If I’m completely honest this is my mindset. I believe I have good genetic ability in terms of aerobic sports. I feel like I wasn’t pushed at all as a kid by my parents to compete, and never really got to see what I could do. I love training, training is what makes me tick and is a very necessary part of my life for me to be who I want to be. The thought of just being able to complete 70.3’s/ironman races excites me. The thought of being 40-45 years old and realising I wasted my 20’s and never had a crack at anything in terms of competing scares me. I’m at the point now in my life where I think I’m finally ready to put in months and months of consistent training and see what’s there, and until recently I hadn’t really realised there was a platform for people like me to do that, in the form of the amateur circuit. Being competitive at the amateur level and maybe some day qualifying for Kona or something would be the biggest achievement of my life for sure, but I think regardless of whether I could get that far, I think I’d really enjoy racing at any level. It is very daunting though getting into this at 30, and there’s obviously a lot for me to learn and a lot of experience to gain, but I’m pretty keen for it.
Now that I see your posts, I think you might be quite a few levels above my “beginner level” 
Lol trust me i’m not. I went for my first run today after 6 weeks of zwifting and I think i’m going to have to have a lay down for a few days now lol. I had a read of your post just 5 minutes ago, you sound like you’re well on your way to some good improvements and you’re already doing some really good training across each discipline. I also saw someone comment about that Joe friel book, which I just discovered is on audible, so i’m going to have a good listen to that as well as Triathlon Tarens books for each discipline. Appreciate you pointing me towards that! Good luck with your training mate keep it up!
You’d be surprised how much getting that swim work in at a young age will still carry over as an adult - - it’s pretty crazy actually! I know it might feel like you’re so far away from feeling fit and fast, but know that having the background you do even if it’s been “dormant” for a few years will still serve you well and puts you ahead of where a lot of others start from and will likely never get to - - triathlon has such a wide range of shapes, sizes, ages, etc. which is part of what makes it such a great sport. Of course there will be the handful of athletes that have come up through the ranks of racing fast as juniors and whatnot that will still be stupid fast, but most seem to get burned out and stop racing after awhile. Anyway, like I said just keep building that base with consistent training right now and you’ll be surprised how well those old skills and speed comes back. 
70.3 worlds happens every year and shifts to different locations every year (or at least has since it moved from outside of Las Vegas where it ran for a bunch of years in a row)–I think Mont Tremblant in Canada was the first stop it made before heading overseas. It’s just “going back” to NZ in 2022 since it got cancelled this year. ITU sprint/standard and Multisport (long course, Duathlon, cross/off-road, aquabike, aquathon) worlds also move around each year as well and will have different local races where you can qualify to race as part of your countries team at Worlds - - a pretty cool experience!
Definitely pick up Joe Friel’s books–Your Best Triathlon is a great resource. I’d skip the Triathlon Taren stuff…
In tri’s, that is often enough. Many (most?) triathletes have Adult Onset Swimming and really struggle with the discipline. Lord knows it was my biggest limiter (if I could swim sub 1:10 in an IM, I’d have a damn good shot at Kona…but I suck at swimming).
Even if you just swam (well) as a kid, you learned good technique…and good technique will get you really far in triathlon. Even if you don’t swim “fast”, you’ll swim efficiently, which sets you up for good bikes and good runs.
You don’t need to be first out of the water…hell, you probably don’t need to be in the top 10%. But as long as you are in striking distance and not completely blown form the swim, you can hunt everyone else down.
I also swam competitively as a kid so I know the strokes and probably have ok technique. It seems like triathlon swimming is a bit different. Maybe someone could explain it to me?
So I was riding 10+ hours a week and very fit and we had a pool last summer so I tried to swim 20 minutes a day. I couldn’t do it. I could ride all day for five hours but I couldn’t swim slow enough to do 20 minutes freestyle. I was reading about endurance swimming and I gather it’s more of a stroke glide, stroke glide. When i swam competitively it was always 50 or 100 free. The longest event was probably a 200 IM and I think that only the older kids did that.
One thing that stuck with me was Joe Friel on a podcast (maybe That Triathlon Show). He was saying that with a minimal amount of instruction he could vastly improve the swimming efficiency of most amateurs. This just leads me to suggesting professional help earlier rather than later. Why bang your head against the wall for three years and then decide to take a stroke clinic to learn to swim better?
There’s no specific “triathlon swimming” technique, but obviously pacing and endurance plays a big role. There are different swim types as well, which www.swimsmooth.com breaks down really well - - they’re a great resource of information when it comes to distance swimming.
So start there…but do multiple repeats. Start reducing your “wall time” between reps. Then do 150’s…then 200’s, etc. You’ll figure out proper pacing soon enough.
ETA - there is no need to swim 1500 or 2K meters continuously in a pool. You SHOULD be breaking your swims up into smaller sets / reps. OWS are for doing longer endurance work.
Yes and no, IMO. Open Water Swimming is definitely different than laps in a pool…sighting, pacing, etc. If you do ocean swims (or in my case, lake Michigan) rough water may force you to modify your stroke, etc.
But in terms of training…no, no real difference. Wanna be a better swimmer? Train like a swimmer…and join a Masters Group.
Yeah, I should have added the caveats about open water swimming having separate unique skills (sighting and swimming straight without a line to follow being major ones), but in terms of just surviving a 20 minute session in the pool there’s nothing uniquely different there. 
I also agree with your advice on not needing to swim continuously as training and to stick with the shorter intervals to actually improve. If you need to do a continuous swim as a test or just for a confidence booster down the line then sure (and especially useful if you can actually do it in open water…which is like a 3-month window where I live 
), but you’re most likely just going to be working with failing form and ingraining bad habits doing longer straight swims like that on a regular basis (especially if you’re just starting out/starting back up after a long layoff).
That’s me! 
Got into running and Tri in my early 30s, but I’m all about the bike now - and faster than I’ve ever been thanks to TR. Good luck with the training, post your progress here?
At this point in your “journey” pretty much any structured training that you can consistently do is going to pay off well for you. The TR tri plans are definitely options to try as a one-stop-shop, but it’s debatable as to how good they are compared to their straight cycling plans and other triathlon specific plans that are out there. Only you will know what kind of time you have available for training to help determine which “volume” of plan you’ll want to try out, but the general consensus even with the low volume plans with 3 rides a week is to add extra endurance rides when you can as the LV plans generally include a lot of intensity to make up for the lack of time available for a more well balanced plan you’d use with more time available. I’ve found the LV cycling plans also typically work well in the context of tri training since especially starting out you may just be doing one sport per day and don’t have room (or energy) for more rides yet. Starting with something like the LV SweetSpot Base plans and just filling the rest of your time in with easy runs to start building your run endurance back up would be a good starting point–not sure if pools are open for you where you are, but if so then starting that back up again 2-3 times per week would be a good thing too of course.
My advice is to start off with low intensity base blocks of training. Build your base as big and as wide as possible. Zwift if usually too intense - too tempting to race others. Runs should not crush you. Maybe learn about polarized training or MAF. After 6-8-12 weeks of laying down a solid base and building up your weekly hours, maybe throw in some intensity. But, overall, it would probably help to get a coach to map it out. Or at minimum follow a canned plan for a while.
It’s not the kind of book you’ll want to listen to. Thee are tons of tables and charts. You might listen to it but you’ll need a paper copy.
Referencing Jack Daniels…
17:45 would give you a VDOT of ~57 suggesting a 10km max of 36:50
10km in 39:30 gives a VDOT ~ 52.7 lets just go with 52 as this is lower compared with your very good 5km pace.
52 VDOT That would give you approximately
HM - 1:27:30
FM - 3:02:30
Of course this is just standalone run, and assumes your muscles joints can cope with the extra distance. Make of it what you will. I’m not a triathlete, can’t swim more than 400 - 500m
I was going to mention this as well - - it has to be seen to be believed!
Extrapolated to triathlons, it would be:
70.3 - 1:37 (90% FT)
140.6 - 3:53 (75% FT)
Now, in his age group, that won’t cut it for a WC slot…but I’m willing to bet his VDOT is substantially higher based on his 5K times and he just needs the proper endurance training to harness it.
using a 57 VDOT, you get:
70.3 - 1:30 (90% FT)
140.6 - 3:36 (75% FT)
I came across this chart awhile back (which is probably the same or similar to what @Power13 is referencing as well based on the numbers). It has somewhat lined up for me at times, but I’ve generally overachieved in my triathlon runs compared to my standalone runs–sometimes having that “long warm-up” is beneficial I guess.
Yup…that is what I used. For me, it has been damn near spot-on…with the exception of my IM runs where I have invariably 
the bed!! 
^^^ Thats pretty much spot on for me, except full ironman time that needed 45 mins added to it.
I’m putting it down to Wales being a horrific run to make me feel better…
Yeah i’m from Australia and probably don’t appreciate the fact that swimming isn’t as common place as a kid as it is for much of the rest of the world. Definitely don’t feel as natural in the pool as I did when I was very young but maybe that’ll come back with a bit of training!
Yep will do! I’m going to do a trainer road ramp test in a few days after a bit of a freshen up and will go from there. I’m interested to see how painful the ramp test is compared to a 5k race etc. It looks hard.