What is a race diary, and why do I want one?
Planning what races to enter is a big, fun and exciting part of a triathlon. A common pitfall is getting carried away, entering lots of races, and planning to beast them all. In this blog, Coach Denise explores how to ensure you are best placed for success at your important races throughout the year.
Planning your race schedule is an essential part of the preparation for the year. Planning what to enter and getting the critical goals in place can be a lot of fun. There are so many reasons for picking races to enter: your friends are doing it; you did it before and want to get better; you like the sound of the location; it’s in a place where your family can have a holiday too; it’s an iconic event like IRONMAN or Castle Series, the list is endless. Whatever the reason for picking a race, and all the above, as well as many others, are perfectly valid reasons, you will want to perform well at it. Races are increasingly expensive, and the costs can escalate quite quickly if they involve travel. Making the most of the investment is essential.
The Triathlon Trap
However, there are several traps the inexperienced or unwary can easily fall into with racing. The main one is booking too many events too close together, which is easily done in the excitement of the planning phase. A related trap is trying to do too much at once; expecting to do your best ever sprint while also racing your first IRONMAN event four weeks later is not going to work. The different events have very different demands, so decide which is more important.
Recent years have seen an increase in the number of drafting races, in which the bike leg requires a very different skill set both physiologically and in terms of bike craft from a non-drafting event. Entering both event types close together can create confusion in terms of what to focus on for training for the bike leg.
While planning your race diary, it is also essential to think about what else is going on in your life. Triathlon racing and training may be the most important leisure activity for you, but for most people, there will be a lot of other demands on your time. Work and family commitments should be considered when planning which races to enter. If you know that July is a hectic time at work, for example, then planning for your most important race at the end of July is not a good idea. Similarly, if you need to take a family holiday in August or know there’s a significant family event in September, don’t plan for your big race to happen around the same time. An exception might be if you can complete a race and then have a family holiday in the location afterwards.
A final trap to consider is taking the same approach to every race, going all out at all of the races you are doing. This is where a race diary can come in, along with the idea of A, B and C races.
Categorising your races
A race diary is a plan of the races you will be doing in the year. By preparing a race diary, you can ensure that you are at peak performance for the races that matter most. These most critical races are designated as A-races. This could be one race in the year, especially if you are stepping up in distance to an IRONMAN, or similar, for the first time. You could have more than one A-race in the year, but race distances and time duration between them should be considered if this is the case.
Alongside the A-race(s) in the calendar, most athletes will have more races that they plan to enter. While the whole purpose of training, for most people, is to be fit and able to race, entering many events in one year, and racing them all hard can be counterproductive.
If you are planning to race hard, there should be a taper phase to allow racing on a fresh body and a recovery phase to allow yourself time to recover from the hard effort of the race. This is typically two to three weeks per race in total.
If every race is considered an A-race, then this taper and recovery period will start to impact available time for training within race season. Entering many races and taking them all as important will leave little time for effective training during race season. Also, racing hard at every event will empty the tank, and as the season progresses, performance will be impacted by many hard efforts.
A more thoughtful approach of selecting the A-race(s) and then building the season around these will ensure that you are in peak fitness for the races which matter most. Other races in the year can either be built into part of the training or done more for fun and not raced at 100%. These are your B and C-races.
Having races occurring in back-to-back weeks can sometimes happen, especially if you are trying to accommodate other triathlon training athletes, but thinking about how best to prioritise them and which ones to go full out at, and which to reduce in effort level will help. It can be that events close together can be used to practice racing tired, especially if you’re A-race is going to be an IRONMAN or other long-distance event.
Putting some single discipline events into the diary can enable you to really focus on the one sport and help with progression or show where you are at that moment in time. Use open water swim events to practice race starts, swimming in a group, or fast buoy turns with other swimmers close by. Sportives or TT events can be a chance to push hard on the bike to check where you are. Run races can be a way to measure current performance and give that competitive edge to bring out the race aspects.
An example of a race diary might be an athlete’s first IRONMAN event in July. To keep race sharp and practice aspects such as transitions, race kit and nutrition, shorter events can be built into the diary, such as a sprint in April and a standard at the end of May or early June. These would be the B-races.
Also, some single-discipline events, such as a half marathon run or local sportives, can be included to keep things fun, build the race mentality and let you participate in events which friends or club members may also be doing and would be the C-races.
After the IRONMAN event, other races, such as a standard or middle-distance event, could be added in September, depending on how the athlete performs and recovers.
Plotting the plan onto a basic calendar can help develop a visual picture of the race season.
Overall, planning the next year’s races is a fascinating part of the triathlon experience. Just keep focused on what you want to do, your goals for the year, and how you can ensure the best chance of success.
Happy planning!!
Denise has been coaching triathletes since 2019 as a coach at her local triathlon club in West Lothian. Between 2019 and 2022, Denise was the Head coach in the club, working with a team of coaches to support and develop triathletes with a wide range of capabilities, completing her BTF Triathlon Level 2 coaching qualification in 2021.
Denise joined Tri Training Harder as a coach in 2021, building on the qualifications through the experience and knowledge passed on by the coaching team.
In 2019 Denise set up and continues to run her own Jog Scotland running group, a mixed ability group of runners who meet weekly. This delivers on her passion for helping people to do much more than they think they can.
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