I dont know if I heard it somewhere, or read it somewhere, but the mantra I keep repeating to myself on the day was “Fatigue will always catch up to you. Why make it a race to meet it earlier”.
This helped me remain patient and think the long game. I ended up catching an athlete in the last 3km of the run. He came off the bike about 9mins ahead.
I started that last 5km lap about 4mins down on him. I thought about a surge to catch and pass when i saw him, but at what cost to me. I was naturally reeling him in without having to change a thing.
Thanks Dillion. I wanted to share a story, successful or not, on my learnings through the whole thing. I had a lot of questions about following a plan with no special modifications, just an average joe, a new Dad and a 9-5 worker going it alone following a program and learning along the way.
Without the base to build on (the previous years – note in last podcast @Chad talked about how the muscles retain the knowledge and return to form must faster than muscles without previous ‘knowledge’) you may want to look at the low volume plans instead of the medium that the OP used. Otherwise, there is no reason to think you would NOT get similar results.
i have chosen low-volume, just did the sprint tri plan (well almost done with it) and starting the olympic tri plan so it should be interesting to see how it goes
Hahaha yep, i know what a bad day feels like when you come off the bike shattered, and thinking how the hell am I going to run 21km. A bad day is walking, yelling at yourself for walking, and pleading to some form of devine intervention
Im sure this plan has set up heaps of people for their best day out there. Its up to you to control your race day. If you have a power meter, understand the numbers, but also have a feeling of what ‘too hard’ feels like (which for me was tested in training) I knew what I needed to do to have a succesful day
Thanks for sharing and congratulations! This is also my first year at following the plan to the letter doing multiple bases and then Half IM base, build and specialty. My race is Quassy in June and this will be my 10th Quassy so really putting TR to the test. And have an established set of results for comparison
Thanks again for sharing
Sounds like a good plan to me. Power Meters dont lie, unitl they do. My wahoo is about 50 watts lower then my Powertap G3, but what is important that I know this, so its easy to slide and adjust when i am outdoors.
Family are doing well. Thanks for taking the time to read through it all. Hopefully you get something out of it.
Nah, we are about to go into the colder months down here in the Southern Hemisphere. I have slighlty altered my original plan of going back into the 3 phases again.
I began the high volume olympic base, but I kept missing sessions due to work, life, family and thought there wasnt much point if Im vearing off the track so early on. I know by the time the build part comes, id be completely screwed, and i wasnt really getting the best out of the plan. I have switched to a mid plan which allows a little more time for family, and recovery. The high volume plan was almost 2 a day training. That would have been fine pre baby. Not anymore hahaha
Thanks for sharing your experience. Just completed a 70.3 triathlon here in France and followed the low volume plan. JSU had PRs on both the bike and the run. It works period. Cheers, Sydney
respect!