The two greatest performance enhancers available to you are sleep and water. When you are tired or dehydrated your session quality will suffer and your recovery will be slowed. It takes preparation and discipline to ensure that you are well-rested and well-hydrated throughout the week. If you are sleep restricted then you should reduce non-core activities (TV/Internet/other) and sleep more. It will make a big difference for you.

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Bike Tips

Reminders for you:

1 -- Athletes that are in their race season should remember to continue to use their small chain rings. I still use my small ring frequently on my long rides. Indeed, for my Zn 2 endurance rides I probably spend more than 50% of my time in my small ring. Leg quickness and the ability to spin are useful year-round skills. Cycling efficiency is an on-going goal of mine, not just a focus in Dec-Feb.

2 -- Related to #1, watch your cadence. With all the hills, HUGE and TT work that we are doing, many of us will be logging quite a bit of time at lower cadences. You will want to balance this lower cadence work with some higher cadence work. The recovery and "easy to steady" rides are excellent for adding balance to your cycling profile.

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BT Workouts

NEVER train through severe muscular or connective tissue pain. During BT workouts you may experience "fatigue pain" or "lactate pain" -- while the experienced athlete can train through these sensations, you need to be well-tuned to other kinds of pain. Pain is quite often a warning sign, and as you move towards the end of the Build Period, your body will be on edge. It's far better to trim a session down then to incur an injury. Those of you who have lost extended time to injury in the last twelve months should be VERY aware of this point.

The fitness cost of missing a session is TINY compared to what you lose when you have to take several days or weeks to recover.

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Extra Volume

Some folks have a tendency to slip in extra volume. Your workout structure is, in my view, generally on the maximum volume that is appropriate for each athlete. Indeed, learning when to adjust the plan downwards is probably the single most important skill for you to learn. If you have extra time or energy, then I recommend that you discuss with your coach before going way long or inserting a bonus tempo run.

With extra volume, you will likely have the urge to do more volume and more intensity in the area of your greatest strength. I recommend workouts that address your greatest limiter. Finally, until you are able to complete the entire plan (swims, weights, bikes and runs), adding more volume or intensity probably doesn't make sense.

For those of you heading towards your A race -- remember that IM success is related to the quality of your BT sessions. Overall volume is not important. In fact, I have found that volume can actually be counterproductive in the Build Period (it tends to delay recovery in highly motivated athletes). Trust the program, train the BTs as instructed and focus on rapid recovery.