Posted: August 17, 2005

Triathlon 101 with Coach Lance Watson: Single-sport focus

By Lance Watson.

Triathlon is a complicated sport: You have to consider when to work on run speed, or hill climbing and descending skills on the bike, or stroke-rate or technical proficiency in the pool. There are always areas to improve upon, and that’s what makes our sport so challenging and intriguing.

Most people have a tendency to enjoy what they are good at, and therefore they tend to train with a little more intensity or focus in their area of expertise. To ensure well-rounded development, I regularly incorporate single-sport focuses into my athletes’ training.

The focus phase: A natural time for this is in the fall. Take an early-September active rest of 10 days or so and then start laying down some foundation in your focus sport. Keep up the other two sports, but limit them to two to three workouts each per week. Increase the frequency of training sessions in your focus sport, but not dramatically. You don’t necessarily have to do big miles; instead, just make sure you are fresh when you begin these sessions to ensure they are high quality.

In order for the training to have a long-term impact on your skills and ability, the focus phase needs to be 12-16 weeks. Pick a meaningful event with which to end the phase with, such as a cyclocross race, a masters swim meet or a half-marathon. Try and plan a couple more building-block events along the way to work toward the goal event and help keep you motivated. Finally, by participating in individual sport competitions, you are able to learn a few tricks of the trade.

Keys for progressing in your focus sport:
- Pick a meaningful goal event for the end of the focus phase.
- Incorporate 3-4 weeks of base work (i.e. long endurance sessions) in the focus sport. Add one extra base session than you normally would in that sport during regular triathlon training.
- Do the first building-block competition at the end of the three-week phase.
- Move into 4-6 weeks of threshold emphasis (i.e. short-rest intervals). Still do base once a week. Do one more threshold session per week than you would normally do in your triathlon training for that sport.
- Do 1-2 more building-block races in the threshold-emphasis phase.
- Move into 2-3 weeks of speed emphasis (i.e. high-speed, long-rest intervals). Reduce base, maintain 60-75 percent of your threshold work, and do one more speed session per week than you would normally do in regular triathlon training.
- Taper for 7-10 days and your goal competition.

Other thoughts to help you along the way:
- Seek someone with technical expertise in the focus sport during this phase, and put more energy into improving your form and biomechanics
- Build your training plan around your focus sport. Write your workouts down on paper first. This will help you emphasize the focus sport sessions, and turn up rested and prepared for the key practices.
- Pick 1-2 aspects of the focus sport you want to emphasize: i.e. run endurance, cycling hill climbing ability, body alignment in the swim, etc.
- Think like an elite single-sport athlete. “I am a distance runner…”
- Learn everything you can about your focus sport during the phase while you are immersed in it
- Enjoy meeting new people at different sporting events

Finally, when you are in race season, stay true to your planned-out, balanced triathlon training plan, but still stay in tune with how you are doing in all three individual events. With some slight adjustments in training you can freshen up for a couple of key workouts. You can also increase emphasis in one sport for 10-14 days and get a boost in that sport. If you work with your coach to carefully dissect the individual components of your training, come race day you should be ready to put it all together for a great result.

Over the past 17 years LifeSport president Lance Watson has coached a number of Ironman, Olympic and age-group champions. He enjoys coaching athletes of all abilities who are passionate about sport and personal excellence. For more on Watson, or to check out his coaching packages, visit LifeSport.ca.

Posted with permission from WatsonLifeSport.com.

© Copyright 2005 Lance Watson Professional Coaching Inc.