Training for a triathlon requires dedication and consistency, but there is a point when the typical athlete doesn’t have any more hours in the week to train. Between work, family, and personal commitments, not to mention trying to not overtrain, most aspiring or active triathletes have a lid on their possible training time. How can you get faster or build endurance without adding more training time? One way is to add more intensity to your training time, and the other is to add more precision. I am going to provide a few ideas on how you can make your training more precise and take it to the next level.

Here are three ways to make your training more precise, and maximize your workout time.

Measure Your Power.
Understanding your power output while training is a surefire way to be more intentional about each and every workout. We have all had runs or bike rides when we go out and seem to just get in a rut. We go through the motions, but really have no idea if it was a quality workout or not.

One way to change that is by measuring power. On a bike, the most common ways to measure power output are by using a power meter, or if cycling indoors, by measuring wattage on a smart trainer or wired bike. Using either device allows you to keep yourself honest on your rides, making sure you are pushing it hard enough on the days when you want to train above your functional power threshold, but also helping you to not push too hard on the days that are meant to be more base-building and recovery-minded.

A power meter is a component that goes on your bike, and can measure your overall wattage output during a ride. There are several ways to install a power meter, but our favorites tend to be the ones that come in the form of a crank arm, a pedal, or a wheel hub. We did an entire piece on power meters here, where we go into depth on the pros and cons of various meters. Note, they are not inexpensive devices —they often cost $500 and up.

A smart trainer is like a traditional indoor bike trainer, but with more advanced technology to measure your power, speed equivalent, and simulate riding conditions like hills. For those who mainly want to measure power while riding indoors, a smart trainer can be a great way to accomplish this without modifying your bike. You usually use a smart trainer with an app like Zwift or Sufferfest. The difference between a smart trainer and the popular Peloton service that you see advertised is that you use your own bike on a smart trainer, and connect to whichever app you like best. It is a topic that can be pretty involved, so we profiled power meters and apps in depth for you, here.

You can also measure estimated power on runs, with more advanced running and multisport watches. We expect that technology to evolve rapidly in coming years.

Customize a Training Plan. 
It might seem obvious, but having a plan to follow helps your training be much more intentional and precise. We still see lots of triathletes who are “winging it” when it comes to their training plan. They know which race they want to do, and give themselves a few months to train, but beyond that they just meander their way through training.

While you can pull any number of training plans off the web, we like the ones that have some level of customization for three things: Your base level of fitness, your goals, and your available time. One person may be doing their first-ever triathlon, hoping to finish, and trying to train with 4 hours per week. Another may be a seasoned athlete, looking for a podium finish, and able to devote 10–12 hours a week to training. Those two triathletes would be silly to use the same training plan.

If you have the budget for it, consulting with a local coach can be a great way to customize a training plan. The plans we like best tend to be the ones with a weekly prescribed tempo, rather than a rigid daily plan. Life happens, and you might have a kids’ activity on the day that calls for your intense brick workout, or it might be raining on the day that calls for a 2-hour bike ride. A week-by-week plan will give you the flexibility you need.

Keep a Log. 
The workout log is one of the most underrated, least expensive, and simplest tools available to your training. Logging your workout, distance, speed, effort or output, and how you felt can be very powerful. It can also be a useful tool to correlate certain workouts with injuries or soreness, allowing you to adjust in the future.

You can use an online app or site to log your workouts, but you can be just as effective by simply keeping a notebook log. I use a small notebook, and on the left I have a day-by-day summary of the workout I did (and just as importantly, a big dash when I did not workout), and on the right I make notes about how I felt. Was I fast? Was my hamstring tight? Was my knee sore? Was I nursing a cold? I also note my weight about once every 2–3 weeks, so I can monitor a longer-term trend.

This type of log will not only help you spot injury trends and keep yourself honest in your training plan, but it can be very useful if you decide to consult a coach to amp up your training to the next level.

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Thank you to Paul from completetri.com for helping out as a guest writer for this blog post. Complete Tri has a wealth of resources including gear reviews, tips, and advice for triathletes of all abilities. All of their information is free, and a portion of their revenues goes back to community triathlon clubs like ours.

So you say you never want to ride in the rain. What happens if it rains on race day? What do you do if you’re out on a long ride and the weather forecast was all wrong and you get a surprise rain shower? Truth is you at some point in time, you will probably end up riding in the rain. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to know how your bike handles in the rain and to have confidence in it and your abilities. Here are a few tips for when you find yourself riding in the rain.
 
1.  Back off
If you are riding with other people, often their back tire will spray water and dirt behind them making making the situation even worse the people behind them. Give the people around you some room.  Now is not the time to be drafting.
 
2.  Give yourself plenty of stopping distance
When they are wet, brakes don’t work as well. This is especially true of the normal rubber padded rim brakes most road bikes have. Through in a little oil from the road and I’ve had to actually look and see if my brakes where still there at all. So much like when you’re driving on the snow, apply brakes early to judge their stopping power and give yourself plenty of room to stop. Bikes with rotor brakes, like many mountain bikes and some of the newer road bikes, will be effected less by this and will be able to stop quicker, so even more reasons for the #1 tip.
 
3.  Watch for slippery surfaces
Be vigilant for upcoming surfaces that may alter your traction. Water on the road that has a rainbow look probably has oil in it.  Lines painted on the road will become much more slippery. Metal surfaces like manhole covers and grates can be slick as ice so treat them as such.
 
4.  Tires
Many people will lower their tire pressure (5 to 10psi) to give them a bit more traction. Doing though will increase the chance of a pinch flat, so be a bit more careful when going over surfaces that have an edge like train tracks and bridge abutments. Speaking of flats, rain tends to wash things to the side of the road, where we often ride, and wet tires tend to pick up more junk. Be sure you have good tires and have a flat kit of course. Some tires may also be better at handling the rain than others so something to consider when shopping for that next set.
 
5. What to wear
A waterproof outer shell is good, but I always tend to end rainy rides soaked no matter what I wear. So I tend to try and make sure I stay warm and safe. To make sure I stay warm, I usually dress as if it was a bit colder than it is to offset the cooling effect of the rain. Being able to see where you’re going is essential and I were clear eyewear treated with Rain-X to shield my eyes. You also want to be seen so wear bright colors.
 
6. Be visible
Rain and fog lowers visibility for other riders and for the cars we often share the road with. Even during the day, it’s important to wear colors that stand out. And I can’t stress enough the importance of having working, charged, and water resistant lights both front (white) and back (red).  Just as in a car, when it’s raining, you should have your lights on.
 
7.  After the ride
Give your bike some love after the ride.  Wipe off the dirt and water and oil the chain and cables to keep rust away.

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About the Author - Larry is a long-time triathlete who has completed every distance of triathlon, including three Iron-distance triathlons. Larry recently qualified for the 2018 USAT Olympic-Distance Age Group National Championships in Ohio. Larry is currently serving as Austin Tri Club's Director of Training and Group Workouts. To read more about Larry and the rest of the Austin Tri Club board, check out our Club Leadership page.

Triathlon training

Training for 3 sports at once requires a bit of a different mindset, but follows some of the same methodologies used in other training regimes.   Most people utilize training plans, which layout out daily workouts over the course of the several weeks leading up to a race.  They will normally will range from 12 to 16 weeks, and often require you to do two workouts a day at some point.  This will not only work your body, but your mental toughness as well which, I believe, is an often-overlooked aspect of training.

If you’ve trained for races like marathons, you are probably familiar with periodization training.  Not to be confused with training periodically mind you.  This is the methodology of breaking down a training plan weekly into 4 distinct periods or phases which are Base, Build, Peak, and Taper.  Each has a different goal and approach with the overall goal of getting you to the peak of fitness just in time for your goal race.  Note that some plans have more distinct phases and that’s fine, there is a lot of variability in training and this is meant as a general overview to get started.
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When training for triathlons, a common type of training you’ll probably see is referred to as the “Brick”.  This is often where you’ll have a bike ride followed immediately by a short run.  From what I’ve been told, these are called “Bricks” as your feet will often feel like bricks when you start to run.  This kind of training I feel is important as it gets you used to moving from one sport to another.    Training moving from swimming to biking would also be good, but you’ll see less of it as it is much harder to coordinate.

And while we are on the subject, transition training is a good thing to work in at some point before the race.  Often referred to as the 4th discipline, time spent in transition is time you aren’t biking or running.  The transition between swim and bike is often referred to at T1 and the transition between bike and run is referred to at T2.  For example, improving your T1 + T2 time by 45 seconds each is like running your 5k on a sprint triathlon about 30 seconds per mile faster.  And you’d be surprised how long you can take in transition if not prepared.  Not all transitions are done the same way, so research how your goal race does them and have a plan and practice the plan before the race.

Phases of Training

Base

The goal of this is to have fun, build your aerobic endurance, improve technique, and build strength.  As the name suggests, this lays the foundation for training.  Think of it as the baseline of where you want to start from when you start building towards your peak.  Like climbing steps so that when you jump, you reach higher.  In general, I regard any time between specific race training, to be “base” training.  This includes the “off season” as I believe consistency in training leads to an ever improving fitness and faster racing.

Generally this has a lower volume of workouts, but is the best time to hit the gym, to work on that swim stroke, and enjoy a bit of cross training like yoga, that will help reduce the chance of injury when you start increasing the intensity during the next phases.

Build

Training during this phase/period should grow in volume, intensity, and become more specific.  The workouts should also be increasingly more like the your goal race. Often, you’ll have a few build weeks followed by a “Easy” week where volume and intensity go down.
You’ll be pushing your mind and body harder and harder during these weeks, so you should pay extra attention to take good care of your body.  Nutrition is very important to help your body recover from the hard workouts.  This is a great time to schedule massages and to foam roll. 

Peak

Volume and intensity of training grows once again.  Emphasis on aerobic endurance and a decrease on drills.  Training here should be very close to the distances and intensity you’ll see and do on race day and, depending on the goals and race type, may exceed it. 

Mental and physical demands will be at their highest at this point and so should be your attention to recovery and nutrition.
 
Taper/Race

You’ve done your longest and hardest swims, runs, and bikes, but it’s still one to two weeks away from your race?  This period is called the Taper and, for some, it’s one of the hardest parts of training.
This doesn’t mean you stop training and start eating badly.  Maintaining your diet and continue to train with the goal of maintaining the fitness you’ve built, along with recovering psychologically.
Volume and intensity is usually dialed back so your body and mind will be fully repaired and ready for race day.  Usually training will switch to short intense workouts that don’t exhaust you, but still keep your body sharp and ready for race day.
 
Other considerations:

Coaches

Static plans, like the above sample plans, can be found online and in several books.  Joe Friel and Matt Fitzgerald are great sources.  But those plans and books don’t know you, they don’t know your strengths and weaknesses.  The static plans can’t see you run nor see you swim.  How do you adjust the plan if something goes wrong, like a sickness, that throws a wrench into the plan?  This is where coaches come in.
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Having a coach helps not only be able to adjust your plan and make it more dynamic, but they can help with your form and give you advice that comes from years of training, racing, and experience.   For years, I did my own training plans and they worked out well, but I decided to employ a coach when I wanted to take it to the next step.
 
Recovery and Rest
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Rest Days and Sleep are just as important as Long Runs in building fitness and endurance.  The importance of this increases with age.  Training puts stress on your body, but it doesn’t make you stronger or faster.  Your body rebuilding itself makes you stronger and faster, but it only does this during rest periods.  So it’s a good idea to have in your plan the ability to get a good night's sleep and has at least one rest day.

Also important is recovery after your race.  Depending on the demands of the race, having a plan to take some time off and/or slowly start back into light training, building back towards your base training is a good idea.  Be sure to plan for this however and stick to it as 1 or 2 weeks off can easily turn into 6 months as I can personally attest to.

Injuries

Nothing will impact your racing more than injuries.  I used to race a friend who was much younger than me, but I would routinely beat him in races.  He was much fitter and faster than me though so it frustrated him greatly.  One day, I let him in on a little secret, I was wiser than him.  You see, the reason I beat him was because he was always injured on race day.  He would push so hard in training, that he’d hurt himself.   I was older and listened to my body while training as to avoid injury as much as possible, so I was able to race at my fullest on race day.  Needless to say, he listened to my advice and started training smarter and I never came close to beating him again. 

Moral of the story is to learn to listen to your body.  This is a big part of where the mental part of triathlon comes into play.  Another friend of mine was told he needed to learn to run uncomfortably, which is true.  Your body will hurt when training and training, but it is up to you to learn if it’s a discomfort that can be ignored, or a pain you need to take notice of.   Pay attention and listen to your body.  Everyone has limits and pushing to them and not beyond them is the goal.
 
Sample Sprint Plans
http://www.triradar.com/training-advice/sprint-triathlon-training-plans/
http://www.triathlete.com/2017/09/training/12-week-super-simple-sprint-triathlon-training-plan_306300
https://www.active.com/triathlon/articles/a-12-week-triathlon-training-plan-for-beginners?clckmp=activecom_global_mostpopulararticles_pos1&page=2
http://www.lifetimetri.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Sprint-LT-Tri-Training-Plan.pdf
http://ironman.timex.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/12-week-beginner-sprint-triathlon-Timex-BD.pdf?cid=TPN
 
Other References:
http://triathlon.mit.edu/documents/recovery_importance.pdf
http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2017/12/sleep-part-1.html
https://www.active.com/triathlon/articles/when-to-push-past-the-pain-in-triathlon-training?page=1

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About the Author - Larry is a long-time triathlete who has completed every distance of triathlon, including three Iron-distance triathlons. Larry recently qualified for the 2018 USAT Olympic-Distance Age Group National Championships in Ohio. Larry is currently serving as Austin Tri Club's Director of Training and Group Workouts. To read more about Larry and the rest of the Austin Tri Club board, check out our Club Leadership page.