pre-race: do you taper in all disciplines? in just one? or do you train through?
**race intensity: **do you go flat-out? or do you hold back a little, in order to speed recovery and not lose an extra day or two of training?
If its part of your training plan, and in an appropriate spot relative to your A race, you should be going all out…If it were a regular training day, would you not push it?
You didnt provide too many details, and there are exceptions, but why would you go to a B-race and dog it…might as well just “train”
Probably dont need to taper as you arent looking to set a PR. Im assumign this B race is shorter than your target race
The answers to your questions are going to depend on a lot of things, but I think most importantly:
- What distances you’re talking about.
- When your “A” race(s) occur in relation to these other races.
Personally, I never hold back in any race regardless of it’s A/B/C classification. I’m there to race.
I think a B-race is structured into training but not something that you taper for. The idea during the race would be to work on your weaknesses, and maybe hold back a little in your best discipline. Save your best performances for the races that count. But please don’t sand-bag anything.
The answers to your questions are going to depend on a lot of things, but I think most importantly:
- What distances you’re talking about.
- When your “A” race(s) occur in relation to these other races.
Personally, I never hold back in any race regardless of it’s A/B/C classification. I’m there to race.
RIght, I got it; I left the questions intentionally open-ended so I could read what others do for their seasons/distances.
FWIW, I put forth an all-out effort and had a good showing at an OLY B-race this wkd, 7 weeks out from IM; I trained through without an extra day off or taper, but needed a day of recovery on Monday, which is usually scheduled for a long run.
Her’s my definitions:
“A” Race - you whole training plan for 12-16 weeks out revolves around this race. You can do 2 of these in a full season. Taper is 4 weeks long including the recovery week recovery from you last build. I’ll give up a LOT of fitness to get well rested for this effort. But that OK because I’m on the edge of burn-out and overreaching by the time I get to the taper. I’ll drive my TSB up to +30-40 (including swimming)
“B” - Completed during a build or end of the base period for a “A” race. I back off the whole week prior. So similar to the last week of an A-Race but I don’t change my training the 3 weeks before that. I’ll get my TSB up to around 0 so I don;t risk injury and can have a good race, have fun, and not get injured despite giving it 100%. A “B” sprint distance race also fits in nicely with the taper for an “A” race. For example, I’m doing a 70.3 4 weeks out from my IM, just before my taper starts, then a Olympic the weekend before.
“C”- I’ll back off 2 days prior and just make it a solid workout day and to avoid injury. Honestly, a 70.3 will never be a “C”. In my opinion, this is only for sprint races. I’ll often run a little extra after the race. I will race hard, but I expect my legs to be pretty flat. The run probably won’t feel very good at all.
I think the week before races is a good time to rest a little and take a break no matter if it’s a A-B-C race.
pre-race: do you taper in all disciplines? in just one? or do you train through?
**race intensity: **do you go flat-out? or do you hold back a little, in order to speed recovery and not lose an extra day or two of training?
I do a mini taper starting the week of the race; you know get the workouts in but maybe not do any extensive threshold work leading up to the race (race week).
My race intensity is I go all out for the given distance. I’m racing and I’m in it to win it!
I’ll let you know after this weekend! Got a half-ironman in the middle of a build period, so no taper, I am considering just taking easier days friday and saturday (maybe one of them off depending how I feel). Race wise I’ve give it all I have, but I suspect I’ll be a little bit off of what I could do tapered and fresh. I don’t think I’ll do much intensity for my runs this week, and I’ll cut down the duration of my bike intervals knowing that the race will be a solid workout in all three disciplines. I never really taper my swimming even for an A race as my hard swims are on thursday mornings and two days is more than enough time to recover for racing.
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How much I taper depends on where the B race falls in relation to my A race and the training plan. If the B race falls near a recovery area, then so be it. I try to schedule B races that way, but it doesn’t always work out.
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I always race flat out. You get more information that way as you remove less variables to judge your current fitness. If I wanted to hold back, I don’t see the need to pay for a race. I would just train.
Her’s my definitions:
“A” Race - you whole training plan for 12-16 weeks out revolves around this race. You can do 2 of these in a full season. Taper is 4 weeks long including the recovery week recovery from you last build. I’ll give up a LOT of fitness to get well rested for this effort. But that OK because I’m on the edge of burn-out and overreaching by the time I get to the taper. I’ll drive my TSB up to +30-40 (including swimming)
“B” - Completed during a build or end of the base period for a “A” race. I back off the whole week prior. So similar to the last week of an A-Race but I don’t change my training the 3 weeks before that. I’ll get my TSB up to around 0 so I don;t risk injury and can have a good race, have fun, and not get injured despite giving it 100%. A “B” sprint distance race also fits in nicely with the taper for an “A” race. For example, I’m doing a 70.3 4 weeks out from my IM, just before my taper starts, then a Olympic the weekend before.
“C”- I’ll back off 2 days prior and just make it a solid workout day and to avoid injury. Honestly, a 70.3 will never be a “C”. In my opinion, this is only for sprint races. I’ll often run a little extra after the race. I will race hard, but I expect my legs to be pretty flat. The run probably won’t feel very good at all.
I think the week before races is a good time to rest a little and take a break no matter if it’s a A-B-C race.
I do the same thing, especially for the B. To go a bit further, for B races my GOAL is to swim as hard as I normally would, bike pretty close to as hard as normal, and go a bit easier on the run. That being said, as soon as the gun fires, that shit all goes out the window and I just go all out.
A) It depends
B) Always full race effort, it is afterall a race. If I just wanted to swim, bike, run I’d save the $$$ and plan a nice training day. I remember my coach telling me the following when I was going to run a half marathon “for fun”. If you want to run 13.1 miles for fun strap on a fuel belt and walk out your front door but if you paid to race you should be racing 
I ended up setting a PR that day!
“C”- I’ll back off 2 days prior and just make it a solid workout day and to avoid injury. Honestly, a 70.3 will never be a “C”. In my opinion, this is only for sprint races. I’ll often run a little extra after the race. I will race hard, but I expect my legs to be pretty flat. The run probably won’t feel very good at all.
IMO- There’s no C in triathlon.
“C”- I’ll back off 2 days prior and just make it a solid workout day and to avoid injury. Honestly, a 70.3 will never be a “C”. In my opinion, this is only for sprint races. I’ll often run a little extra after the race. I will race hard, but I expect my legs to be pretty flat. The run probably won’t feel very good at all.
IMO- There’s no C in triathlon.
There no “B” either.
Funny though, the one race I listed as a “C”… is creeping into “B” territory because I can’t stand showing up for a race and not being able to give a good performance. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to train more, but only so many races.
It depends on the race distance. I would say all my races are B races with one or two A races. I generally race sprint and olympic distance. I do not taper for sprint distance, with the exception of a not so hard workout the day before the race. I also hardly ever traper for an Olympic distance race, unless it’s an “A” race. If it’s an “A” race, I will do about a 5 day taper with reduced volume and a lot of race pace intensity. I always go all out in my races, I think it’s bad mentally if you teach yourself to hold back in any race, unless your injured.
A race…10 day Taper, I don’t train enough to do any more tapering.
B race…easy for the 2 days before
Ride at 95% of A race goal pace on the bike and run as fast as I can.
Light training the day after, back to normal 2 days later.
C race…Where you don’t taper at all I think is a waste of training time and money
does being average require a strategy?
Pre-race: Taper = whatever disruption travel makes to usual training. Will probably schedule same distance as I’d normally go the day before, but cut back intensity. Kind of haphazard.
Intensity: Go like hell with whatever I’ve got. This is likely going to be my best workout for a couple of weeks (specificity, specificity, specificity!), so why waste the opportunity? Plus, I paid my money, I’m going to do whatever I can to be as high up that result sheet as possible. Logistics of catch-up on life post race (if any travel, or having lost half of a Saturday/Sunday) will usually mean that I need to cut back on training to take care of other things anyhow. I don’t worry, nor have my training plan that tightly regulated.
The answers to your questions are going to depend on a lot of things, but I think most importantly:
- What distances you’re talking about.
- When your “A” race(s) occur in relation to these other races.
Personally, I never hold back in any race regardless of it’s A/B/C classification. I’m there to race.
RIght, I got it; I left the questions intentionally open-ended so I could read what others do for their seasons/distances.
FWIW, I put forth an all-out effort and had a good showing at an OLY B-race this wkd, 7 weeks out from IM; I trained through without an extra day off or taper, but needed a day of recovery on Monday, which is usually scheduled for a long run.
If your training had been consistent and on-point up until the Oly, I would most likely take a day easy before the race and then probably skip the long run or just move things around in your schedule so that you can get in all of the “important” stuff. Again, there’s a lot of variability with how to schedule around the B race, taking into consideration your prior training leading into the race, your life schedule, how well you recover from an Oly, etc. etc.
I’ll toss in some recent personal experience: I have raced each of the past four weekends with an “A” race coming this weekend at Boulder 70.3. The day before and the day after each race (sprint, 10K, sprint, Oly in that order), I took pretty light and was able to get the meat of my training done mid-week and still feel pretty comfortable about the work I’ve put in with Boulder right around the corner.