Penticton Gears Up for World Championships 2017 World Multisport Festival Triathlon 2.0: Data-driven Performance Training
The 2016 Challenge Penticton event served, in many ways, as a tune-up race for the onslaught that Penticton is in for in 2017. “2016 is a beast,” race director Michael Brown says, referring to the five national championship races the city will host over five days. “2017 is a monster.”
That monster includes five world championships over a 10-day period. The inaugural 2017 World Multisport Festival will see athletes from around the world vie for world titles in duathlon, aquathlon, cross, aquabike and long-distance. The long-distance worlds will include a 3 km swim, 120 km bike and 30 km run rather than the full-distance race that Penticton has hosted for so many years. The 2016 race was also run over the ITU distance as preparation for the 2017 event.
Penticton, which hosted Ironman Canada for over 30 years and Challenge Penticton for the last four years, is no stranger to major events, just one of the many draws the ITU saw in granting the city the inaugural Multisport Festival.
Brown, who also puts on the Great White North Triathlon, a half-distance race in Stony Plain, Alta., originally saw
SATURDAY, AUG. 19
Duathlon World Championship – Sprint
SUNDAY, AUG. 20
Duathlon World Championship – Standard
TUESDAY, AUG. 22
Cross Triathlon World Championship
THURSDAY, AUG. 24
Aquathlon World Championship
SUNDAY, AUG. 27
Long-distance World Championship the bid request for the world multisport festival in February, 2015 and, in two months, put together the winning bid package.
“Penticton is perfect for this world championship. There’s not many cities the size of Penticton with anywhere near the history this area has in triathlon,” Brown says. “The community is really involved, the scenery is second to none and the region can support the thousands of athletes and spectators who are going to come for the event.”
National federations seem to be looking forward to the event, too. The U.S. is looking to bring a contingent of 1,300 to the race, while Canada’s team is expected to number at least 800.
“Penticton is already sold out for 2017,” Brown says. “The response from national federations has been amazing.”– Jim Vance Human Kinetics
Data junkies seem to thrive in our sport. Thanks to swim monitors, power meters and GPS watches, we can analyze every aspect of our training from stroke count to pacing and running efficiency to power output. But despite all that available information, most triathletes aren’t able to make the best use of all the information available to them, often arriving at races either overor under-trained.
“The idea of this book is not to be a numbers drone, training without creativity,” says author Jim Vance. “It’s the exact opposite. This book is about identifying what metrics are most important to you, as an individual athlete, based on your strengths and weaknesses, and then following those metrics to see how you are responding to the training plan you create.”
The book outlines exactly what kind of information you can get from, say, a power meter, and shows you how to use all the data you’re collecting to get the most out of your training.
Chapters deal with each aspect of your training and racing: the available technology for swimming, biking and running, along with detailed chapters on evaluating your fitness and planning your training year. There’s a great section on the always tricky concept of tapering and peaking, along with chapters on how to analyze your race performance and even how to evaluate your entire season.
For those who love their training “toys” and want to make sure they are getting the most out of them, Triathlon 2.0 is a mustread.–