Book Recommendations for ARTists

hardCopy

Well folks,

I did a search and couldn't find a relevant thread for this.

I'm looking to pick up a couple of worthwhile books on Triathlon training, with an eye to eventually doing an IM (hopefully 2013).

Be Iron Fit, by Don Fink and The Triathlete's Training Bible, by Joe Friel seem to be well regarded on Amazon.

Has anyone read either of these, or are there better options out there?

sconhome

Haven't read the first of those, have Joe Friels on regular re-read but can advice that 'Ironman' by Tony Iomni is not about triathlon

hardCopy

amphkingwest wrote: »

Haven't read the first of those, have Joe Friels on regular re-read but can advice that 'Ironman' by Tony Iomni is not about triathlon

Milwaukee Shepherd Express wrote:

“Iron Man chronicles a life of ale, drugs and women and a trail of destruction behind every tour.”

I don't think that'll help my times!

Nwm2

hardCopy wrote: »

Well folks,

I did a search and couldn't find a relevant thread for this.

I'm looking to pick up a couple of worthwhile books on Triathlon training, with an eye to eventually doing an IM (hopefully 2013).

Be Iron Fit, by Don Fink and The Triathlete's Training Bible, by Joe Friel seem to be well regarded on Amazon.

Has anyone read either of these, or are there better options out there?

I've read Joe Friel's book.

It is required reading, and reflects the current 'default' thinking about training and coaching amongst a large section of triathletes and SOME coaches. But just be aware that this is still just only ONE way of doing things.

Oryx

I have both books. Ive read most of both of them, but didnt do a start to finish, cover to cover job on either. I picked the bits I found relevant. Joe Friel is very detailed, lots of graphs and charts. Unfortunately for me, at the point that I picked up that book I didnt know my zones or how to work them out and the book was sketchy on that, so I kinda got lost. Im working on a Don Fink plan from his book right now, its very general but useful for me at the stage I am at. I am on my second Triathletes training diary, now there is a useful tool to have.

Both are helpful, Fink being the more noob friendly one in my opinion.

catweazle

Yes for a mid packer I found the Fink book a bit easier to understand!

griffin100

They're both completely different books IMO.

Fink's book is purely geared towards IM and is for those of who us are too lazy / disinclined / couldn't be arsed developing our own tailored training plans. That said whilst the plans are generic, they still seem to produce results and they do act as a rough guide as to where you should be at a given stage of your IM training.

Friel's book on the other hand is usable at all distances but requires you to put some work in to develop bespoke training programmes for yourself. I would suggest that this book is more geared towards someone who takes their training seriously.

haggis_mccloud

I didn't read Friel's Triathletes Training Bible but I do have Friel's 'Your Best Triathlon' and have found it very useful. I don't know how similar it is to to his earlier bible but the inclusion of detailed training plans for each training block (Prep, Base 1,2,3, Build 1,2, Peak, Race) is very useful. It's pretty much geared towards selected A races and I am following it myself as a build up towards Tri An Mhi. Hoping to race every 2-3 weeks myself come the race season in National Series and hoping to perform just as well in all of them (all A races ) so I will see how I adapt the plan after May. I'm currently commencing Base 3 phase and am finding it good so far. It's still plenty early should anyone want to commence from Base 1 now for this season. You can obviously tailor plans to your own ability so I wouldn't be put off by the 'Advanced training for serious triathletes' tag on the book.

kingQuez

The intro few chapters to be iron fit have some good general information for how to fit training into your life; stuff like recovery, how to fit sessions in etc. My biggest take away from this book was the 21-day challenge: challenge yourself to do your training sessions in the morning for 21 days. At the end of it, you can actually continue to do morning work. If you're doing an IM, it then gives you some detailed training plans that you can follow; if you're not targeting an IM it's probably not the most useful book to have on your shelf.

The triathlete's training bible has a lot of great information in it. Like Oryx I haven't read it front to back, but dip into different chapters from time to time. To get a solid training plan out of this book is going to take time, but it will give you a lot of information on how and why to structure your training. "Going long" is a bit more condensed and ironman specific, and I've read that a bit more systematically. Unlike "be iron fit" this one wont give you a specific plan, its geared up for you to design your own backed with the information in the book.

For (very) introductory stuff for triathlon, I think "triathlon start to finish (sam murphy)" is a great book. Information on all three sports, about the kit and training, and includes 6 week programmes for sprint (beginner) and olympic distance races (beginner/improver). I used this when training for my first olympic race, and even still flick through it from time to time. I combined that with "Ironman 70.3: Training for the Middle Distance" (which is a pretty poor book, but short enough to read pretty fast) to put together my training for my first half ironman.