For many of us, the gap between where we are and the elite in the sport feels like an enormous chasm. When racing they go past us like we’re standing still. Sometimes we see them crossing the finish line while we’re coming into transition. How can we get closer to that level of performance?
To help you navigate this, I have created a four stage system. The idea is that you can identify where you are now currently, and identify what it is that is holding you back. Along with each stage of a triathlete’s development, I look at the attributes associated with performance at that level.
This is an incredibly generic, high level view of things, and does not take into account your own strengths or weaknesses. This focuses more on the mindset and approach an athlete takes, than the technical aspects of performance.
Rookie triathlete
I consider a rookie triathlete to be someone just starting out in the sport. They may have completed a race, they may not have, but they’re still trying to understand wrap their head around triathlon, and how to get faster. These are the attributes I recognise in many rookie triathletes, as well as myself when I started out.
They get their training advice from social media
Social media provides us all with a wall of noise and advice. There is some good stuff out there, but there is also an awful lot of nonsense. It’s difficult for most newcomers to discern between what’s good advice and what’s rubbish. If someone looks the part and confidently states something, then thousands of people will take them at their word.
Even if someone’s BS detector is finely tuned, there is so much information out there, it’s difficult to know how to fit it all into a training week. There will be hundreds of people telling you to include their session in your weekly training, how do you know what to prioritise? Throw in periodisation of training throughout the year, and their training becomes a confused mess.
Train according to mood and feeling
A rookie triathlete may wake up, look out the window and think that today is a good day for a bike ride. Or that they’re in the mood for a swim. Shifting established workouts around within a week is one thing, but prioritising sessions based simply on how you feel, or what you’re in the mood for won’t set you up for success.
The result of this is that you tend to prioritise the same sessions over and over, the ones you enjoy the most. While this approach can get you round your first sprint, random training is going to give you random results at best.
Sees the swim as a way to get to the bike
Most rookie triathletes struggle in the water. They spend more time in open water trying to battle panic attacks than focused on swimming fast. They’re used to getting passed by hundreds of athletes in the swim, and feel their race only begins once they get to the bike.
They see themselves as cyclists or runners, and see the swim as an inconvenience more than an opportunity to make up places. This mindset holds them back, and stops them getting the most out of the sport.
Focused on Strava kudos and overtaking people during training
I have nothing against Strava, but if you are primarily motivated by PBs and kudos, this is going to hold you back. Additionally, as nice as it is to overtake people when you’re out training, if you increase your effort to avoid getting passed, or speed up to pass randomers, you will be throwing performance away.
As a society we have become hooked on instant gratification and microbursts of serotonin, and for many this extends into their training. You need to learn to just suck it up, and not get caught up in how other people see you.
Competitive Triathlete
The following attributes are those I associate with a competitive triathlete, who is moving past simply completing races, and now wants to get faster. While there is nothing inherently wrong with staying as a rookie, if you want to get faster, you need to embody more of these traits.
Focuses on their weaker disciplines
Instead of seeing themselves as a runner who swims and cycles, or a cyclist who fights the water before they can start the “real” race, they see themselves as a triathlete. This is a massive lightbulb moment for many, when they start to focus on their overall time and performance rather than how many people they can overtake on the bike, or how fast they can run 5K at the end of an event.
Yes, this means neglecting their stronger disciplines slightly. But a competitive triathlete is more concerned with the big picture than stroking their ego in a single discipline.
They include strength training
I know several perfectly fast athletes who don’t include strength training. Until they get injured. Then they go to the gym for a few months, until the injury has passed. They then go back to neglecting it, until they get injured again.
This is quite simply giving away performance hand over fist. If an athlete is in a near constant state of injury, they will never reach their potential.
Injury aside, strength training also reduces the loss of muscle mass as we age, improves power on the bike, and helps us run faster. If you are neglecting strength work, you’re leaving performance on the table, and will struggle to compete with your peers.
Follow a structured plan
Instead of training randomly or to feel, a competitive triathlete will have some kind of plan they are following. It could be one they have purchased, one a coach has written for them, or even one they have written themselves, but they are training with direction and purpose. Not based on the weather or how they feel when they wake up.
Moving workouts around in a week based on availability and time is fine, but we want to move away from random training if we want to achieve our goals.
A top 50% finish in their age group
If you focus on your weaker disciplines, include strength training and follow some form of structured plan, I see no reason why you can’t finish in the top 50% of your age group at an event.
This isn’t to say it will be easy, it may be that it takes a year or two to get there, but if you keep showing up and training consistently, chances are you can finish in the top 50% of your age group.
Advanced triathlete
Once we have broken through into the top 50% of the field, how do we get towards the front of the pack? It can feel like you’re already doing everything right, but this is what sets advanced triathletes out.
A thorough understanding of their bike
Your bike should not be something you fear, it should be something you have a very good understanding of. An advanced triathlete will be able to tell you the name of all the parts of their bike and what they do. They will know the widest tyres they can run on their frame, change their gear ratios for specific races, optimise their tyre pressure and be able to fix most basic mechanicals.
This can feel intimidating and overwhelming, but if you want to catch up with those at the front of the field, you cannot simply throw your leg over a bike, pedal hard and hope for the best.
They optimise sleep, nutrition and recovery
This isn’t to say they live like a hermit, weigh everything they eat or are in bed by 9PM every night, but they appreciate that performance goes beyond pushing really hard in every session and simply fitting in as much training as they can.
They aim for eight hours of sleep wherever possible and make nutrition choices through the lens of what will help fuel their next workout, or aid recovery from their last session.
This is a very wide ranging subject, but advanced triathletes shift their lens towards supporting performance in all areas of life, rather than simply focusing on the time they spent training.
Consume literature on the human body and training
Asking athletes to do their own research could encourage them just to head to YouTube to find videos that support their biases. I want athletes to seek out books, journals and other forms of information which come from experts in the field, rather than influencers on social media.
Even as a coach I encourage my athletes to expand their horizon with some individual reading. I can’t read every book ever written about triathlon, and if they have ideas on how we can improve performance, I’m all ears.
They have finished in the top 20% of their age group at an event
If you are focusing on your weaker disciplines, including strength training, following a structured plan, have a thorough understanding of your bike, prioritise nutrition and recovery while also doing your own reading on training, I see no reason you cannot finish in the top 20% of your age group if you also put in the hard training required to reach that level.
Elite Triathlete
If you want to race at the forefront of the field and regularly achieve podiums within your age group, you need to take your training to another level altogether. These attributes will help you reach the pinnacle of triathlon.
A focus on efficiency over brute force
Many triathletes focus on power targets, their thresholds, and PBs over different distances. An elite triathlete takes a big step back and works out how to actually race faster.
This means focusing on aerodynamics, reducing their effort in certain points of the race, clever pacing, learning to better manage their output, and choosing the right equipment for different situations.
This also extends to their training and tactics. It’s all about focusing on what is going to help the athlete cross the line as fast as possible.
Where a less experienced athlete may look for ways to improve their power output by 20W at their next IRONMAN, an elite triathlete will look for ways to reduce their power output by 20W and still hit the same bike split, setting them up for a faster marathon.
Trusts their perception of effort and fatigue over data
Data is great, very few triathletes will train without it. However, an elite level triathlete will trust their body over data.
For new triathletes this is a terrible idea. Their perception of effort and fatigue is very skewed. They just don’t know their body well enough. Once someone has been training for 10+ years though, this is a very different matter.
Elite triathletes don’t rely simply on software to tell them when to rest and when to train, they don’t blindly follow the numbers. Instead, they are constantly referencing their perception of effort and fatigue with what they see on the screen. Even if their watch or software is screaming at them to back off, they may continue to push on, knowing their body well enough that they can take those numbers with a pinch of salt. Equally, they may back off if they know how they feel isn’t sustainable.
Elite athletes are guided by data, but not held to ransom by it. It will take you several years of training and racing to truly find yourself in sync with your body.
They see triathlon as a long term project and trust the process
As I’ve already touched on, many of us are incredibly impatient these days. We want results, and we want them now. Elite triathletes acknowledge that triathlon performance is a multi year project, and have the patience to trust the process, even when they’re not setting PBs every weekend.
Long steady workouts, years of incremental progress, setbacks along the way. Elite triathletes take this all in their stride and stick with their training through it all. They acknowledge that this is a life’s work, rather than a two year project they can throw money at to solve all their problems.
Qualify and race well at world championship events
This really is the gold standard of triathlon performance. While it can be easier for certain people to qualify for world championship events than others, being able to turn up to a world championship and finish towards the front is the dream of most triathletes.
Getting a slot on the roll down, or sneaking onto the start list with three months to go is one thing, but building a season around performing to your very best on the world stage is something else entirely. Until you are regularly qualifying for these events and racing well at them, you still have work to do. And that’s what makes this sport so appealing.
Conclusion
This is a very high level look at development in the sport. It may be that your race nutrition, swim technique, mobility or dodgy hip is what you need to focus on in the short term, but by adopting these attributes, you will see your performance improve.
My free online triathlon club is designed to help athletes like you reach the next level in performance. We will be launching properly in January, until then you can register your interest and be the first to hear about the launch here. Alternatively, if you’d like to get started now, check out my bespoke coaching options here.
