Top Training Tips: 3 Months To Go

Swimmer Tips

This will be an open water swim, so you need to consider wearing a wetsuit. You may want to purchase, borrow or hire one for the event.

You want to make sure that your wetsuit fits you properly. Check out this video for how to ensure it fits properly.

Open water swimming does have differences from pool-based swimming, but you should still do most of your training in the pool to make fitness gains.

Open water swimming can be used to familiarise yourself with the environment rather than for big training sessions. The more comfortable you are in the open water, the better your race experience will be.

Runner Tips

If you have signed up for the Castle Series event, you are almost certainly stepping up to a challenge, and this is an exhilarating time. Enjoy the feeling of signing up.

The next step is to start thinking about breaking down this challenge into bite-sized, more manageable chunks and start creating a training plan. Remember, we have plans and training groups available.

Avoid distance-based training. Two people of different abilities could take two very different times to complete a 5-mile run. Focus on time training and not the distance.

Aim to build this time up gently week to week before the big day. If you want more help, speak to one of our coaches.

Triathlete Tips

 This could be your first triathlon or even your first multisport race. How exciting! Firstly, you need to now think about your training.

Firstly, if you haven’t already checked out our training pages, there is advice, coaching support, training plans and training groups that will help keep you on track to your first triathlon!

Everyone has their preferred discipline and their least favourite. The key in triathlon training is to play to your strengths and ensure that your weaker discipline doesn’t derail your race ambitions. Make sure you find a balance in training where you can work on all three.

You may need to think about what equipment you have to do the race. You don’t need to go crazy, and you will be able to hire or borrow many of the key items you need. First, make sure you have a good set of goggles, a bike (of any standard) and some trainers. You will need to pick up a wetsuit as well, but that can wait.

Swimmer Tips

The importance here will be balancing between technique training and building fitness. It is easy to spend a lot of time focussing on drills, but you still need to do the hard work!

Our Training Plans and groups have a host of different sessions to choose from, helping to find that balance.

We would suggest spending one session every week, or two focusing on technique or using drills as part of your warm-up or cool down. If you are time-pressed, then using time in the pool to build fitness will usually be more beneficial.

If you are confident that technique is holding you back, then drop us an email with a swim video, and one of our coaches can give you some feedback and pointers on what you can do.

Runner Tips

As you look towards your event, your success will be determined by your training plan's effectiveness. For many runners, their plan is distance-based.

At Tri Training Harder, we feel that this misses the point: your body doesn’t know if it has run for a mile or five; it only knows how much time has passed since it started working. When considering your plan think about your training load in terms of duration, not distance.

We can, of course, help you with training plans or with our training groups specifically designed for the event in question, so you don’t need to worry about loading too much.

Running is one of the easiest sports to get injured in, so avoid rushing into a plan and give yourself the time to build slowly.

Triathlete Tips

As this isn’t your first event, you undoubtedly have some aims and ambitions for this race. We suggest you write down your three goals: Your dream goal, your goal and your minimum requirement. For many people, that last one may be “to finish”!

Once you have those goals written down, put them somewhere you can see them – it will help with your motivation when you commit to your training plan (especially on those days you feel a little tired!)

This is your first step up onto the performance plate. If you have never really had these expectations, it may be quite daunting, but that is ok – that feeling is a sign you are challenging yourself and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Swimmer Tips

At the beginning of a season, it can be easy to have a loose aim of trying to do a set time or break the next barrier in your swimming. However, the problem is often we end up focussing on the wrong thing.

Of course, it is important to see times tumble, and if you are a competent swimmer with a history of the sport, you will be comfortable with “smashing” the traditional swimming distances. However, when you go to the open water swimming environment, a short course is a lot further than 50m!

You probably already have a good idea of how to train yourself in swimming, but perhaps the difference is this year, you want to hit a season-best or goal time in these longer, open water events.

For you to achieve that, you do need to consider what you want to see improve. We would often set 1000m tests, or further, as for fast swimmers, that may be 10-15 minutes. Physiologically, that is barely an endurance duration, but it starts testing how fast you can swim longer. Avoid the training sessions you did before and start repping 600m, 800m, 1000m, and some of the short efforts and focus on the main thing: getting fast at endurance.

Runner Tips

If you have been running for a while, you will have a fairly good idea of your preferred training style. You probably know what events you are good at and which you have some room for improvement.

Nevertheless, are you really aware of what your physiological, biomechanical or psychological strengths and weaknesses are? In distance running events, it is rarely the person who runs the fastest who wins, rather the one who slows down the least.

What do you need to do to limit that fatigue in an event? How can you work on it? Now is a great time to audit yourself and begin developing these areas. Of course, it is good to play to your strengths, but if you know you lose time on hilly courses, get better at hills; if you struggle on rugged terrain, improve your ankle stability. There will be a solution. Become impenetrable to your competitors.

Runners can usually give you a fairly informed injury history – one of the best improvements you can make this year is to avoid injury. Therefore, plan out your season to work on your weaknesses and not let them hold you back.

Triathlete Tips

Most triathletes who class themselves as advanced have little difficulty in training. In fact, the hard part as a coach is to work on improving their recovery!

Therefore, there is probably more work to improve their psychological performance skills rather than training any more – but that is usually the first place athletes go. We can be sure that you have already considered training styles, coaching, nutrition etc., to get better. But have you considered your most significant weapon: your mind?

When considering psychology, people talk about mental toughness, unleashing their chimp, or “grizzing” out sessions. In reality, performance psychology is all about creating an environment that enables the probability of success. This could be looking at your training set up, race preparation, race planning, commitment to training, commitment to recovery and seeing how you can improve them all to get you to the start (and finish line) in the best possible shape.

How can you make sure every session counts?