TRAINING

One Month to Your First Tri

Week Nine OPEN WATER SWIMMING

As early as you can manage, practise swimming in open water. Although your swim fitness is gained in the pool, swimming in a wetsuit is very different and can often pose challenges to new triathletes, for good reason. Wearing a wetsuit changes the body position in the water because of its buoyancy, but also because it can feel restrictive. Sighting to stay on course isn’t something that’s required in the pool either, but becomes very important in the lake, and often changes your stroke rate and breathing pattern. Dealing with waves, currents, sun in your eyes, other swimmers, darker water with plants and other unknowns is new and can be distressing if your first open water swim is on race day. Panic attacks are common, and the best way to prevent one is to practise swimming in open water.

Some swimmers find that their breathing pattern in open water changes from bilateral (every three strokes) to breathing on one side every other stroke. This can calm your breathing, and is a good technique to practise in the event that your swim happens to have some waves that you have to breathe away from in the race – just make sure that you learn to breathe comfortably on either side, since the waves could be coming from either direction.

Wetsuits can be rented so you can experiment with finding the right fit before making a purchase. Be sure to have someone teach you how to put it on properly. Practise this a few times so you know how it should feel, figure out how to zip it up (you may need help from someone, depending on the style) and how to get it off in a hurry.

Find a training group – they tend to gather at the safer swim sites to avoid swimming alone, and can often provide some coaching support. Ask other swimmers about where the safe areas are, distance between buoys, direction you should swim and guidance on good sighting points. They can also warn you of hazards or currents to be aware of.

If nothing else, get into the pool and do a workout (or part of a workout) in a wetsuit to understand how it changes your swimming style; just be aware that you will heat up quickly and need to rinse the chlorine off thoroughly so it doesn’t damage the neoprene. You can also practise sighting in the pool to get a sense for the rhythm and how it affects your stroke and breathing by closing your eyes under water and opening them only when sighting. (Do this only when it is safe for you and the other swimmers!)

Week Ten RACE PACE

This week’s focus will be on discovering and practising your race pace. Your fitness will be peaking, which means your body is as well trained as you can expect for the amount of time and effort you have put in. Each workout this week gives you the opportunity to push yourself for a short length of time to gauge just what your effort should be. You may be looking at heart rate, watts, time to cover a distance or how you feel. Regardless of how you measure it, these metrics can give you an indication of what you are capable of, however, your race pace does not equal your hardest effort. Discovering your race pace means determining what you can sustain for the time and distance of the race, and knowing that if you need to put out a kick toward the end, you have it in you.

Trying to push harder, faster, or longer than you have trained for now, or on race day, is asking for your body to give too much. Your best result and best race-day experience will happen if you respect the training you have done and have confidence that it will all come together. Some fitness gains can still be accomplished in the next week or two, but a lot can also be lost if you push so hard you become injured.

Tip: if you haven’t learned how to change a bike tire, this is a good time to learn it. Dealing with a flat on race morning, or during your race, doesn’t have to mean disaster if you know how to handle it. Get your hands dirty and do it.

Week Eleven MANAGING EFFORTS

This week gives you the opportunity to practise holding that race pace effort for a length of time to build your tolerance and mental toughness. Your body may be physically ready, but we also have to train our minds to accept the discomfort or “pain” of the effort without allowing ourselves to back down. A sprint triathlon is an endurance sport, no matter how you look at it, and a lot of thoughts can go through your mind during the course of the race that can either push or pull you through it, or unwind your confidence.

Try adopting a mantra that you can focus on and repeat that inspires you to keep pushing – it will likely come in handy on race day. Remember that listening to music or wearing earbuds during a triathlon gets you disqualified, so try some of these workouts without the support of your music tracks. Instead, listen to how your body feels and practise repeating that mantra or counting instead.

Remember to treat the easy efforts in these workouts as easy efforts. This isn’t the time to burn yourself out by trying to achieve new personal bests – it’s a time to lock in your effort and head space so you are confident and ready to race your best race (this time).

Week Twelve PRACTISING TRANSITIONS

This is not the week to try anything new – or try to make up for lost workouts by doing more than what is in the program. It’s also not the time to use the extra time you’ve gained by having a lighter training week to do something else instead. This week involves some rest to allow your body to recover just enough and some workouts that are intended to sharpen your skills and keep your muscles working. It’s also a great week to pay attention to eating and hydrating well to give you every chance at success.

The focus of this week is on transitions, so toward the end of each swim or bike workout, think about what you would need to do next and visualize the transition. Take the time early in the week to set up a practise transition session and go through the motions without doing the workouts. (Tip: get in the shower and get that wetsuit wet to find out just how it will feel getting out of it, then putting on your bike gear while still wet.) This is how you find out what works, and what doesn’t – and helps you get organized for packing your gear for race morning.

If you are the type of person who might feel a bit of race nerves, it is especially important to have a careful diet (less fibre, less fat and hard-to-digest foods, nothing experimental) and get to bed early two days before the race. Many athletes find they get the worst sleep the night before race day, and lay awake worrying about the inevitable early wake-up call and other pre-race jitters.

This week is all about sharpening and keeping your body moving easily, with a few race effort bursts to remind you that you’ll have it when you need it. It’s also a good week to get yourself organized in advance of race day so you don’t forget a critical piece of gear or feel the stress of running late on race morning. Decide on your kit, pack your transition bag, prepare your race day nutrition and back time your departure time to get to the race site, get set up and relax.

Race Day ATTITUDE

When you have done all you can do to prepare and are facing race day with a combination of excitement, nerves and fear…the only thing left is to bring along a strong mental attitude. Focus on what you can control, and try not to worry about the things you can’t. Instead of worrying about the things that could go wrong, try visualizing how you will handle the challenges that could come your way. Then remember why you chose this goal, reflect on the journey you took to get to this moment, be grateful for what you are capable of, and feel proud that you are one of the few people who are crossing that finish line instead of cheering from the sidelines.

Sharpener Tips FOR EXPERIENCED TRIATHLETES

The first race of the season means different things to every athlete. It can serve as a gauge of fitness, provide an opportunity to try out new gear, or test how well an injury has recovered. For other athletes, it marks the start of their race season and establishes a benchmark to measure the rest of the season against.

No matter what your objective, you want to be prepared for your first sprint race by sharpening your training for the effort of racing – especially if you are training for a long-distance event later in the season. Jumping straight into the intensity of a sprint race without some specific intensity work can mean a strain or injury that can derail your longer-term goals.

Your training program should take into account any races (and the goals of the those races) that you include towards your longer term goal and allow for sharpening, a short taper before the race and a few days of recovery. If you aren’t sure what that means for you (you are self-coached), try to incorporate some of the workouts in the last few weeks of this program into your training schedule to ensure you include some intensity and race pace efforts.

Dr. Cindy Lewis-Caballero is the founder of CL Performance Training. She is an endurance coach, chiropractor, personal trainer, former professional triathlete and mom. She works with athletes of all abilities and ages to help them stay motivated and able to go after their personal goals.