on smooth, fast spinning but offer little resistance unless you add a fan or magnetic unit. It takes weeks to be able to ride on rollers and feel relaxed enough to lift your hands off the handlebars. Once you get past the first learning stages, the bike-handling skills you obtain will make you a more confident and successful cyclist.

Magnetic and Wind Trainers
Magnetic, or mag, trainers have powerful magnets and a nonconductive disk that produces resistance and dissipates energy as heat. Performance mag trainers have six resistance settings (low to high) and are controlled by a bar-mounted lever. Wind, or turbo, trainers have two fans with slotted blades that churn the air.

A wind trainer’s greatest advantage is that it closely mimics the resistance you experience on the road - it increases resistance exponentially. If you increase your speed on the wind trainer from 15 to 30 mph, you need to increase power output by a factor of about 8. The disadvantages of wind trainers are the noise generated by the fans and the lack of resistance adjustment.

With mag trainers, resistance increases in direct proportion to speed, which is less realistic, but they do provide enough resistance to elevate heart rate. Several magnetic training units incorporate a small, precisely weighted flywheel that creates a slight coasting sensation and helps you pedal through the dead spots in your stroke for a more realistic road feel. An advantage of mag trainers over wind trainers is that they are much quieter to use.

What Bike Should You Use?
Use an old bike. Enormous pressures are generated on the bicycle when it doesn’t move freely beneath you. The bike you use on the trainer will become wet with sweat and rusted; the headset, with the bike always "going" straight ahead, will get grooved. For these and many other good reasons, don’t use an expensive bike on your stationary trainer. Any old or used bike will do; just make sure it is set up identically to your regular bike.

You might consider changing your rear cogs for indoor cycling, however. The setup that has worked best for most of my riders is a 12-13-14-15-16-17-20-28. The closely spaced high gears allow you to precisely tune the hard efforts. The large 28-cog allows you to work on spin and leg speed without muscle strength or aerobic capacity limiting the drill.

Finally, specific workout plans demand a cadence-equipped computer, which allows you to precisely tune your efforts, see your progress, and record your improvement. A heart rate monitor and/or power meter also provide important feedback about your workout.

Improving Your Riding Technique
Surprisingly, working on an indoor trainer can lead to rapid improvements in riding technique. The isolated environment allows you to concentrate on specific skills without distraction. Spinning, the ability to maintain a high cadence with a continuous application of power, can be improved simply by listening to the trainer’s noise. If you hear a steady "whoosh" on the downstroke, you are not pedaling properly. Concentrate on pedaling in circles. This will help you begin the power stroke earlier at the top and pull your foot across the bottom of the stroke. After a while, you will develop a longer and smoother delivery of power to the pedals.

Another exercise on a trainer that has dramatic results is one-legged cycling (see chapter 2). Most cyclists are not symmetrical in the application of power to the pedals, favoring one leg over the other, and exert more force on the pedal with this leg. The result is asymmetrical pedaling, which leads to loss of power.

To alleviate this problem, try this exercise: Place one foot on a 16- to 18-inch box. With the other leg, force yourself to pedal smooth circles for 5 to 10 minutes. This technique will improve your ability to apply power over a longer portion of the crank circle because you do not have the inertial support of the other leg. After several weeks of alternating work with both legs, slip the trainer into a very low gear and, using both legs, attempt to pedal with a smooth application of power. This is what professional cyclists refer to as pedaling with suppleness.

Indoor Workouts
As with any workout, spend a few minutes warming up and cooling down before and after each session on the bicycle. Cycling indoors is quite different from cycling outdoors. Indoors if you don’t have a cooling system, you will be overheated within five minutes. It is easy to forget how the wind keeps us cool. Use a fan or ride in the coolest part of your house. Try riding in an unheated garage, where it is cooler than a house but where you do not have to fight the cold winds of winter. Remember to fill your water bottle before you start your workout.

Cycling to music is a personal choice. Make a couple of training tapes of your favorite songs (preferably songs with a strong beat) and put on your headphones. Use a cyclocomputer to monitor your progress.

Chris Carmichael, coach to Lance Armstrong and other professional cyclists, recommends not spending more than two hours at a time on the trainer. He has seen many inexperienced riders spend a great deal of time on stationary trainers, peak too soon in the season, and then fade by midseason.

If you want to emerge in February or March in the best early-season shape of your life, here is the indoor-cycling program for you. Each workout is designed to provide variety, build the cycling muscles, and train your body’s different energy systems.

• For general conditioning, find a resistance-and-gear combination
  that elevates your heart rate into your training zone. After you warm
  up, raise your cadence to 85 to 100 rpm, maintaining your heart rate at
  no more than 85 percent of your maximum.
• For climbing strength and to become accustomed to pushing
  larger gears, put the bike into a low gear or, on a trainer, increase
  to the resistance that forces you to drop your cadence about 15 rpm.
  Maintain this cadence for a few minutes and repeat several times during
  a training session. Many find it helpful to place a 4-by-4-inch block
  under the front wheel to simulate riding up a hill. Vary the ride by
  occasionally getting out of the saddle and pedaling at 50 to 60 rpm.
  Gradually build up to 10 minutes while riding out of the saddle.
• For speed work and to work on your anaerobic capacity,
  intervals on a trainer are just the answer. You can structure interval
  programs similar to those you use on the road. The key is to remember
  to not overwork.

You can perform the following technique-specific workouts on trainers. You also can perform variations of these workouts on indoor stair-climbers and rowers.

• Hard - easy intervals. Start with a 10-minute hard effort
  followed by 2 minutes of easy spinning for recovery. The next interval
  should be 8 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy. Each hard interval decreases
  by 2 minutes but increases slightly in intensity. The easy 2-minute
  interval remains the same. The workout ends when you reach 2 minutes
  hard and 2 minutes easy.
• Ladder drill. Ride progressively harder gears. Start in
  a relatively low gear and ride for one to two minutes (keeping the same
  cadence), then shift to the next-higher gear, and to the next, and so
  forth. When you’re finished with the highest gear you plan to ride,
  ride back "down the ladder." Usually, riding up four or five gears is
  sufficient for a good workout.
• Ladder drill variations. There are dozens of variations
  for the ladder drill (e.g., hard gear, easy gear, back to hard, up two
  gears, down one). You also can vary the cadence, increasing it to 110
  or 120 rpm, but always keep it above 80.
• Speed intervals. To develop speed, throw in some
  intervals: 10 to 12 all-out, 15-second pedaling sprints, alternating
  with 45 seconds of easy pedaling.
• Power intervals. To develop power, try three to six
  repetitions of three minutes at 90 rpm in a big gear, with three
  minutes of low-gear spinning between efforts.
• Zone workout. Here’s a good workout when you want to do an endurance ride at a specific heart rate zone.

For example, if you want to work out between 75 and 80 percent of your maximum for a good aerobic workout, follow this plan:

1. Warm up for about 5 minutes, starting with low to moderate gears,
   and gradually raise your revolutions per minute or gearing until your
   heart rate is 75 percent of your maximum.
2. For the next 30 minutes, keep your heart rate within the 75 to
   80 percent target zone. That’s the range you calculated before getting
   on the bike. The challenge of this workout is to keep your heart rate
   there. If it rises above or falls below this zone, decrease or increase
   your effort.
3. Cool down for 5 to 10 minutes until your heart rate is below 110.

A final tip: Ride your trainer only every other day. Otherwise, you’re likely to get stale. On days you don’t ride, get your aerobic workout by rowing or stepping. You also can row or lift weights the same day you ride.

What's the sport in triathlon where technique plays the largest part?  Swimming.  It's easy to get caught up in Swim-Bike-Run and throw in some resistance training in between when you can.  I hired a coach a few years ago, the first thing he added to my schedule was resistance training.  He said it might help in injury prevention and structural integrity.

When you're at the gym next, take a look around and focus on one piece of equipment.  Without leering, watch different people use it.  Do they all have the same technique?  The magic 8-ball says, "Very doubtful."

Why do their techniques vary?  Do they all know something you don't?  The magic 8-ball says, "Don't count on it."  You might see a wide range of people using the machine with different levels of experience and backgrounds.  Some might know how to use it, some might not.  How can you tell which is better technique?  By reading Optimal Muscle Training.

This book explains in detail how to assess if you're ready for the exercise, assess your flexibility needed to perform the exercise correctly, and then show you several correct techniques for various results.  It comes with a DVD that covers in great detail most of the topics, assessments, and exercises covered in the book.

With the permission of Human Kenetics, I reprint part of an excerpt and link you the remaining portion of it because it has terrific images with explanation of risk/reward benefit of different techniques.

"Risk–Benefit Ratio of Specific Weight-Training Exercise Techniques

Each weight-training exercise can be performed in various ways. Some techniques are beneficial for the development of strength, while other techniques are more suited for muscular hypertrophy. The benefit and inherent risk of each exercise
modification such as grip width, foot position, arm position, range of motion, head position, and trunk motion will alter dependent on the person’s experience, body type, and outcomes desired. The exercise modifications should always be done to
increase the stress on the muscles and not the joints, ligaments, or capsules. The following pages review variations in technique for each weight-training exercise to offer guidelines for the optimal implementation in an individual training program. Remember that high risk does not automatically mean that the person will be injured. It means that the potential for injury may be higher due to specific techniques needed for increased strength and development."
Click here for the pdf

"Analyzing the Risk–Benefit Ratio of Weight-Training Exercises

Along with a good understanding of muscle biomechanics, knowing how muscles function in weight-training exercises is also important. This knowledge enables the selection of the optimal technique while decreasing the risk of injury. Starting a weight-training program is similar to undertaking other types of physical fitness activities. All fitness activities carry a risk. The risk depends on the activity, the equipment, the environment, the athlete’s level of expertise, focus, conditioning, level of fatigue, the state of the athlete’s tissues, previous injuries, and biomechanical factors. A coding system should be created to indicate the level of difficulty relative to the person’s experience and needs to avoid injuries. Certain sports, such as downhill skiing, surfing, and boating, have an established system of coding the level of difficulty to allow people to decide the activity risk based on their self-assessed experience level. For example, in downhill skiing, ski trails or runs are marked with colors and shapes as follows: green circles indicate the easiest beginner trails that present a low difficulty level and risk of injury, blue squares mark intermediate trails with a medium difficulty level and risk of injury, and black-diamond runs are for advanced and expert skiers and present a high difficulty level and risk of injury.

Each level also offers a certain level of enjoyment, personal satisfaction, and accomplishment, known as the benefit of skiing. Black-diamond trails have the highest potential benefit, blue-square trails have a medium potential benefit, and green-circle trails have low potential benefit for the skier to aspire to. A beginner skier belongs on the green runs. If he or she takes a black-diamond run, the risk of being injured is high. But an advanced skier can go down the same black-diamond run with minimal risk of injury because of his or her higher skill level and get the benefit of a sense of adventure and fun. The advanced skier may find a low-risk green run too easy and thus derive less benefit of excitement from it."
Click here for pdf

What do you in the couple of weeks before a race?  Taper?  Test out nutritional intake and timing?

If this is your first race, your mind is likely racing, pardon the pun.  If not your first race, your over your first time jitters and just want to have a better race, faster time, or move up in distance.

John Mora published Triathlon 101 for those new to the sport and those wishing to get an edge in their training and in their next race.  In this 2nd edition of Triathlon 101, you'll find topics such as:

- Choose the best equipment for your goals, terrain, and budget.
- Create your own triathlon program for various distances and events.
- Know how, when, and what to eat and drink when training or competing.
- Prevent overtraining and recover from common injuries.
- Swim and navigate in open water.
- Smoothly and quickly transition from one leg of the

The Sacramento Bee is following some on an 18 week training plan for a sprint triathlon put together but Jack Poweless. 

Here's a link to the training plan.