Triathlon Peaking – Your “A”
Race! (cont.)
Taper Duration: The exact length of the taper depends
on three elements: how fit you are coming into it, the length
of the race for which you're peaking and the orthopedic
effect of the sport on your body.
An athlete with a great base of fitness, aerobic endurance
and muscular strength, may taper longer than another with
a poor base of fitness. The more unfit you are, the more
necessary it is to continue training and creating higher
levels of fitness until perhaps as few as 10 days before
the big race. Since it takes about 10 days to fully realize
the benefits of a given workout, training “hard”
beyond the tenth day prior to the event is unlikely to produce
significant additional fitness. Deciding how fit you are
is a subjective call. If you err, make it on the side of
allowing too much taper time.
The longer the race is for which you're tapering, the longer
the taper. For example, an Ironman distance triathlon should
have a longer taper than that of an Olympic or sprint-distance
triathlon.
Triathlon racing presents an interesting situation in which
the individual sports may be tapered at different rates.
Since running is more likely to produce orthopedic damage,
it requires a longer taper than does swimming. It will take
longer for your body to recover from a high-workload running
than it will from a lot of swimming; thus running may be
cut back early in the peaking period, and swimming later
on. Cycling falls between these two sports in terms of its
impact on the structure of the body.
Reduce volume: There are only three ingredients
of training you can modify to produce a peak - the frequency
of training, the duration of workouts and the intensity
of the effort within a workout. The combination of frequency
and duration is called "volume." This is how much
distance you put in every week. Of the components of volume,
the one to reduce the most during a peak is individual workout
duration. The workouts should get progressively shorter.
If you're tapering for 20 days, cut the volume back each
four to seven days by about 20 percent of the preceding
period's volume. A two-week taper involves reducing volume
by about 30 percent every four to seven days. For a 10-day
taper, cut volume by 50 percent for the entire period.
Maintain frequency: In reducing volume, you are
better off cutting back on each day's duration rather than
the number of weekly workouts. Significantly reducing how
often you train could be detrimental to performance. For
instance, swimmers call this "losing feel for the water."
You may not feel as smooth and comfortable making the movements
of your sport as you normally do if workout frequency is
greatly reduced. In other words, skill may deteriorate,
as you get sloppy. Cut back on the frequency of training
in each sport by no more than 20 percent. For most athletes
that would probably mean paring only one weekly workout
per sport. Do not eliminate any workouts if you presently
do only two or three workouts in a sport per week.
Maintain intensity: Of the three ingredients of
training, intensity is the most important. Research has
shown that if you cut back on the intensity of training,
fitness erodes faster than if duration and frequency are
reduced. Continue to train at near race effort throughout
the peaking period. This is what I like to refer to as “keeping
the blood warm.”
Every 72 to 96 hours include a workout that rehearses the
goal effort, pace or power of your targeted “A”
priority race, that is shorter than race duration. The idea
is to become very comfortable with the intensity of the
event. Do not attempt workouts that are significantly harder
than your goal intensity. This is unlikely to improve fitness
beyond what training at goal pace would accomplish and may
leave you guessing at the proper pace on race day for certain
types of events.
Several of these race-effort sessions should be combined
workouts, such as swim and bike, run and bike, or bike and
run. Again, this will prepare you for the stresses expected
in the race.
Otherwise, train easily: All workouts, besides those
at race-intensity, should be quite easy to allow for recovery.
Rest is the key to greater fitness at this time both because
it allows the body to absorb the stress you've been placing
on it and because it results in higher quality training
at the right times.
·Limit seasonal peaks: Such a peaking process
should only be done two or three times in a season with
at least six weeks between them. A greater separation is
even better. Each of these peaks could last a couple weeks
with races on back-to-back weekends. More than about two
weeks for a sustained peak is unusual, but is more likely
to happen near the end of the season when fitness is high
than at the start of the season. Eventually, there will
be an erosion of aerobic fitness necessitating a return
to more endurance training. At that point, the build up
to the next peak can begin.
Race Week
A typical race week plan I have used and found successful
in preparing an athlete for an Olympic distance triathlon
is below. For example, six days to go is an easy day as
a race type workout happened one or two days earlier. I
want to make sure the athlete has recovered from that day.
After that is a pattern with five, four and three days to
go, the intervals are 90 seconds each with three-minute
recoveries. Two days before the “A” race, I like
to have the athlete rest. This may be a day off entirely,
or, for those who train at very high volumes and are used
to the stress, a light training day. The day before the
race I will again have them do short intervals.
A typical Race week for a triathlete:
Day 6 - Very easy recovery workout or day off.
Day 5 - Swim, bike and run short including 5 x 90 seconds
at race effort or slightly faster with three-minute recoveries
on the swim and bike. The run is short and very easy.
Day 4 - Short run and bike including 4 x 90 seconds (three-minute
recoveries) at race effort on each.
Day 3 - Short swim and bike including 3 x 90 seconds (three-minute
recoveries) at race effort on each.
Day 2 - Off or a very short and easy swim or bike.
Day 1 – 30 minute bike with 20 to 30second accelerations
at race effort followed by a 15 minute run with 20 to 30
second accelerations to race pace or slightly faster. Check
out the swim venue with a short swim including a couple
of "starting" efforts.
Day 0 – Race, Time to SHINE!
At the start line, my philosophy is simple. I had a set
training and race preparation plan. I tried to follow it.
Even though things came up and I couldn't follow the plan
to a flawlessly, I am here at the start line and I am going
to do the best that I can."
End
Page 1 | 2
