How to Master Triathlon Training
In this article Coach Alan writes about how to approach training for the best possible improvements and results. Do you want to go faster? Well if the answer is yes, you’ve come to the right place!
Coach Dougal and athletes on camp in Portugal discussing how the Friday Track session has gone
The route to getting faster is simple: train appropriately and wisely, trust the process and follow it step by step until you reach the logical goal of achievement. But how do you master those individual building blocks called training sessions?
The first step is to train appropriately – a good short cut to this is a coach, but with a coach or without a coach, how do you master those individual training sessions? As if you can master these, surely racing well is the simple bit, and success is guaranteed? Well, no, racing is more complicated than that, but that is for another time.
Plan
It sounds obvious, but think ahead and make a plan working back from race day. Take out the key demands of the event and focus on these in the main chunk of your main block of training. Layout a week with hill reps for a hilly course or time trial position maintenance for a flat non-technical course. Don’t worry about the weekly details; just mark up subject headings for each month. The real detail comes with the week of training in front of you right now.
Organise when you are going to do sessions using a calendar or diary
Write or read a clear session aim and understand what the primary metric is for that session.
Understand if it is pace, power, heart rate, RPE, cadence or number of good quality technique reps?
It is amazing how many athletes with a coach can underperform due to a lack of engagement and organisation.
Do
Do the session to the best of your ability. Crucially remember that just because you could go harder doesn’t mean you should. Not all intervals should be at maximal effort! Some training zones and intervals are deliberately sub-maximal in terms of effort for the given duration of the interval to allow for a precise physiological system to be worked or for a good quality of movement to be maintained or to portion out your effort over a few days of training. It does depend on what you are currently prioritising in training, and this is where understanding the overall plan helps as the plan gives you perspective.
In the doing, follow this rule” “Never let today’s training ruin tomorrow’s”. Thank you, Chris Roberts, for this one. I heard it once from Chris and have repeated it many times since.
Review
It is the post-session reflection where I want to focus in this article. Having done all of the above, all too often, I see athletes go wrong. Often as a collective of coaches at Tri Training Harder, we will talk about coaches providing a better perspective, working with athletes to make sure we can see the wood for the trees. Furthermore, I like the idea of the coach being up above the woods or forest, looking down at those many trees (or training sessions), helping the athletes to navigate their way through to the other side without banging into too many trees or taking too many wrong turns.
Many athletes believe a coach will want them to push and do their best and maximise their performance in each session; this is misdirected motivation and arousal. Instead, a coach wants athletes to simply do a good job of the session aim, not necessarily the outcome. It is this aspect that coaches will reflect upon when looking at an individual session, and athletes can learn a lot and do a much better job of training by taking a similar mindset.
Reflect on how the process of a training session went; rather than the progress or outcome, remember to check your ego by setting your targets correctly.
A lack of knowing the plan and seeing the bigger picture can lead to a single session mindset. Athletes can often think…
“I have 10x 100 in the pool – I am going to smash them at my target pace for that sub 25min 1500m swim that I’m aiming for in July.”
“I have a turbo session; there are intervals of 4x 10min in it this evening. Mid-session, I feel good – I’m going to get higher and higher number wattages for this session.”
“I have a light ride this evening; I will just carry on and complete this route on Zwift – I will feel good about that then and will have achieved something.”
A coach will instead be thinking…
“In the pool, it would be great if the athlete set a consistent first interval session and paced consistently across the set. Given their strength training yesterday, 10x 100 will be a nice short achievable main set. I want to see solid repeated times.”
“Turbo set this evening 4x 10min at Sweetspot. This is part of an overall programme to develop time in that zone over the next 12 weeks peaking at 3x 20min.”
“A lighter ride this evening to keep the legs fresh for tomorrows quality run session of the week at the track.”
In reflecting on how these sessions go, the athlete may then see:
“I didn’t hit the times I aimed to. I must try harder.”
“I was amazing, but I struggled the next day and didn’t feel great. I didn’t do a good job – I’m a bad athlete. I didn’t feel great and lost my mojo and missed a few days.”
“I just added some on I didn’t think it was so far and wanted to” In a completely separate conversation: “I struggled to hit the paces in my track set.”
The athlete thinks these things, but the consequences are potentially…
(In doing so, the pressure then causes rushed technique and technical sessions and going out too hard in threshold sets. A vicious cycle of working too hard commences)
(Boom and bust approach to training. Great sessions followed by frequent niggles, injuries and/or physical and mental fatigue combined with a potential lack of confidence)
(A constant shadow of fatigue over blocks of training where other improvements are targetted. This stagnates improvements with inappropriate load)
Athletes readily commit to getting better. What is also required is a commitment to the process of getting better!
A lot of success in training can be achieved by simply understanding and setting the correct goals for your training sessions. Crucially this also means considering where you are at now, before you start the session, not when the coach or yourself set the session! Things change, and no coach can predict the consequences of life and everything that might go on when they write a plan a week before you do a session (or potentially longer), and due to things that happen, the plan needs to change. This doesn’t mean failure; it means you have a choice to make. It is in this choice that the excellent athletes excel!
Choose to think and respond
Recently one of the athletes I work with had a tough weekend at work. In conversation with them after that weekend, we spoke through some of the decisions we had made between us and if they were correct or not and why. Of particular interest to me was why they felt good about the work done?
They had set themselves the goal of working their ‘consistency muscles”, and because of that simple decision to do what they could and what they felt appropriate, they had set out towards and achieved a little process goal. The sessions didn’t feel great, and they certainly didn’t set the world alight, but they achieved and took another couple of steps towards achieving the bigger goals. The expectations were simply around completing another repetition, working that consistency muscle, not their running muscles. Instead of focussing on the process of their running, they focused on the process of being consistent. In doing this they were confident that they would feel better for moving and for having achieved something. That something being consistency.
We compared this with doing the dishes. If you don’t just ‘do’, they pile up and pile up, and you only feel worse about the situation. We all know that nagging voice, and it is how we choose to respond to it that makes a big difference. The choice we have is;
Ignore = head in sand try to do session regardless of the current state. Very little gets learnt here, and progress is slow.
Sulk = I can’t do it; therefore, what's the point in anything? This one speaks for itself.
Cover-up = essentially lie to yourself or your coach and convince yourself that this is true via self-talk and any other means.
Easy option = choose to do what you would like to do or what is easy
Respond (take action) = think about what the bigger picture is. Then combine this with a reflection on the past few days and your current condition. Come up with a few solutions and think about what state they may leave you in tomorrow and over the next few days. Check your thinking with your coach and carry out the plan.
Almost always responding leads to moving on more quickly and more effective action in other tasks. If you can link several good responses together, you may then start to build some excellent consistency over the coming weeks and months, which will significantly help with performance improvement. Not only that, but you are likely to build confidence in your own decision making, self-awareness and training progress which can snowball into some firm ownership of your training direction.
So next time you find yourself in this position, take a step back, check your plan, think about the last few days, has there been a series of not so good sessions or similar sensations and function? Looking forward to the next weeks training, check what the priority is and think about your options then respond. Starting those single sessions on the right foot and in the right manner is crucial to success.
Alan has worked with Tri Training Harder since 2014. During this time working with a wide spectrum of athletes from beginner, to youth and junior elite athletes through to 70.3 and Ironman AG winners and Ironman Kona Qualifiers.
An active Triathlon coach since 2007 Alan has been fortunate enough to work with athletes, peers and support staff who have continutally challenged him to evolve and develop. Building on a solid foundation in swimming teaching, Alan has specifically developed swimming coaching experience having worked in High Performance Swimming environments. Alan's other passion is all things fast on a bicycle!
Since 2015 Alan has worked in conjunction with the other Tri Training Harder Coaches to significantly develop collective coaching practice both on camp and online.
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