We are one month into the New Year. How are you doing with your health, fitness and sport resolutions or goals? Some of you maybe preparing to complete your first 5k while others are anticipating their first Iron Distance Triathlon. Many of you are feeling empowered to make this your best year yet of training and competition.
Here are five steps you can take to create personal success for yourself in triathlons this year – steps to help you become strong, fit and fast while you embark on a lifetime of triathlon to enhance your wellness.
1. Identify your reasons for racing triathlons.
Why are you
doing this? Ask yourself the following questions:
- What do I most enjoy about
triathlon training and racing?
- What are the best feelings I get
to experience in my triathlon training and racing?
- When I first “fell in love” with
triathlon, what was it that felt so great?
Your answers
to these questions will help you get closer to your core personal reasons for
participating in triathlons. This
process can help you discover or remind yourself why you like triathlons and
why you are looking to have a great year.
2. Create or assess your triathlon goals.
Based on your
personal reasons for participating in triathlon, you need to create your goals
for the season. A simple summary of good
goal setting advice would be to set specific, positive, challenging (but
realistic), and personally meaningful goals.
A good coach can help you to clarify your goals or restructure them in
ways that make them more appropriate and helpful; but the core of your goals must
come from inside of you. I encourage you
to create your goals based on the reasons you have identified as why YOU like
to participate in triathlon. Assess your goals to make sure they are in line
with your personal reasons for training and racing. Doing so will help to
ensure a year you can look back on with a sense of joy and satisfaction.
3. Train with direction.
From your
well-established goals, you need to train in a purposeful manner to help you to
reach your them. Simply “putting in the
miles” or mindlessly following the workouts of your friends or local training
groups may bring improvement in the short-term, but will lead to a plateau in
your abilities rather quickly. Instead,
carefully assess your current abilities and what stands between them and the
abilities you need to have to reach your goals.
From there, create a plan of action that will help you to develop as you
need to. If you need help with this,
consider reading some of the great books available on triathlon and endurance
sports training, or consider working with a triathlon coach who can help to
provide this direction for you.
4. Create health-enhancing lifestyle habits.
Health and
performance are two qualities that go hand-in-hand. The healthier you are, the better you
perform. Two major areas that impact your health are your sleep and your
nutrition habits.
While
improving your nutrition habits, assign yourself a weekly nutrition plan just
as you’d plan your training. Your role each week is to execute this task just
as you execute your training. This
allows you to gradually create better eating habits.
With regards
to sleep, many ambitious triathletes sacrifice sleep to train more, either
early in the morning or late in the evening.
Obviously, you need to train to improve, but when the amount of training
you are doing is limiting your ability to get enough sleep each night, you are
fighting a losing battle.
5. Rest as eagerly as you train.
If you train without
resting adequately, you won’t make any progress. Most triathletes are aware of
this, but many ignore it. If you really want to improve this year, I offer the
following suggestions for better resting:
- Every 3-6 weeks, take a Recovery
Week where you train at 50% or less of your training load in your other
weeks.
- Every week, take at least one
Rest Day where you perform no training.
- When possible take a Total Rest
Day where you perform no training, no work, and no chores. This is often
most possible on a weekend day during a Recovery Week.
- If you are racing quite a bit,
consider a mid-season break somewhere in the summer after a heavy period
of racing. Take a week or two away from structured training and triathlon
in general. If possible, you can take this break at the same time you take
a family vacation. This can recharge your batteries and allow you to
continue racing strong in the later summer and fall.
I hope you
follow your purposeful progressive training plan based on your experience and
goals and continue enjoying the sport for years to come. If you have questions please contact wendy@t2coaching.com
"Luck in what happens with preparation meets opportunity"
