Online Training Resources: Beginner Triathlete

There are some good triathlon resources online which hopefully I will get the chance to navigate through over the next few weeks. The place I started was BeginnerTriathlete.com, where if you can prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed by the massive amount of info on each page, actually has some good resources.

Membership to the site is free. Bonus! What you find on the site is a lot of solid articles, training and racing logs, gear reviews, member forums, and my favorite Map Your Route. I am not use to tracking my workouts or writing anything down. Maybe its a little laziness, also I haven't been that serious, and also haven't liked the expectation that I have to do a certain work out even if I don't feel like it. That may change.

Above: Log information for all three sports.Above: Track your weekly totals for each sport!

However, Map Your Route is fun. After a run or ride (or swim too), you can use this Google tool to draw in your route. Not only will it give your actual distance it will also give elevation. Your routes are saved and when you choose that route, that information is transferred to your log. So far its been fun because apparently I have been going longer distances than I thought and its fun to draw on a map, of course.

Above: Map Your Route sweetness.

Two sites that Dan also informed me of (which I become acquainted with shortly) is Map My Ride and Map My Run. While I know there are some spiffy watches and other GPS devices (Polar RCX5 or Garmin Forerunner 305) that will do this for you, I am not hardcore enough yet to own them, nor will I any time soon (did I mention I am trying to get into triathlons on the cheap!) Oh, and of course, my watch died this week, so I can't even properly tell how long I have been going. Dang.