6 Tips to Planning Your Next Race Season

Fall is here and for most people in the northern hemisphere that means triathlon season is over.  Some of you may opt carry that fitness into late season half or full marathon, others have chosen to take some time off from structured training to chill out and enjoy moving for the fun of it.

This is also the time of year that many people start planning their 2020 race season.  Early bird pricing for many races means most people commit to races well in advance without giving too much thought to how to structure their training in terms of building and recovery between races.  This can result in lacklustre performances in key races, which results in an unhappy athlete.  

How do you avoid this?

1.  Race Selection.  When you sit down to plan out your season, pick your goal race.  I have some tips on how to do that here

2.  Where to start?  Figure out where your fitness level is currently at.  Be honest with yourself.  Did you spend the last 3 months after your last goal race sitting on the couch and binge watching Netflix?  Or did you give yourself a bit of recovery time and then resume some easy training?  If you are starting from square one, then you're going to need a longer build than if you kept up some activity post race.

3.  Work Backwards.  Once you've chosen your A race and you've figured out how long you think you'll need to build towards it, work backwards to figure out your start date.

4. Other races. Most of us like to do more than one race per season.  The key here is not to "over race".  You have to allow for sufficient recovery between events.  The shorter the distance, the less recovery necessary.   Here are some examples of recovery times for various distance triathlons:

* Sprint:  1 week

* Olympic:  2 weeks

* 70.3:  up to 5 weeks

* Ironman:  roughly 8 weeks

If you're a runner:

* 5 km:  up to 5 days

* 10 km:  up to 5 days

* Half marathon:  up to a week

* Marathon:  up to three weeks

This can vary depending on age, gender and time in the sport.  Men tend to recover faster than women and the younger you are the faster you recover.   If you are newer in the sport, it will take you longer to recover than someone who has been in the sport for longer.

5.  Test early and test often.  Do some testing to figure out where you are at fitness wise.  If you're a runner, sign up for a 5 km race, plug your race time into an online calculator to figure out your current training paces and go from there.  If you're a triathlete, you'll need to test swimming and cycling as well.  For swimming, you can do a 1000 meter time trial or a CSS test.  On the bike you can do either a ramp test or an FTP test.

6.  Make your plan and stick to it.  If you are an athlete that doesn't need the one on one guidance a coach can provide, there are plenty of great resources for online training programs.  Online training platforms, Training Peaks and Final Surge have stores that you can purchase plans from a variety of coaches.  There are also a ton of fantastic books out there.  The Triathlete's Training Bible by Joel Friel and Matt Fitzgerald's 80/20 Triathlon are a couple that I've read.

You invest a lot of time and money into racing so taking the time to map out your season before it starts will give you the best of chance of success.  If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  If you're not sure where to start or you don't want to think about planning, I will have 3 spots for my one on one coaching opening up November 1st.  If you're interested and want to know more, shoot me an email

Do you plan your race year out in advance or do you wing it?

4 Tips to Picking Your Goal Race

As a coach, this is the time of year I have athletes coming to me to help them plan out their seasons.  Some athletes have already chosen and registered for a goal race.   Others know they want to step up to a longer distance but aren’t sure what would be a suitable first race.   Others are looking to qualify for world championships.   So how do you go about picking races?

Michael Liberzon, a fellow Toronto based triathlon coach, posted a funny flow chart in his blog a few weeks ago that actually inspired this post.  

Many athletes will end up registering for races that their friends or training partners are doing. Especially if these athletes are members of a triathlon club.  I see this all the time with the Toronto Triathlon Club.  I think this is great as it really fosters the feeling of community, as well as providing training and traveling partners.  If you don’t have this sort of network, or choose to do your own thing, here are a few things you should consider when picking your goal race.

Terrain:   If you live the Prairies, then picking a race like Mont Tremblant or Muskoka might not be the best choice if you’re not used to climbing. Yes, it’s possible to train for this sort of terrain inside on a trainer but, I know I would find that to be really boring.  And for me, boring = a loss of motivation to train.  

Ocean, Lake or River: If you’re a confident swimmer, then any body of water will probably be fine.  If you’re less confident then a river swim might be a better option.  My first and second 70.3 swims were in rivers and that really helped alleviate stress about being “far away” from shore in case something happened.  Think about what’s available to you to train in and go from there.

Flying or Driving: How far you’re willing to go to race will either limit your possibilities or make the possibilities endless.   Flying to a race will present a whole different set of variables that you probably won’t have to deal with if you’re driving. Driving to a race allows you to bring extra of pretty much everything whereas with flying, you are a bit more limited in what you can bring with you.  If you are an athlete that likes to control as much as possible heading into a race, then driving may be a better option for you. 

Goals:  If you are looking to snag a qualifying spot for either Kona or the 70.3 World Champs then you’re going to want to be more strategic about picking your goal race.  If Kona is your goal then find a race that plays to your strengths as an athlete and then hope that you’re the fastest in your AG on the day.  70.3 WC spots are a little easier to come by as the destination changes every year.  When the WC came to Tremblant in 2014, I raced Luxembourg 70.3 and they were pretty much giving away spots.  The guys we were sitting with at the awards said that most Europeans won’t travel to do the 70.3 WC, they only really care about Kona.  I know at Lake Placid 70.3 the spot in my AG rolled down to 20^thfor the WC in South Africa.  I think spots to this years WC will be in high demand in North America as well as Europe.  So if that is your goal and you don’t want to travel to the other side of the world to try to get a spot, once again, pick a race that plays to your strengths and crush it.  

What races are you registered for in 2019?