RUNNERS FREQUENTLY CONFUSE THE TERMS cross-training and triathlon training. That's understandable. Cross-training and triathlon training are different sides of the same multi-sport coin. Cross-training is when your focus is on a single sport (such as running), but use other sports (such as swimming or biking) to prepare for it. Triathlon training is where that triple-sport is your single focus, so you train by swimming, biking and running.

What's the difference? The difference is focus. That's going to dictate how seriously you train in the sports activity outside your specialty.
A cross-training runner would swim or bike-or work out in the gym-on days when he or she didn't run, as a break from the running, to burn a few more calories, to develop additional aerobic endurance. A cross-training triathlete would need to pick activities other than swimming, biking or running.

The subject was raised by a reader of my "Ask The Expert" column on America Online recently. Though running was his primary sport, he had begun to cross-train to recover after a hard day of running. This led him to the triathlon--although mainly for fun.

TWO SCHEDULES

The runner developed two schedules. The first featured two days of running, two days of swimming and two days of biking with one rest day a week. Each activity had a speed day and a long day. Then someone suggested that peak running performance could only be achieved by running at least three days a week: a long day, a speed day and an easy day (all running) with one day each swimming and biking. He found this second schedule more appealing, but worried how it might effect his triathlon performance. (His busy schedule prevented him from training more than five or six days a week.)

I felt the runner was sending me mixed signals: confusing cross-training with triathlon training. I replied: "You say that your focus is on running, that you only do two triathlons a year, mainly for fun. If so, you shouldn't be concerned with performance; you should mainly be interested in finishing comfortably. So whether you bike or swim enough to achieve a peak triathlon experience should be of secondary importance. If that's the case, the second scenario with only a day each of bike and swimming should be sufficient."

However, nothing in the rules suggests that runners (or triathletes) have to follow a single training schedule 12 months a year. I went through what I called my "triathlon mid-life crisis" in the mid-1980s, during which I competed in two to four triathlons each summer. I never cross-trained on a bike or in a pool in the winter, devoting my non-running time to cross-country skiing. Once the weather warmed, only then I would jump on my bike and swim in Lake Michigan to get in shape for late-summer triathlon competitions.

I recommended to the runner that he consider a similar strategy where he follows the running-oriented schedule six to nine months of the year, then shift to a period where he increases swimming and biking time as the triathlon season approaches. In writing a chapter on triathlon training for my recent book How To Train, I worked with triathlon coach Hank Lange of Brattleboro, Vermont.

HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS

Hank suggests that in training to swim and bike, runners can achieve the greatest success if they focus their attention most on technique in those events rather than on strength or endurance (which they can get from run-training). In other words, learn to do the strokes; learn to position yourself on the bike.

Another important tip I learned from Hank: There's no reason why you can't combine two sports in a single workout. In fact, you should do just that, if only to practice transitions: from the water to the bike; from the bike to running. Or, following a hard run, jump on your bike or into the pool and do an easy cool-down ride or swim. You don't need to spend more workout time; just organize that time better.

In How To Train, I wrote: "You (first) should be proficient in your main sport of running. This means that you should be running at least 20 to 30 miles a week and be capable of participating in 5-K and 10-K races without undue stress. Lange suggests that you train at least six days a week, combining two sports in a single workout on several days. If you take a day off, he recommends that you skip a day on which your strongest sport (running) is scheduled, because that's where you'll lose the least. If you miss an occasional second workout, or one devoted to recovery, the rest will often do you good. 'Technique is paramount,' he emphasizes. 'And you can't work on technique if you're fatigued from too many hours of training.'"

There's more to becoming a good triathlete than that, but I hope that I helped to get the runner who wrote my AOL column moving in the right tri-direction.

Copyright © 1998 by Hal Higdon. All rights reserved.