There are several things I have learned and continue to learn here while training with several pro triathletes in the Clermont area. The first being how hard and how often they train. Many swim, bike, and run almost every day. The exception being the off day where it seems an easy swim or bike is the norm.
This, however, is not possible under the time constraints of the typical age group athlete. But what is quite applicable is the extremely high quality of each of these sessions. Each workout has a purpose and is completed without pause.
For example, during a swim, there is no sitting on the wall except when rest is really needed. If it is an easy swim to recover from a hard session earlier in the day or during a recovery day, it is done fairly continuous, utilizing different strokes in order to target different muscles, as the goal is active recovery. Fins are used quite often for these workouts as well in order to make it easier and yet still provide that feel for the water that they are looking to maintain.
Their main fitness building workouts are big and quite specific and of course, incorporate a proper warm-up, drills, and cool down as well. However, for the Ironman athletes who are very good swimmers and already have a front pack swim, many of their swims tend to focus on technique and strength work to simply maintain their feel for the water and ability to swim at the front with ease.
On the bike is where the professionalism really stands out. From the very start the pace is hot and fast and only gets faster as they warmup to the goal pace for the day, only slowing when traffic necessitates it. There is little to no soft-pedaling or coasting (unless it is interval day of course). There are no stops except for those quick ones for water and bathroom breaks on the longest of rides. Food is rarely eaten for rides of 3 hours or less. Their bodies are so efficient by this point that proper fueling before and after and a couple bottles full of gatorade or other carbohydrate/electrolyte drink are plenty to get through most rides. I've seen a snickers or two for the longer rides (I still take in a few more calories, but it is quite a bit less than what I needed just a couple months ago), but the calorie intake seems to be quite low unless specifically training the body to take in calories while exercising.
And the low calorie and fluid intake seems to be even more so for the run. This, however, I do not recommend. Likely you can probably stand to cut out a few calories from your rides and maybe even from your runs too, but if what you are doing is working here, don't change it. Bonking sucks.
Running, in general, the training seems to be quite similar. Endurance runs, tempo runs, interval runs, long runs, recovery runs, etc. Except for the post-run beer. There is none of that. And it's a good rule to follow if you're in the middle of big training and need maximum recovery. If you can, wait until your body has a chance to absorb and digest some post workout nutrition before imbibing that delicious mug of fire water.
In addition, they almost always ride and run from where they are (particularly the visiting athletes who do not have cars), thus cutting down on total workout time and adding to their total efficiency. A three hour ride usually takes just that, three hours, to complete. The rest of the time is spent refueling and resting up for the next workout.
So the big difference that really stands out is their efficiency in training. They get the most out of their swims, runs, and rides. And, with a few tweaks to how you complete your workouts, so can you.
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