Something been curios about
Sometimes work and family commitments become overload and when this happens , personally I think it’s very difficult to diligently complete every single workout on your plan before a race
Is it a big deal if you leave a workout or 2?
I’m not talking about missing the most valuable ones such as a 2 hour bike ride for example or a hard interval session or brick
More of missing short zone 2 workout or a swim
You’ll always want to compete every workout on your plan . But stressing over missing any seems to do more harm than good
You get some athletes that will say they never miss a workout and if you tell them you miss one it’s as if the world has stopped turning
I assume age group level. If so, what is more important is if you miss enough workouts to go from 500 hrs a year down to 400 or 300 or 200. The 500 hrs per year athlete on roughly the same genetics will beat the 200 hrs per year athlete on account of a better overall base. There is no rocket science to most of triathlon racing at the age group level. Get up and execute on your 1-2 workouts today and repeat that for 365 days, take the odd rest day when life gets in the way, rinse and repeat for 5 years and make it lifestule and you’ll inherently do fine at any race even if you miss key workouts.
Thanks
Yes age group , nothing major . A pb would nice
In reference to what you were saying I generally train well as it is a lifestyle
My mistake is comparing to the top athletes who qualify for world championship races or do very well in their age group . And I’m way way far away from That, not even close
Not a big deal. Everyone misses a workout now and then. The flat tire that disrupts your tempo workout. The thunderstorm that cancels your masters’ session. The calf injury that scuttles a run. That’s not even accounting for family issues.
Yeah, you’ve got to get the key sessions in; but skipping a 4mi Z2 run isn’t like missing your 18 miler for a marathon prep.
As long as you have cake from years of baking your base, all the icing of specific workouts is just dressing up the cake. You’re fine if you have the cake already baked. What icing you have is less important. But icing without cake is kind of pointless. People get too worried about the icing. Let’s take a 3 months block (13 weeks) and take one athlete running 30-40 min 6x per week. (let’s call this the 3.5 hrs per week program) and another one who misses entire weeks, throws in a a 2 hrs run every odd week and on those weeks does 5 hrs of running and then has 1 hrs the next week, zero the next back to 6 back to 2.
13x3.5 hrs is around 45 hrs and let’s say the person is running 12kph this person has 540km
The other person let’s say they repeat their sporadic 5 + 1 + 0 + 6 3 times ends up 36 hrs which would be around 430km. After a quarter one guy crammed an extra 100km in which is a pretty solid week of training (like a 8 hrs running week). Do this 4 times and the consistent person is 400km overall mileage ahead on the year and I bet the second person ends up with an entire quarter of almost nothing because that person is used to doing almost nothing “in season” frequently enough, so likely scenario is athlete one ends up being more like 800km of extra running ahead for the year.
I’ve seen this story play out endlessly. The consistent athlete usually ends up with a leg up on the sporadic trainer who does the highs and lows
Is it a big deal if you leave a workout or 2?
I’m not talking about missing the most valuable ones such as a 2 hour bike ride for example or a hard interval session or brick
More of missing short zone 2 workout or a swim
Spoken like a true triathlete
At the end of the day we are doing this for fun, just remember that! People like to act tough and hardcore but who cares, if they finish in 10 hours or 13 hours they still get the same participation medal.
You still aren’t going to be in contention for a place so all you are doing is competing against yourself.
If skipping a session to keep your family, work, life in balance happens then meh, all that matters is you are happy and enjoying what you are doing.
Totally agree. I would think of it more in terms of yearly/lifetime mileage and consistency. 1 or 2 missed workouts in a really good 8-12 week block is fine. & the athlete should be able to tell themselves that/not feel guilty/go into a race feeling ready to rip. If it becomes a weekly thing then, well, the athlete is just going to become a different athlete. Maybe that’s all they can handle & that’s okay but then the training/racing expectations should look difference.
We see the inverse all the time too – mostly inconsistent training during a build & then an athlete hits a handful of monster/predictor type workouts and wonders why the race results don’t align. It has to do with body of work – not any single workout, although some big workouts do move fitness/give an athlete confidence.
Something been curios about
Sometimes work and family commitments become overload and when this happens , personally I think it’s very difficult to diligently complete every single workout on your plan before a race
Is it a big deal if you leave a workout or 2?
I’m not talking about missing the most valuable ones such as a 2 hour bike ride for example or a hard interval session or brick
More of missing short zone 2 workout or a swim
You’ll always want to compete every workout on your plan . But stressing over missing any seems to do more harm than good
You get some athletes that will say they never miss a workout and if you tell them you miss one it’s as if the world has stopped turning
Just simply your plan - Exercise when you want to and have the time to. Priorities in order - Family, Job, Healthy Lifestyle, Exercise, Training…It works well and you can do really well when you race.