How to Plan your Season
“This race sounds fun, I’m going to sign up”. This was the extent of my planning when I first started triathlon. My husband and I would see a race we liked, and sign up. It didn’t matter when it was or what it was. If it looked fun, we were there. As a result, we often found ourselves racing every weekend weeks on end. Whilst this is fun, it is not exactly the most effective way to train and plan your season, and as a result, we were never performing at our best.
So what is the best way to plan the season? I’m afraid I have to pull the “it depends” card. Having said that, there are a number of considerations you should take into account no matter what, and there is a high level process you could follow that will help you plan your season.
1. Setting your goals for the season
Without a doubt, this is always the first thing you should do. You set a goal, and then you work backwards from there. If it's your first triathlon, your goal might simply be to complete it. If you've done many, you should go into more detail, perhaps you have a specific time or placement goal, or you want to qualify for Team GB or for some championship. The more specific your goal, the better. If you are working with a coach, they will help you set your goals and determine whether they are realistic. Part of setting your goal will be to decide what race you will try to achieve this goal with. This is your A race. In other words, the focus of your season.
Some more experienced triathletes will have more than one A race in the season. If this is your case, make sure you leave enough time between both races (around 3 months).
2. Working backwards and setting milestones
Once you have your goal, you have to ask yourself the big question: what do I need to do in order to achieve it? You want to work backwards from that goal.
For example, if your goal is to “Finish an Ironman in under 12h”, then the logical place to start is to know how fast you need to be on the day of the race for each of the disciplines in order to achieve it. From there, you start breaking it down. If by July I need to be able to do x, then by May, I need to be able to do y, and by April I need to be able to do z... all the way until you reach today. How you define your x, y and z milestones will depend on your goal and on your current fitness, and the responsibility of setting the specifics of these milestones is down to your coach.
The more milestones you set yourself, the easier it is to then plan your season as you have very specific targets to reach. With our athletes, I like to split these milestones into different categories. Below you can see the categories and an example of a milestone we might set:
Strength: ability to perform 25 single leg calf raises
Swim: CSS = 1:40min/100m
Bike: FTP = 250W and ability to ride 200km in one go
Run: run a half marathon in under 1h40
Run off bike (brick): run 5km off the bike at a 4:45min/km pace
3. Setting training cycles and periodisation
Once you have set your milestones, you are in a better position to start planning your B/C races, sportives and anything else you might want to do. However, there is one more thing you should consider before going on an event shopping spree. The period between the time you start training and your A race is a training cycle. If you have two A races in the year, then you might have two smalll training cycles, or just one big training cycle up to the second A race. It is important that your other events fit in well with this cycles, as your A race is, after all, the priority of the season.
There are many ways to create a training cycles, and arguably, there isn't a single right way to do it. The way we do it at Tri Training Harder, is by creating what we call macro cycles and micro cycles.
We start with the macro cycle because this is more high level - in the same way we started with the goal and broke them down into milestones. You want to make sure you have targets/focus points for each of the phases in the macro cycle:
Preparation phase (4-8 weeks): this is where you work on S&C and preparing your body for the training to come. Treat this as the foundation - we want to make sure you have a strong core, and that you are well balanced. This is a good time to go for a routine physio checkup and make sure you are good to go (read the blog on biomechanics for more info on this). During this time, you may also want to go for a bike fit, and if you are thinking of making any changes to clothing, nutrition...etc, now is the time to think about it. If you are coming into your second cycle of the season, this phase will also include some time off.
Base phase (4-8 weeks): this is where you build your aerobic system, so your workouts will have a high emphasis on endurance at an aerobic intensity. Having said that, you musn't neglect tapping into the higher intensity zones as including short bursts in these higher zones will help prepare you for the next phase.
Build phase (8-16 weeks): this is where you start to build strength endurance then eventually speed endurance. As you progress into this phase, you will find yourself spending less time in your aerobic zone, and more time in threshold, vo2 max and anaerobic zones.
Competition phase (4-8 weeks): the goal here is to get you to the start line as race ready as possible. Your training is now very specific to your race - for example, training at race intensity, or race temperature…etc. This phase will usually last 4-8 weeks.
From there, you can then create micro cycles of 3-5 weeks within each phase of the macro cycle. Within these micro cycles you need to include different intensity weeks, and most importantly, recovery weeks. The newer you are to the sport, the more frequent your recovery weeks should be. This process is called periodisation.
4. Put it all together
If you have already done steps 1-3, then you are well under way to create a great plan for your 2020 season. It is time to put it all together, but before you do that, consider the following:
How do you want to do your hard week training sessions? Do you prefer doing them alone? In a club setting? With friends?
How much do you love racing? Some people love it so much that they like to use races as part of their training. If this is your case, this is fine, but just remember that if you have a lot of races in the diary, then they should be seen as part of your training so select distances that match what you should be doing in your training, and accept that you will not get a PB each time as you won't be tapering etc.
Will you do a training camp? If so, when? What is the focus of the training camp? If your focus is to improve technique, then the earlier in the season (late base phase/ early build phase) the better. This is so that you have time to work on the coaching points you have picked up on in the camp. If your focus us to get a really good training week to improve you fitness, then it is probably best to do it towards the end of your build phase.
Have you got any holidays planned already? How does that fit into your plan?
Once you have answered all these questions it should be easy to map out what you want to do and when. For example, if one of your milestones is to be able to do a half marathon in x time by y date, then signing up for a half marathon around y date is probably a good idea! Equally, if you know you will need to be doing some weekends with a lot of cycling, signing up to a sportive could be a good way to get it done.
You can take it a step further and look at your phases. As a rule of thumb, have your B and C races in the build phase of your macro cycle. Within this cycle, you want to look at your micro cycle and try to:
Book holidays during recovery weeks
Book practice B races the week after a recovery week (so your recovery week is your taper)
Book other C races that you want to use as part of training in your most intense weeks, just before your recovery week (no taper here!)
...etc
Planning your season is an art. We are all different and therefore what works for one person might not work for another. Your coach can help you navigate though all the options and help give you the best chances of success, however it is important to understand that there is a learning curve involved. Over time, you will learn what works well for you and what doesn't, so you can refine your strategy every year.
We’re here to help
Tri Training Harder are one of the leading Triathlon coaching providers in the UK, using our wealth of experience to unite scientific and technological research with already well-established and successful best practices, to create a formula for triathlon and endurance coaching that works.
The result is an honest, dynamic, yet simple new way of constructing an athlete’s training to allow them to reach their potential.
If you’re planning your next season, just starting out in the sport or are looking for extra guidance at the very top end of the field, we are here to help, and our coaches would be delighted to hear from you. You can contact us via the website, and one of the team will be in touch.