TRAINING PLAN

With the Christmas eating season ticked-off, now’s the time to knuckle-down and add some multisport brick sessions to your training mix. Here’s Dermott Hayes with his January plan…

Schedules get toughter, with Brick sessions for short-coursers and climbs for long-distance training

You’ve possibly spent the last few weeks chinning port, gobbling pâté for breakfast and rarely thinking about a certain thing called triathlon. Now, then, is the time to peel yourself off the sofa and refocus on your multisport goals for 2017.

After completing a time-trial last month and now being able to cover sprint distance in training, short-course athletes should continue to build on those distances during January. For longer runs and rides, ensure that you’re ticking off some hill work; it can either be a route that includes various climbs or it can be repeated climbs of a particular hill. Make hills your friend as they’re a great way of improving overall power for plenty of race courses.

The other major introduction in this phase is the Brick. It’s time to start getting multisport-specific and that means bringing in the idea of running straight after cycling. This month we start with an indoor-based session that allows for multiple transitions between bike and run.

For the session, try to get into your running stride within 2mins and then maintain pace. Expect it to feel awkward initially and don’t be surprised if you’re running faster than predicted. Aim to be disciplined and maintain good form for each rep. Continue to focus on post-exercise stretching to prevent injuries and muscle soreness, and also try to include some strength sessions.

ALL ABOUT BUILDING

For long-course athletes, it’s all about ‘building’. Every week and month must develop on the previous month and specifically the objectives are to build distance and build strength.

The most important area to work on for the next two months is climbing on the bike and run; this’ll be in both the longer sessions but also the interval sessions where you’re able to control the finer details. Monitor time, distance, incline, power and heart rate when working through them. Make a note, so you can repeat the sessions and aim to match the rate of Perceived Exertion (see below) with pace, power or heart rate.

Long-course training involves a degree of repetition. Don’t be put off by this, many athletes will have ‘go to’ sessions that are important to include at least once per fortnight. These allow you to create a picture of progress.

Where possible at this phase, include hill work and trails in your longer runs as this can be a great way to improve your road speed. For the swim, include some technical drills into your swim sessions. Coping with the increase in overall volume of training is key so ensure you eat and sleep well to recover.