(soothing music)
- Welcome back to another triathlon training explain show
powered by Training Peaks.
Now today, we're going to be talking about picking
your goal or A race and how to structure training
and other races around about it.
- Yeah, you could simply just choose your A race,
stick it in your diary and then think about the terrain,
the climate, and the conditions after
and then plan your other races as you go.
But if you want to really get the most out of this racing,
you're going to need a strategic approach to it.
- Yeah, so to navigate this whole process,
we're going to give you some of our tips
from our own experiences.
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Where you live is going to have a big impact
on choosing your A or goal race.
If like us here at GTA and you're in the UK,
then picking a race in the springtime is well,
it's going to have a lot of challenges coming with it.
There's the minimal daylight,
there's the colder temperatures,
and it just means you're going to have to do
an awful lot more of your training indoors.
- Yeah, so irrelevant of where you live,
you basically want to have your A race in the summer
because then there where you're going to hopefully
have more daylight hours in which to train
and also more clement weather.
With that, if you want the whole the summer to train,
you could even look to have your A race maybe in the fall
or the autumn so you've got that whole period
to really optimise your training.
(upbeat music)
- Now, location of a race is one of the most important
things to keep in mind when you're choosing your goal race
and as much as it might be good to have a place
that you like to spend holiday for time afterwards
or indeed if you're bringing the family along
and there's things that can keep them occupied.
You have to remember that it is your goal race
and you want that to all be as hassle-free as possible.
- You want to think about the ease of travel.
How far the location is,
maybe you've got to fly from the airport,
how easy it is to find the combination
and the expense of that.
And if you are new to racing, it's probably quite
a good idea to try and choose a race that's close to home
and if you can, drive.
That really does make things so much easier.
You don't even have to take your bike apart.
You can put it in your car.
Make sure you've packed everything and if you're
anything like me, a little bit more as well.
Choosing a large or well-known race brand such as Challenge
or Ironman will require a bit of fore-planning
because the entries can sell out pretty fast
but once you've secured that entry,
you know you're gonna have that added excitement
of racing alongside thousands of other competitors.
- There is however a trade-off.
Although these larger races will come with lots of benefits
like a really well-marked course,
a small army of volunteers,
really frequent water and eat stations,
and hopefully lots of crowd support, too.
The smaller races are gonna offer you
a less-congested course.
They're still gonna be a really great day out
and they'll come at a more affordable price point, too.
- So now that you've established where, when,
and what type of A race you're going to enter
and you've got it fixed in the diary,
it's time to work backwards from that
and create a structure that's gonna help you
get there in the best possible shape.
- Ever since I was a junior athlete,
I've had it drummed into me to have different tiers
or levels of priority of race with your goal or A race
or A races, but I will touch on that a little bit later,
sitting there right at the top of what I like
to think of as a pyramid
and then somewhat underneath that you're gonna have
B races and then not too unsurprisingly,
a level of events that we really aren't
too worried about that supplement all of that
as our C races underneath.
- Given that your A race is your ultimate goal,
it's all about fitting those other races in around it.
We're gonna on to more detail on that just now.
We're going to take a summer goal race, A race based in July
and we're actually going to use an Ironman as the example
for this and then build the B and C races around it.
But if you were say racing later in the season,
you'd have longer to fit these races in.
If you wanted, you could actually put in some more C races.
But obvioulsy this is very much adapted
to the Ironman distance.
- Yeah, so starting with the C races,
which are really a lot less important,
but what they do allow us to do is go out there
and pin a number on without any stress
or the worry of expectation hanging over us.
It just reminds us what we love about doing triathlon
and what we're out there for.
- You can start as early as February or March
when it comes to your C races.
And why not choose something like a cross country
running race or even a road race?
And the incentive of running with others
will really help you with the extra effort.
Say you do have a long run that you've got to fit
in on the weekend, well you can fit this around it
by doing an extended warmup and a longer cool down
that will just naturally add up your mileage.
You might not be feeling in great condition
after a heavy week, but it really doesn't matter.
It's just the extra bonus of pushing yourself
a little bit harder in a race scenario.
- So moving into April time, then we could choose something
like a duathlon or a single discipline event
like a half-marathon.
I used to often like including things like a duathlon
because well, it just gets us back into a multi-sport
environment and allows you to remind yourself
of things like transition areas.
You can dust off the race bike and give that a go
and just really run though a lot of the things
you're going to need to be using come your goal race.
Similarly, if you would prefer to do a single discipline
event then something like a half-marathon
or a 10-mile road race, but a little bit longer
than the cross countries or things that Heather
was talking about could be really good, as well.
- Once you get to May, it's a great idea to enter
a low-key spring triathlon race which will just get you
used to doing the three disciplines in that order
and getting your mind ready when you're eight weeks out
before your goal race.
(soft music)
- So B races are events that we do want to do quite well
in but don't have that same priority level as our goal race.
So using our goal example as an Ironman distance,
we can add in B races of a lesser distance.
Let's say an Olympic distance or perhaps even a half Ironman
as a lead-in event and in these we can just fine-tune
all our preparations.
- A month or just over ahead of your A race
is a perfect time to fit one of these B races in,
but do be mindful that you might feel
a little bit of fatigue because you're not going
to rest up entirely.
You'll just have a mini taper so don't get too caught up
on the results because obvioulsy when you get to your
main A race, you're going to be fully rested and prepared.
- Now I often find an Olympic distance event
was an ideal fit at this point in time
because if you wish, you can race it
at that absolute intensity of an Olympic distance
or if the training load is still sitting heavily
in your legs then you can move that back
and race it at your Ironman intensity
which gives you an ideal chance to practise pacing.
- And finally, there is one other scenario.
You could end up having two A races in a season.
Say for example, you're trying to qualify
for the World Championships.
Well, you need to peak for that qualifying race
to make sure you get the qualification slot
and then hoping you do, you're going to have to peak again
later in the season at those World Championships
for your second A race.
- Now, depending on how much time there is
between these two races is going to dictate to you
how much recovery time you can have,
the down time you can allow yourself
before then having to build your training back up
for that secondary goal race later in the year.
- Well, if you haven't yet already booked your A race
for this year, you've now got the tools
to go away and do that.
If it's already in the diary, then now is a perfect time
to plan your B and C races around it.
- Now hopefully you've really enjoyed this video
so please give us the thumb up if you do.
Don't forget to subscribe on the channel
to get all of our other videos
and if you want to see a video that we did on how
to choose your first triathlon,
then you can get that here.
- And if you want to see more from our series
of the triathlon training explained,
the list of videos is just here.