Setting Goals: Planning Your Next Season!
Lorraine Hurley
Empower Triathlon Training
Find us on Facebook at Empower Triathlon Training Services!
There are many factors to consider when planning your season for the next year. Like any worthwhile endeavor, you want to plan with reason. Can you tell the forest from the trees?
The Broader Perspective: Before looking at particular races, it helps to ask yourself:
-What’s my “why?” This will become crucial, whether your training partner drops out or it’s on the last few miles of your race. What’s yours?
-What’s my bigger plan? Where am I heading with this?
-Do I consider myself a triathlete yet? If so, am I still planning one race at a time? Am I limiting myself to local races? Should I try an ocean swim? Or maybe a flatter bike? Are there skills I’ve been putting off learning?
Dream big! Just beware of placing too much importance on any one race. Anything can go wrong just before or on race day: illness, injury, mechanical problems, travel issues, a break-up, a death in the family, etc. While good planning minimizes most risks, even planning well ahead may not eliminate all problems. The day after my husband and I signed up for an Ironman a year ahead of time, our niece announced that she was getting married that day! I also came down with the flu on race day in Kona. Stuff happens and you just have to roll with it.
Which and How Many Races? What is the right combination for your lifestyle and goals?
The benefits of scheduling more races in a season include:
-Lots of shorter-term goals, which reduces boredom
-The consequences of having a bad day are less severe
-You can experience traveling (one or more days from home) to less important races
-You can train both fast-twitch (sprint) and slow-twitch (endurance) muscles more extensively. Many un-coached triathletes err on the side of too much long, slow training at the same pace
-Supporting more and different races
-Excitement and motivation
-Those with less experience get more of the practice they desperately need with…
-transitions
-navigating aid stations
-passing other athletes on the bike without drafting or blocking
-open-water swims with lots of company in your personal space!
-mental skills
-race-day nutrition and more
The benefits of scheduling fewer races include:
-Fewer interruptions of your A-race training plan (taper/race/recovery time).
-Less expensive
-Less chance of injury (Don’t blow your big race by doing an obstacle course for fun!)
-Less chance of damage to equipment
-If Ironman All-World status is important to you, you may want to do fewer non-IRONMAN-branded races
Make good use of the Chattanooga Tri Club! You can obtain some of the benefits of racing by consistently training in groups with others. Plus, other triathletes will show and tell you so many things you might never get from a book, the internet or any one coach.
As Easy as ABC? In general, your A race is the most important to you, C-races the least important and B-races somewhere in between. Determining whether a particular race is an A-, B- or C-race for you isn’t about how much effort you’ll put in or how well you’ll perform. It’s actually about how long you’ll taper:
A full taper
B partial taper
C no taper
A C-race is done as part of your training for that week with no taper or real recovery afterwards. You may even do a workout the same day as a C-race! It’s rare to have more than one A-race in a season, unless you plan two A-races six months apart with a serious recovery period after the first.
Two athletes may both be doing 70.3 Chattanooga in May and IM Chattanooga in September. For one, the first is a B race leading to the A race. For the other, the first is a chance to qualify for the 70.3 World Championship, so that is the A race and the full is more about training and racing with friends.
Be Realistic: Try to make objective appraisals of:
-Current fitness level: Do you need to get in shape before your race plan starts?
-Cumulative volume (Have you been racing for years or are you new? Coming back after a long break?)
-Susceptibility to injury (Can that knee handle the run volume? Can your back tolerate that many hours in aero position?)
-Age (Older athletes require more recovery time and shorter periodization schemes)
-Equipment: Will your current gear get you through? Is it appropriate for the duration and terrain?
-Financial impact: race fees, bike, gear, clothing, training program or coaching, travel/hotels, gym fees, even nutrition—it all adds up!
-Support network: Is your family supportive of this and prepared for it? Your boss and co-workers?
-What you need to give up or go without. This may be social, financial, academic, work-related or in any number of areas. Younger athletes may have trouble balancing training, work and social time. Sunday workouts may get skipped to nurse a hangover!
-Time: Is there sufficient time to increase gradually without injury? It’s wise to go by the 10% rule (don’t increase from one week to the next by more than 10%) and respect your recovery days and weeks.
-Mental skills: Are you emotionally prepared to train six days a week for months on end? How will you handle setbacks? What about those long rides, week after week after week?
Time Before and Between Races: The following assumes you have already built up to the starting point of about 4, 6 or 10 hours/week, respectively with the total a combination of all three sports. Newcomers may start weeks or months earlier to acquire the needed skills and equipment.
Sprint and Olympic: 8-12 weeks
70.3: 16-20 weeks
Full IM: 24 weeks
Of course, your training for shorter races can and should certainly be part of your training for longer ones. It’s better to build from shorter to longer races than to schedule them the opposite way, especially if relatively new to the sport. But around here, people often target 70.3 Chattanooga as their first race of the season! That’s not ideal. Look at Tri Find or other websites to see if there’s a springtime sprint or Olympic race you’d like. If you’ve never traveled for a race before, a shorter one that’s not crucially important is a good way to learn all of the ins and outs of how to do that.
Most finish their last 70.3 six or more weeks before a full IM. Some athletes can pivot from one race right into another, whereas others require more recovery time. Which type are you? Everyone seems to agree that four to five weeks before a full is NOT a good time for a 70.3; you’re better off getting it done sooner. If it’s unavoidable (say, you qualify for 70.3 Worlds and it’s scheduled a month before your full), make one of those your priority (A) and approach the other very loosely (C).
Peak Training: Once you add in time to drive to and from your workout, change, shower, etc. will there be enough time in the week for your peak training? Most athletes hit their peak training hours several weeks before their race. Others build to full volume at low intensity and then add or re-build at higher intensity. Peaking should not coincide with max strength training, so plan your weight/strength training accordingly with greater focus early on.
Peak training hours per week by distance*:
Sprint and Olympic: 8-10
70.3: 12-14
Full IM: 16-18
*You may need or want to add more hours (or greater intensity) to be competitive
Consistency is Key! What can you realistically commit to long-term?
-Consider your upcoming travel
-Plan for any large projects that will consume your time and energy
-Try to avoid taking two days or more off in a row
-Plan for the unexpected: work emergencies, family crises, illness, injury, deaths in the family, caring for children and elders. You’ll need to save your “Get Out of Jail Free” cards for those, so don’t waste them on poor judgement or good old-fashioned laziness!
-On a smaller scale, assume that the pool will close unexpectedly, your training buddy will be late, you’ll get caught in traffic, the power will go out and your bike will need repairs! ALWAYS have a Plan B AND a Plan C!
-Keep extra gear in your car so you can switch workouts on the fly
-When on the road, find YMCA’s or use Pool Finder and Map My Ride/Run (among others) to plan where to train ahead of time!
-Since you are usually increasing volume by up to 10% per week, getting in 90% of (new) planned volume is just maintaining fitness, 80% is losing ground. For example, if your plan calls for 10, 11 and then 12 hours and you put in 8, 9 and 10 you may feel like you’re progressing but you’re actually six hours/three weeks behind! That could jeopardize your race day. Sounds crazy but that’s reality.
-Avoid postponing training and then using your recovery days and weeks to make it up—or worse, getting behind by weeks and then doubling up)! That’s how we get hurt.
Enjoy the Confidence of Doing It Right! If you plan thoughtfully and realistically now, you can reach some pretty incredible goals! Instead of riding a constant roller-coaster of adrenaline and fear—and taking your loved ones along for the ride—you can have a positive, sane, healthy, life-affirming experience that brings you more pride and satisfaction than you had hoped for.
Here’s to 2024!