Multisport: Maintaining Momentum in the 2nd Half of the Season

Written by: Lance Watson, CTS Multisport Head Coach

The triathlon season is already well underway and you probably have a few races under your belt by this point. Normally you would be getting ready to end your season with a bang at a last big event in August or September like Chicago or Boston, but this year the racing season is especially long. With many major events occurring late in the fall, multisporters who usually reserve their fall for some quality rest time have to approach the second half of the season with a different attitude this year.

By the time the fall rolls around your body may want a break and your head may wonder how you are going to make it to October or November in one piece. The key is to maintain and then build your fitness, as well as your motivation, so that you are excited and ready to race again when the late season events finally arrive. There are several ways to go about doing this, all of which require you to start planning now - if you haven’t already.

Preparing for a long racing season begins when you first map out your yearly plan back in the winter/spring. Although, at that time, you may not know what your full race calendar looks like, it should be possible to plan out your key events. With these marked off, you should be able to set out your training periodization so that you peak once in the summer, and then once again in the late fall. However, there is no need to worry if you were not that organized – it is possible to modify your training right now in order to ensure that you maintain your momentum in the second half of the season

Goal setting
A key component of racing well in the second half of the season is staying mentally fresh. One of the best ways to stay focused and motivated is through goal setting. Establishing goals is the first step in mental preparation for achieving race performance. In this instance the goals you set should be in relation to your races in the second half of your season. For example, if the National Triathlon Championships on October 4th is your peak race for the second half of the year, then your goal(s) should relate to it. Your goal may be to win the race outright, to medal in your age-group, to qualify for the Worlds Team, or maybe it is to finish your first Olympic distance event. Whatever it is, keeping this goal in the back of your mind should help inspire you and motivate you to train. Some of my athletes achieve this by putting a sign with the date on the ceiling above the bed, while others customize a message on their screen saver; whatever your method make sure you know what you are training for.

When focusing on a late season race, it is important to place the race as a high priority within your race schedule – i.e. it is important to have a goal for it. If the race is just for fun and you don’t place much importance on it, then the desire to continue training may not be strong enough to get you out the door on those cold mornings in October. Try to imagine going out to the pool morning after morning without having a goal in mind. It becomes difficult after the first couple of weeks have gone by. By having the race as an important part of your season rather than an excuse to take a vacation, your motivation to train will remain high. Going to the pool and doing those long hard sets will have purpose and you will see the benefits starting to show themselves.

However, sometimes just having an end goal is not enough. The next step in mental preparation is to develop a strong strategy as to how you will achieve the goals. This strategy can be broken down into many small goals that provide direction for training activities. I call these action goals, and they help keep you motivated on a daily basis and are useful in determining whether your training is on track on not. Action goals (or micro goals) create focus for each workout or week of training. These micro goals create a common thread that ties together daily workouts and mid-term goals. They provide a daily link to your major race goals, and it is the constant effort of trying to reach these action goals that builds the foundation for achieving your race goals. Your action goals will be the main way for you to stay focused and motivated on training and racing in the second half of the season.

Active Rest
While it is of utmost importance that you remain motivated to train throughout the second half of the season, motivation is of no use if your body will not let you train. Whether through fatigue or injury, your body has a way of letting you know when it has had enough. If you have a major race late in the season it is important to take a small break during the course of the summer. This time will allow your body to recuperate from any aches and pains that you have acquired throughout the season, as well as giving your muscles time to recover and adapt.

Taking a week of active recovery eight weeks out from the major late season competition, or right after your peak race in the first half of the season will help you to train stronger leading into the late season race. During this week you should continue being active, but cut back your training volume and intensity by at least 50%.

Your reduced training schedule also means that you will have some time on your hands. A good way to use this time and ensure you maintain your momentum in the second half of your season is by doing an honest evaluation of your training and racing to that point.

Figure out what your strengths and weaknesses have been and devise a plan to improve those weaker areas.

Single Sport Focus
Once you have identified areas of improvement, you may decide that you need to do a single sport training focus. A single sport focus is great way to stay mentally fresh and to work on a weakness in one specific sport that you have identified. A 2-3 week block of training dedicated to that weak sport can be planned for right after your peak race in the first half of the season. For example, if swimming is your weakness, then add two or three extra swims per week and drop the number of bikes and runs you do for the 2-3 week single sport training focus. The extra workouts should be used to work on stroke technique, endurance, and any race specific skills that need to be practiced (i.e. open water starts, sighting, turns). Not only will these new workouts make training a little more interesting, you should also find that you will be excited to return to training for the other two disciplines.

Periodization
A long race season that ends in the late fall is hard on your body. Long periods of speed work coupled with the stress of racing (plus traveling to and from events) without proper recovery will eventually weaken your body to the point of physical and/or mental burnout. To help avoid this, as mentioned earlier, you should take a week of active rest after your first major peak of the season.

After you have completed your week of active rest, and completed your single sport focus, it is time to begin anew by entering into a mini-base phase of training. Just like late winter and early spring, you will build up your endurance again through longer, aerobic activities. The active rest break followed by these long aerobic workouts will give your body time to recuperate from the first half of the season, and prepare itself for what has yet to come.

Follow the base work with a preparatory phase of training, consisting of more threshold training with shorter rest – fartlek and tempo workouts are good examples of styles of workouts that you can do. After the preparatory phase you should move more into speed work – above anaerobic threshold with lots of rest – to regain the high end fitness needed to compete at the level you are about to enter into. Your body will be ready for this and you will feel energized that you are posting faster times than you did earlier in the summer.

You should do a mini peak for that tune up race in August/September and then do a full taper for your main event (National Champs, ITU World Champs, Ironman Hawaii). The taper into the big event should begin about 10-14 days before, depending on how much work you have done and what works best for you. A taper is where you begin to heavily back off on your training volume, while keeping your intensity quite high. This allows the body to be stimulated, but it also allows for lots of recovery leading into your major race of the season. Each taper is individual, so follow what has worked for you in the past and have a great race!

Continually racing between May and November is hard on both the mind and the body. However, we have seen that there are ways to ensure that you maintain momentum during the second half of a long season. The keys, not surprisingly, are staying both mentally and physically sharp. This means that you need to be actively involved in your race season, looking at it with an objective viewpoint, and understanding that sometimes the best way to get fast is to rest. Be smart, be engaged, and have fun!

CTS Multisport Head Coach Lance Watson is the personal coach of triathlon stars Simon Whitfield, Lisa Bentley, Greg Bennett, and Laura Reback, to name a few. He can be reached at lwatson@trainright.com; or www.trainright.com.