- It's that time of year when last season probably seems
a distant memory, and the thought of summer
and being race fit is pretty unimaginable.
Now, however, is the perfect time to start planning
for next season.
Now, choosing races that complement each other
and will work well for your season is a pretty big task
and it takes some time and thought, so it's a good idea
to put that time aside and then work those dates out
and work your training backwards so you know where you need
to start right now, and it can be pretty daunting,
but don't worry, we're here to guide you.
It is time to get excited for next season.
(upbeat music)
In order to train, you need a goal, so let's start
by finding an event that gets you motivated
and desperate to head out the door and get fit again.
Now, after last season, I hope you took a little bit
of time to reflect and looked at what it was you enjoyed.
Now, maybe you want to up things from there.
You might want to go longer, you want to find a tougher race
or maybe something that's more scenic
or go to a different location which you could combine
with a holiday or maybe flip that around and you've decided
you want to get some speed back into your training
and into your racing and look for a shorter distance.
You could even have your main goal as something outside
of triathlon, whether that's an ultramarathon
or a big swim event.
It really is going to be up to you, but you've got to find
something that gets you excited, and remember to factor
in other life commitments as well.
Say a friend's wedding, you don't want to double book a race
with that, and you probably don't want to have a race
just a week after your family holiday, for example,
and you might have problems that you're struggling
to actually have enough leave time left from work,
but with that in mind, you could even combine your race
with a holiday.
There are so many options that are all going
to be individual for you, but taking the time out
to really plan your season and making sure you don't have
any disappointments and have to cancel anything
is certainly worth the time.
(techno music)
Once you've decided on that key race or couple of races,
the distance that it's going to be,
and when in the year it falls, you could then work
out the rest of your season and any complementary events
that you want to fit around it.
Now here on GTN, we have spoken about season structure
in the past where you choose that big race which we call
the A race, and like I said, it could be two of those,
and then you might have a few B races to help to work
towards and complement it, and then some other smaller races
to fit around it which we call C races.
Now, racing in itself will help you to get fit
'cause naturally you're going to push yourself a bit harder
than you would in training, and that's where the C races
come in really handy because you don't need
to taper for them.
They're just small events.
They can even be individual races, but they'll help you
to really find that top-end fitness,
especially if you've been working really hard
in a long bulk of tough training.
So B races are races that you choose to do
in their own right, but you have to make sure
that they won't detract from the main goal.
So it needs to be something that obviously complements
with that A race.
So let's say you've chosen to do an Ironman,
and you're doing it in the latter phase of the seasons.
So maybe, say, August.
Well, depending on where your base fitness is now,
you'll need a bare minimum of three months of training,
but ideally a little bit more so you can really build
into it, and then to complement that you could do, say,
an Olympics distance race or a half Ironman.
Now, the advantage of a half Ironman,
obviously it's more similar in its training style
because it's a longer distance race, but that means
you'll need longer to recover after it.
If you want to use an Olympic race as your B race,
then think of doing that slightly earlier in the season
so you can really do a good job of it
and then you can start adding more endurance later on
as you build up towards the Ironman, but on the flip side,
there's nothing to stop you bringing a longer distance race
earlier into the season, say, doing a half Ironman
or an Ironman in June, and then planning another race later
on in September, and that could be maybe another Ironman
or it could even be something shorter and faster
'cause you'll have that endurance base,
you can then build the speed on, but it really is key
when you're doing a big race such as an Ironman
that you make sure you have enough recovery.
You might feel fine to come back and desperate to get back
into racing, but if you don't give your body the chance
to really recover from that, you'll find as you get closer
to your second A race that you won't be able to find
that top-end speed, and by then it'll be too late.
So basically, with a few months apart you can target
two key races, or A races, whatever you want to call them,
and whether they're the same distance or maybe something
that's slightly different as we talked about earlier,
and if it helps you to visualize then you could think
of splitting your race season into part A and part B,
but making sure that you've got the recovery
and the plan in place.
That really is important, and then it's back
to that complementary race.
So if you do want to do different distances,
I'd suggest either doing a half Ironman and Ironman,
putting them together, or doing sprints and Olympic distance
together, and then obviously in the middle you could also
do a half Ironman distance teamed
with an Olympic distance race which we've seen quite a few
of the ITU pros doing successfully this year.
(upbeat music)
That's races sorted, so now you need to build your training
blocks around that and put them into place
to complement those goals, and like I said,
hopefully you did take some time out after the race season
and looked at what went well and what didn't,
so both in training and in racing, and it could've been
anything from maybe wanting to work on your swim.
It wasn't quite where you wanted it or the power
on the bike was a little bit lacking.
Maybe you weren't happy with your race weight
or you're struggling with injuries on the run.
Whatever it is, it's going to be very personal
and there might be quite a few of them,
but try to narrow it down to just a maximum of two points,
and then you can really focus in on them
and put them into your goals for this season.
The preseason is a great time to address
and start to work on these goals.
Says it's weight loss, well, you want to start doing
that now, not midway through your race-specific training
when you need the calories to actually be able
to train really hard.
The same for weight training.
It's all going to take quite a while to actually adapt
and for your body to benefit from it,
so the sooner you start that, the better,
and then for swimming, well, having a real breakdown
of your stroke and getting some analysis,
it's best to do it now whilst you've got a little bit
more time, but obviously, you want to carry on working
through that throughout the whole season, but the sooner
you start to make these changes, the more chance you have
of getting them nailed by the time it comes to race day.
As for the type of training that you need to structure in,
we'll start off by looking at that first day race
and then work backwards.
So 12 weeks prior to that, you're going
to need that really race-specific style of training
and try and find a program that you know suits you
and will get your body tuned, ready for race day,
and then take back another 12 weeks ahead of that,
and that's your preseason buildup and when you're going to
be doing that endurance work
and really laying those foundations.
So a lot of longer bits of training and also strength work
as well, but still remember to keep in some faster stuff
as that will keep you mentally stimulated,
but also address all aspects of your fitness,
and anything that you do now will really help later on.
You won't be able to catch up on that valuable time
that you put in.
So strength and conditioning becomes really important,
and then the other aspect you need to consider
is the recovery, both from training and from racing.
So if it's a big training block or you've done a B race,
you'll need some recovery time 'cause that's when your body
actually adapts and gets stronger,
and then if you're looking at actually recovering
from an A race, if it's, say, an Ironman, you'll need
at least two months before you race again,
and if you're planning another Ironman distance race
in the season, then I'd recommend having
at least three months in between.
(upbeat music)
Making a season plan is great for your motivation
for working out your diary with your friends
and your family, and ultimately
for getting that best performance on race day.
All of this said though, do keep an open mind when it comes
to your season and be prepared to adapt as you go
'cause you never know.
You might take longer to recover from a race
or you might have some illness that gets in the way
or maybe you start performing really well on the bike
and decide you need to focus a little bit more on your run,
but once you've got the plan in place, you know it's there,
you can fall back on it, and you can just adapt as you go,
but for me, I must say it's all about that motivation
and talking of which, I think I need to actually go
and start to plan my season and commit a little bit
to paper, but hopefully this has motivated you
and you guys are now out there planning your A, B,
and maybe even C races.
Well, let us know what you've got in the diary
and give us a thumbs up like if you've enjoyed this.
Hit the globe to subscribe, and if you want some tips
for strength and conditioning for triathletes,
it's a great time of year to get into that.
You can find that video just down here,
and if you want to know how to structure a swim workout,
we've got some tips for you just over here.