Who you gonna call? Mythbusters!! There is so much information out there about the sport of triathlon. Most of it is good stuff, but like anything, some of it is just not true. On today’s episode, coaches John Mayfield and Elizabeth James will focus on 15 myths about triathlon and highlight the “the truth about tri.” Don't miss the insights about preseason preparations, required training hours, swim improvement, strength training, rest days, and more! Huge thanks to deltaG for partnering with us on this episode. To learn more about the performance boosting benefits of deltaG Ketones head to deltaGketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your order. On their site you can: 1. Learn more about fueling with deltaG ketone products. 2. Make a standalone purchase, or subscribe for ongoing deltaG ketone deliveries. 3. Book a FREE 15 minute video consultation with Brian, an expert on exogenous ketones, and deltaG in particular, to discuss your individual goals and best choice of deltaG drink to exceed those goals. The Preseason Project® is a triathlon research initiative that helps us quantify and enhance the performance gains that TriDot’s Optimized Training™ delivers over training alternatives. Qualified participants receive 2 free months of triathlon training. Learn more and apply at: https://psp.tridot.com/psp23pod/
TriDot Podcast .176
Busted! 15 Triathlon Myths Examined
Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.
Andrew Harley: Welcome to the show! It is Triathlon Mythbusters Day, where we will present several multisport principles that are commonly believed to be true, but – plot twist! – they are not as true as they seem to be. I am pumped to get into this. Our first myth-busting coach with us today is professional triathlete and TriDot coach Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is a USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach, who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot, from a beginner, to top age‑grouper, to a professional triathlete. She is a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014. Elizabeth, are you ready to break some hearts and bust some myths?
Elizabeth James: I am especially excited for this episode, so yep, let’s do it!
Andrew: Also joining us today is Coach John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level 2 and IRONMAN U certified coach, who leads TriDot’s Athlete Services and Ambassador and Coaching Programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes, from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. John, how are we feeling about the topic today?
John Mayfield: It’s going to be a good one. They say there’s a little truth to every lie, and I think along with these myths, there’s certainly some truth mixed in, but at some point they went from truth to myth. I look forward to separating the two.
Andrew: I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we’ll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with Vanessa on the cooldown.
As this episode is first being posted, I know many triathletes are starting to think about the next race season, and I wanted to officially invite you to join the TriDot party that will take place at 2023 CLASH Miami. Our team has had a blast racing the CLASH Endurance events, and dozens of TriDotters wrapped up 2022 at CLASH Daytona. We already have a good group of athletes signed up for CLASH Miami, including many from the TriDot staff. We’ll have a block of hotel rooms in the host hotel, and plenty of get‑togethers for the TriDot folks heading to south Florida. So head to clashendurance.com and use the code TRIDOTMIAMI for a discount on your race registration. From there, be sure to join the TriDot at CLASH Miami Facebook group to stay up to date with all the TriDot fun planned for that weekend.
Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Andrew: Triathlon is a wonderful sport filled with wonderful people. It’s easy to get hooked on that multisport life. But as much as we love our sport and its community, nothing is ever perfect, now is it? Going a little deeper, a little existential so to speak, with our warmup question today: John, Elizabeth, if you could change one thing about triathlon – the scope is wide here, I’m being vague, whatever your heart desires – if you could change one thing about the sport, what would it be, and why? Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: All right, well, knowing this warmup question ahead of time, I actually gave this quite a bit of thought. I had my initial answer, but I really feared that it wouldn’t come across well, but I think I’m still going to go with it and just really try to articulate it well enough that it doesn’t come across as super selfish and really greedy. I say that because it has to do with pro triathletes, and their ability to make a living in the sport. My disclaimer here is that this was my thought many years before I even considered going for my pro card, so hopefully y’all are going to believe me on that and don’t hold this against me as just being super selfish. But circling back to that point, it’s very hard for most professional triathletes to make enough money in the sport to pay their bills. There are so many pros that are just going into a large amount of debt in order to continue racing, and there are so many great athletes in the sport that, because of that, only spend a couple years really going after it, and then they get nervous and say, “Ah, I probably need to go and get a ‘real job’ now.” I just think it’s so unfortunate that some of the best athletes in the world are paid pennies compared to what other professional athletes are paid. It’ll be interesting to see what the PTO continues to do and what happens over the next few years, but that’s one thing that’s always irritated and fascinated me is just the discrepancy in what the pro triathletes are paid when compared to other professional sports.
Andrew: Yeah, and how interesting could the professional ranks of our sport be, how diverse could that field be, if it was a more attainable career path for more people. The PTO, like you said, is trying to change that. We had a fascinating podcast episode with Cody Beals in 2022 where Cody broke down what the financial life is like for a pro triathlete, what it takes to make it financially on the circuit. To your point, not everybody can do it, and it would be great if that was a little bit different. It would be great to see more people be able to take a full-time crack at being a pro in the sport. John Mayfield, what is your answer to this?
John: I am unashamedly going to be quite selfish, this IS self-promoting. And it’s possible, but it’s not. I think for me it’s the time. I wish it weren’t so time-consuming. It’s a catch-22 even in that. A lot of time we spend doing what we love, and a lot of time is great, it’s what we enjoy, it’s time with friends. But it’s also time away from other things. I used to be an avid golfer, but I haven’t hit a golf ball in years because all of my free time is now wrapped up in triathlon. There’s a lot of time away from family, especially on weekends doing those long rides, and traveling to races and that sort of thing. A lot of times it’s missing out on other things, simply because it is a time-consuming activity. So if I could change one thing, which would be really hard to do – maybe it’s one of those things where I wish there were more hours in the day, hours in the week, so we could fit it all in.
Andrew: You could probably spend less time on the sport, you would just be much less competitive, and probably have to curb back the distances at which you race.
John: Yeah, and that’s kind of what I was getting at. I don’t necessarily want to spend less time doing triathlon, I just want more time for other stuff.
Andrew: Okay, okay, I get you. I’m tracking with you now.
John: Maybe it’s like that 25‑hour work week or something like that. Work and other stuff just gets in the way.
Andrew: I get you. This answer for me is I wish that cycling outdoors was safer for more people. I wish there were better options for that to be a safe activity. We’re all aware, every time you go out and hop on two wheels and hop on a road with vehicle traffic, you’re at the mercy of what those cars around you are doing, and how attentive those drivers are being. I don’t know what the fix is here, I don’t know if it’s better cycling infrastructure in more places and more towns. I would love if there were cycling facilities where there was just acres of property or state parks that had more trails and more five-mile loops and circles that were closed to vehicles where you could safely ride your bike. We all know Zwift is great, Rouvy is great, training indoors is very productive, but there is no joy like getting on two wheels outside, in the sunshine, getting that fresh air going into your lungs and enjoying a ride, whether it’s by yourself or with friends. I just wish that it was safer for more people to do that. That’d be what I would change.
We’re really interested to hear what our audience has to say here. I know there are some things I considered saying here that are different, and I’m sure our audience will have some opinions. When you look at the sport of triathlon, what is one thing that you would change? We’re going to throw this question out to you on the I AM TriDot Facebook group to see what you have to say. So find the post asking this question to you, I can’t wait to see what you think!
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
Andrew: deltaG ketone drinks are revolutionizing the way many of us at TriDot fuel our triathlon training and racing. The more we’ve used deltaG drinks, the more we’ve been struck by the noticeable impact deltaG Performance and Tactical have on our recovery. As athletes who train almost every day of the week for three different sports, deltaG’s boost to recovery is a total game-changer for triathletes. Try adding just a small serving of ketone ester mixed into your post-workout drink, and experience the recovery boost for yourself. As you recover while you’re asleep, try just a small drink just before bed. The team at deltaG even offers free 15‑minute one-on-one consultations, where you can learn more about jump-starting your post-workout recovery with deltaG ketones. So head to the website to learn more about fueling, and book your free 15‑minute consultation. When you place your order, use code TRIDOT20 to get 20% off your super-fuel ketone drinks.
What if I told you that not everything you’ve heard about triathlon is true? The fact is, you probably wouldn’t be all that surprised. There is a ton of info out there on how to train, and how to be a good little triathlete. A lot of it is good info, some of it started off right but is now outdated, and some of it is just plain wrong. That’s why Coach John and Coach Elizabeth are here to help debunk 15 triathlon training myths. Let’s get into it! Myth #1 is that large training volumes will yield the best results, and long-course preparation must be started in the preseason to build a base. Why is this a myth? Debunk this for us.
Elizabeth: All right, I’m going to jump in here on this one. I think the first thing to say is just that more isn’t always better. We’ve talked about that on the podcast before, and we’re going to say it again here today. Athletes are often lamenting over the numerous training hours that they’re logging while preparing for a triathlon, specifically those half-IRONMAN or full IRONMAN-distance events. Goodness, that was even part of John’s warmup question, it takes a lot of time. So they’re claiming that in order to really be successful at these longer-course events, they have to start logging these long hours months and months ahead of time. Sometimes they even start a year ahead of time. But then they talk about how those hours are making them really fatigued, causing them to miss out on all of those family events, it’s compromising their pace, they just feel like they’re going slow all the time, getting a whole bunch of niggles and little injuries. They just think it’s part of the process, this is just what you have to do in order to be successful. It doesn’t have to be that way. That large-volume training is often based in fear, and just ensuring that athletes put enough distance or time to successfully get to the finish line – not to get to the finish line in their best possible outcome, but just even being able to make it. But while logging these endless hours can produce enough endurance to adequately cross the finish line, athletes are missing out on their best performance because of that. That’s one of the things that we’ve come back to in some of these TriDot principles of “fast before far, strong before long,” where TriDot is prescribing training for each athlete that produces the best possible race result. When athletes are working at the volume and intensity that’s appropriate for them, not only is their peak performance attainable, but they have time to spend on life’s other priorities. In January or February they’re not necessarily going out for six- to eight-hour bike rides on the weekend when their IRONMAN is in October. It’s really not about how much training you do, or how much you’re doing in comparison to others, or what others say you need to be doing. It’s about doing the right amount of training for you. We’ve said that before, we’ll say it again: it’s about doing the right training right, and more is not the answer to necessarily producing your best results.
Andrew: Yeah, and we certainly see on the I AM TriDot Facebook group when experience triathletes join the group, or even when some newer triathletes join the group. Like you said, they might look at the other triathlete in the neighborhood, or they might look at another triathlete that’s signed up for the same IRONMAN as them, and they might see, “Oh, so‑and-so is already doing 80‑mile bike rides four months out from this IRONMAN, but TriDot has me biking two hours max. Man, am I not training enough?” And it’s like, “No, you’re fine, what they’re doing is an outdated myth to train the way they’re training.”
Okay, moving on to Myth #2. Thank you, Elizabeth, for debunking the myth that training for long base miles is required a long way out from race day. Myth #2 is this: to be a successful triathlete you need to be training the swim, bike, and run all of the time. You need to get as much of all three sports into your training week as you can to be successful in this sport. John, talk to us about this myth.
John: This is really debunked by prudent training. When you are taking a high-level approach to your training and really getting specific in how we are structuring the training – what is being prescribed, what is the intent and purpose of every session – as Elizabeth mentioned, “doing the right training right” to produce your best overall result. It’s about having the proper amount of each, and being able to determine how we allocate resources between the swim, bike, and run, how much volume in a given week do we allocate to each of the disciplines, how much intensity, and at what levels of intensity are going to be prescribed within those sessions. There’s a whole lot to it, and fortunately that’s the part of the magic of TriDot, is that it is able to prescribe all that specifically for each individual, so they’ll know exactly what volume, what intensity, what amount of intensity, level of intensity, all those kinds of things, partnered with adequate recovery. It's not necessarily about getting in as many sessions as you can, it’s getting in quality sessions and getting in the right amount of sessions. As Elizabeth mentioned, it’s not about getting in as much as you can. There’s that common thought if something’s good, more is better, I think that’s definitely applied regularly in triathlon. But as she debunked earlier, it’s not always about doing more, it’s about doing what’s right.
Andrew: This is the myth I fell into early on as a triathlete. When I started doing the sport – I was racing local sprints and Olympics and did a 70.3 or two before I was a TriDot athlete – I was going down the pool and swimming four or five times a week, every single session at about 40 minutes a pop on my lunch breaks from work. I was trying to run in the evenings as often as I could, and I was trying to get on my bike outside for 10- or 20‑mile rides here and there as often as I could. When I joined TriDot, I at first was like, “Man, am I not training enough?” Because it took me down to two swims per week, and they really spaced out which days I was biking hard and which days I was running hard. But I very quickly saw the gains that, “Oh man, this is better than what I was doing.” It’s dispelling that myth of “Oh man, I really feel like I need to be in the pool as often as possible and out on the road as often as possible.” TriDot founder Jeff Booher, I’ve heard him say it this way, “You have three levers you have to pull. You have the swim lever, the bike lever, and the run lever, and you can only pull on each lever so much.” So we have to balance how much we’re pulling each lever, and that’s dispelling that myth here. If you pull on those levers in the right way, you can pull on the swim a little less and pull on the bike a little more, and TriDot optimizes all of that to where you’re improving at a better rate than just trying to pull all three levers as much as possible in your training week.
Good job on that one John. Myth #3 we’re going to throw over to Elizabeth. Myth #3 is you should spend most of your training time on your weakest discipline. A lot of people think, “Aw man, this is the thing that I’m weak at, so if I get better at this, I’m going to be a stronger all‑around triathlete.” Elizabeth, why is this a myth?
Elizabeth: As you started to talk about, it almost seems like common sense at first. If there’s something that you need to improve on, you are going to spend the time working on it. If you’re looking to improve your swim, people think, “I’m going to log countless hours in the pool until we see some improvement.” I’ve fallen into that trap, and I can tell you from personal experience from working as a coach, from talking with other athletes, 10,000 hours of doing something wrong just makes you really, really good at doing that thing wrong. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to produce improvement. A change needs to be made. This is actually something that Jeff Booher and I even discussed in one of our first podcasts, which was on how to remove the eight barriers to swim improvement.
Andrew: Episode .02! All right! Throwing it back!
Elizabeth: Throwing it way back there! That was such a great episode, not only for the information there, but that emphasis of doing more of something that is incorrect is not going to automatically fix it and produce a change. Athletes are often going to try to improve that by increasing the frequency, increasing how much they’re doing that activity. But the additional repetition is reinforcing some of those underlying issues that need to be corrected. This is even a very scary path down to injury, if you keep doing those repetitive patterns. Practice does not make perfect if the practice isn’t perfect. If the practice isn’t correct, we’re not going to see those improvements there. A better strategy is to really train with an intent. Train with a purpose, doing sessions that consider the frequency, duration, intensity, and technique. Athletes doing the right work at the right time, for the right amount of time with the right effort, those are the ones that are going to see the best improvements. It goes back to that whole “more isn’t better”. You may need to spend a little additional training time on your weakest discipline, but not at the expense of the quality of that training.
Andrew: You need to work on your weaknesses. You can’t ignore your weaknesses, but it’s not just throwing endless amounts of time at it and expecting it to get better. It’s doing the right things, targeted things, being mindful of what you’re doing when you’re working on your weaknesses. Also, keep working on your strength, keep improving on all three sports across the board. Great approach there, Elizabeth, thank you for debunking that.
I’m just going to keep hip‑hopping back and forth between the two of you. I’m lobbing these up and you’re knocking them down. So let’s send Myth #4 over to John. Myth #4 is swim-focused. A lot of people believe that joining a Masters swim program or working one‑on-one with a swim coach is the best way to get faster in the swim. Now, those things can certainly help you, but it is a myth that that is going to be this cure-all for your swim form. John, talk to us about this.
John: Again, this is where there’s a little bit of truth to every myth. Joining a Masters swim may help you get faster. But like a lot of these myths, oftentimes you’ll see some initial incremental gain, but then quickly plateau, perhaps even have deterioration or injury, that kind of thing. The issue with Masters swims is that they’re largely generic. Your classic Masters swim puts a whole bunch of swimmers into the pool, of all different abilities, with all different swim types, and they get the same workout from the same coach with a lot of the same feedback. A lot of times it’s the same set and the same drills for everyone that’s in the session. The biggest issue there is that drills are only productive if they are fixing something that needs to be fixed or reinforcing something that you’re doing right. Sometimes certain drills will overemphasize things that you’re already overemphasizing, or if you’re not doing the drills properly they’re going to be counter-productive. For me, the classic example I always use is the catch-up drill. It’s very commonly prescribed. Lots of Masters swimmers are being prescribed that catch-up drill, to have that glide at the front of the stroke, which is a critical component to it. But there’s a lot of people that spend too much time there, that kind of stall out there and miss the advantage of that propulsion that is during that phase of the stroke. If you’re hanging up there too long already, that catch-up drill is just going to reinforce what you’re already doing wrong. You don’t need to be spending more time up there, which is what that catch-up drill is going to reinforce, you need to be spending less time. That’s where the generic nature of the Masters swim sets can be an issue. The swim set you need to be doing is likely different from the person in the next lane or perhaps even in the same lane from you, depending on your abilities, your goals, what you’re looking to do, what the rest of your training looks like. It really comes down to the individual, and Masters is kind of the opposite of that. It is very much a group-focused thing. Oftentimes too the feedback that you’re going to get from that coach is flaw- or symptom-based. They’re going to see things like, “Oh, you’re crossing over, so just reach wider,” and oftentimes there’s a root cause that is causing that. That goes back to that podcast Episode .02 that Elizabeth mentioned, going back to some of those fundamental things that allow us to swim proper, like balance. There are certain symptomatic things that aren’t going to get better simply by overexaggerating the other way. Just to plug, our cure for this is TriDot Pool School, where we go back and really start from a foundational level to ensure that every swimmer that goes through Pool School has proper technique and has those fundamentals like balance in check. Before we even move on, we want to make sure that all those things are working properly. In most cases, the best way to make those swim gains is to go back and make sure that all these things are proper, and doing them correctly, and Pool School is a great way to get that.
Andrew: I want people to hear our heart here. Our intent is not to say that Masters swim programs are stupid and you should never go to them. Our intent is to view them as what they are, and they are not a replacement for learning proper swim form from the ground up. That’s not typically what they do, to what John you’re saying. You will have a coach on deck, and that coach will point out some things to you as you’re swimming. That’s fine if you have a nice base for what your technique should be. It’s good to have eyes on you, and that can be productive. A few weeks ago in the podcast, TriDot Ambassador Lauren LeBlanc was on an episode with us, and she referenced how she really likes attending her tri Masters swim group in her local area, because it’s just a nice community of triathletes to swim with. That’s great, if you’re going to a Masters swim group and it’s getting you in the pool with other athletes, and that’s motivating you to get in the pool and train. Masters swim programs are great if you’re using it for the right reason in the right way, and you’ve already done something like a TriDot Pool School to really lay the foundation for your swim form.
John: I completely agree with all of that. I’ve participated in Masters swims in the past, but a lot of those comments I made came from my own personal experience, where I was just prescribed generic sets, and I didn’t really advance a whole lot, didn’t really get faster in my time. But it’s a lot of fun, and I probably swam more consistently, which there’s absolutely value in that. I enjoyed it, swimming with those other people. So absolutely, there’s a place for it, but if you’re singularly focused on improving your swim, getting faster, swimming longer, that may not be your best course of action.
Andrew: Tri Myth #5 is that triathlon training is exhausting, and triathletes are just tired all of the time. Therefore, it is good to take a rest day each week. Elizabeth, why is this a myth?
Elizabeth: I’m excited that you lobbed this up my way, because I feel like one of the questions that I’ve gotten a lot over the past couple of years is people saying, “So what day is your rest day?” And they’re rather surprised to find that I don’t take one weekly. Not necessarily monthly, either. They’re here and there, and most of the time it has more to do with travel or work or family things, and choosing to take that day off –
Andrew: Yeah, same here.
Elizabeth: – versus a specific scheduled rest day because of other training sessions. There really isn’t the need for one. I think that traditional rest days are often the result of trial-and-error training, where athletes take on too much training, and then they need that additional recovery time at the cost of other training opportunities. It’s kind of one of those, “Whoops, we went to hard, body’s not ready to go, I guess we’d better take a day or two off.” That’s just not how it is for my training. When training is balanced with stress and opportunities for recovery, it allows for safe and productive training seven days a week. Currently Thursdays for me are a lighter training day, it may be considered a recovery day when you compare the duration and intensity of the other training days during the week. But it’s not what I would consider a rest day. I’m likely still on the bike, doing a nice easy ride, maybe in the pool doing some specific technique work. I’m doing some aerobic activity, some mobility work that supports the overall training, not necessarily just taking a day off. Then I think the other thing, I mentioned sometimes my rest days end up being more because of family things or work. If you need to take a day off for that, or the logistics of getting to the gym are just tricky, or you WANT to have Sundays off because that is your family day, then that is absolutely 100% fine, that’s okay. But rest assured – oh my goodness, I know Jeff Raines is just going to be smiling at that pun about “rest assured” with the rest days –
Andrew: I didn’t even catch it, that was so smoothly slid in there!
Elizabeth: I’m sure he probably would have though! He’s on top of all of those puns!
Andrew: He would have giggled immediately after saying it.
Elizabeth: But yes, you do not have to take a rest day every week for performance purposes.
Andrew: Elizabeth, tacking onto the idea that triathletes are always exhausted, I think a lot of the people that feel that way are probably the ones that are doing unnecessarily long base phase-style training that we talked about in Myth #1. The only sessions in my tri training career with TriDot where I have just been wiped, fairly worthless to the family for the rest of the day, is during that IRONMAN race development phase where you’re a couple weeks a month or so out, and those Saturday rides starting getting where they’re 5, 5½, 6 hours long. Okay yeah, the rest of that day I’m a little bit worthless to the family. But other than those handful of sessions leading up to IRONMAN, if you balance it right, if you manage your energy right and you fuel right, there’s no reason why you have to walk around like a zombie because you're tired all the time from the training.
Myth #6, this is getting into some bike stuff. A lot of people believe that you have to have an expensive bike for triathlon. They believe you have to have a certain type of bike to do a triathlon, and a lot of people believe that you have to have a road bike AND a TT bike to really nail your training. John, debunk all these overarching bike ownership things here for us.
John: The easy one is the expensive bike. They’re great, they’re sexy, they’re a dream to ride, but absolutely not. There are so many triathletes that it’s –
Andrew: I am looking at mine right now.
John: Mine’s in the shop, so I miss mine. I’m staring at an empty bike rack, and reflecting fondly upon mine. But so many triathletes do really well. There’s not a correlation on the performance end. It’s kind of funny sometimes to see some of those first athletes off the bike in T2, and some of them are on older bikes, not super high-end, and it’s actually pretty cool to see. There’s not necessarily a correlation between performance and how much you’re spending on the bike. Sure, there are so technologies you can buy, there’s some “free speed” that you can buy, but absolutely not necessary. Also, it’s not necessary to have a road bike. I absolutely consider myself a triathlete. I’m an okay triathlete, and even though I do have a road bike, I might as well not, because it’s covered in so much dust. I’ve not ridden in probably in two years, and that’s because when we did Alcatraz, we were advised, properly, to take a road bike to Alcatraz. I was glad I did, I enjoyed riding it for those 15 miles with Andrew –
Andrew: Yaaaay!
John: – but I’ve just not had the need or even really the desire to hop on it since. At best, like today, if my bike is in the shop, I could go out on it. But you should train like you race, it’s a “practice like you play” kind of thing. You want to spend lots of time on that race bike to ensure that you are comfortable in the time trial position, that you have the handling skills necessary to handle a time-trial bike, especially the deeper tube, deeper wheel-type frames, so you’re comfortable with it. You want to be proficient in things like reaching for hydration and food and all those kinds of things. It is important to spend a good amount of time on your race bike, assuming that is a time-trial bike. Sure, there are some benefits to riding a road bike, but like we said, there’s some truth to all of these myths, so definitely not knocking road bikes or anything like that, but is it required? Absolutely not.
Andrew: Myth #7, a lot of people believe that once race season hits, you can throw a lot of races on the schedule, and you can race your way to your best fitness. You go do a race every single weekend, every other weekend, and by having those races on the schedule, and going out and putting forth those race-day efforts, you will be fitter that way than by racing less often and training more. Elizabeth, why is this a myth?
Elizabeth: Okay, let’s tackle this one. I like this one, especially as the planner side of me comes out, because many athletes will begin their season with the goal of completing a certain number of races. Maybe over the past year they’ve written down, “Ooh, that one looks cool, I’d really like to do that,” and they just go and sign up for all of these events that look cool, and they haven’t even considered how they’re going to interact with one another, or maybe even compete with one another in terms of the time that it’s going to take to adequately train for all of these events. The interference of one event on another may prevent an athlete from really achieving their top performance. Athletes just will schedule a bunch of these things and sometimes say, “Well, I’ll just have these smaller events leading into my priority race, and I’m going to race myself into shape,” as our myth was alluding to here. But tapering for and recovering from races often takes away very critical weeks of training time. This is one of the reasons I just absolutely love TriDot’s Season Planner, because it helps athletes by guiding them through this race planning process, and it’s going to optimize your training to your current level of fitness, and the timeline that you have between now and your next race event. It’s going to help athletes determine, as they’re putting their schedule together, “Is this race going to be optimal for me to put on? Is it not even available because I don’t have adequate time between these two events? Do I not have enough time to really prepare myself for it?” It forces them to think about where they want their priorities to be in racing for that next year. Now don’t get me wrong, it is FUN to race, and shorter-course events may fit into a weekly training better than longer ones, and could help with that overall performance improvement. But what we really want to avoid here is taking away from those critical training opportunities, like putting a 70.3 event a few weeks before an IRONMAN. If we’re putting a 70.3 event just a little bit ahead of the full-distance IRONMAN, and especially if it requires the athletes to take a two-week taper going into that race and then recovering for a week or two after, you’re missing two to four very, very important weeks of your IRONMAN build. So are you going to be as prepared for that IRONMAN as if you didn’t race the 70.3 and had to take that time to taper and recover? No, definitely not. You’ve just missed four critical weeks of training. So can you strategically put some races in to maybe give you a boost of fitness or include some fun events along the way? Yeah, but I think this idea of just racing weekend after weekend and never putting in the time to train to get to your best fitness is where this myth really just falls off the rails. We know that the preparation that is done in training is important to producing your best results.
Andrew: All right, Myth #8 is you need to run after every bike workout to be ready for a race. Now I did not believe this one per se, but when I first got started, I did try to run a lot off the bike when I first got going. I even did this when I first started in the sport, where I would have an hour to get a workout in, I would go to the pool and swim for twenty minutes, then I would get out, dry off as quick as I could, and I would head into the spin room at the gym and bike for twenty minutes. I thought, “Man, I’m being really smart. I’m practicing biking out of the pool.” Looking back, I’m sure those sessions did absolutely nothing for me. I wasn’t in the water long enough to build fitness in the water, I wasn’t on the bike long enough to build fitness on the bike. But man, I thought I was really practicing that transition. Certainly a lot of people think since it’s a three-discipline sport, “On race day I have to go from this to this to this,” so they try to practice that. This is a myth. You do NOT need to run every time you get off the bike. You don’t need to bike every time you get out of the pool. John, why is this a myth?
John: As you mentioned for those reasons, running off the bike really is an acquired skill. You have athletes that have been running for years and years, very proficient runners, but you put them on a bike for an hour or more, and it’s a whole other ball game coming off the bike. It really is an acquired skill. I remember back when I first was getting into triathlon and just having those jelly legs – that really weird feeling – also having trouble pacing off the bike – sometimes it was too fast, sometimes too slow. It really is an acquired skill, so I would say for the new triathletes, or those that maybe have been out-season for a while and not been doing a lot of those runs off the bike, those are going to be more important to really dial in that skill. And those runs off the bike don’t need to be long. A lot of times I’ll see athletes doing one‑hour or two‑hour runs off the bike when they’re training for IRONMAN, and really it’s just not necessary. In fact, that’s going to be a low‑quality sessions because chances are that bike session you did is going to be very taxing, so you're going to be in a severely depleted state, your form is going to be bad, and it’s just not going to be an overly productive session. Yes, it’s good to mix those in occasionally as race day approaches, but the vast majority of your off‑the-bike sessions should be relatively short, twenty or thirty minutes give or take, that’s just enough to dial in that skill of running proficiently off the bike.
Andrew: Myth #9, a lot of people believe that if you are following a triathlon training plan, you should never skip a workout on your plan. Elizabeth, talk to us about why this is a myth. It seems like a good thing, that the closer you can follow the workouts, the better. The more you can stick to your plan, the better. But this can be a myth, so let’s talk about it.
Elizabeth: Yes, I think we say “never say never” here. If you never skip a workout, you just aren’t listening to your body. Whether that’s a jam‑packed workday, or your body’s just aching and needs a break, we definitely shouldn’t be beating ourselves up over a missed workout. I feel like we maybe should have sent this over to John, because he has that phrase, “perfection isn’t required, but consistency is key”. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to check off every single box, but we do need to be overall consistent with this. You are going to miss some workouts, and frankly you should. Missing a workout might be better for you than overly stressing yourself, either mentally or physically, to get it done. When people create even more stress for themselves in this desire to be perfect and have everything completed, it actually can have quite the opposite effect of what you want from an active lifestyle. If you are just so hard-pressed to follow everything on the training plan like, “It HAS to be an hour, and I HAVE to do thirty minutes of this, and I HAVE to do an hour and fifteen of that,” and you can’t get it in, it just causes an incredible amount of stress, and we need to look at that and evaluate it. True story, this summer I actually got in trouble for doing all of my sessions in a day, because I wasn’t being smart about the timing of them and the recovery that I needed for the next day. I immediately thought of this when I saw this myth, and we started talking about it. It was just a super-busy workday for me, and I hadn’t gotten to the pool yet. It’s 8 o’clock at night – I go to bed super early, I’m in bed at 8:30 if I can be – but I decide, “Ah, I don’t have my swim done yet, I’m just going to go knock out at least 3 or 4K of this and get it done.” So I get to the pool when I would normally be going to bed, get the session in, go back, and it’s late. Gotta get up the next morning for a bike workout, and the bike workout doesn’t go phenomenally, big surprise.
Andrew: I wonder why?
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. I had a nice chat with the coach the next morning, and it was very clear, “You would have been better just to skip that workout. You would have been better to go to bed, rest up, move on with the next day. You wouldn’t have sabotaged this bike workout by staying up so much later than you normally do, and stressing out about getting it done.” So yeah, if you're listening to your body, there are going to be workouts that you skip. It’s going to happen, that’s life, and we just need to understand that and move on from it.
Andrew: Myth #10 is that triathlon will absolutely take over your life, because you just have to train all the time. When I first came into the sport, a common joke that I would hear is triathletes joking that if you do an IRONMAN, and if you do not exit the backside of that IRONMAN with your marriage slightly in trouble, you did not train hard enough for your IRONMAN. I always hated that joke. I like my wife, I like hanging out with her, I didn’t want to do a sport that was going to put my family life in jeopardy, and I’m sure the two of you feel the same way. This certainly is a misconception. It’s a myth that triathlon has to take over our life. John, talk to us about this.
John: Yeah, I’m with you. I’ve always hated that one. I get it’s a joke, I know it’s not serious, but man, that’s one of those that always rubs me wrong, really for two reasons. One is my marriage is so important, and hopefully wouldn’t allow anything like a sport or a hobby to interfere with that. Then just the fact that’s just so wrong. It is, in fact, a horrible myth, perhaps even the worst myth we’ve discussed. It goes back to what I said in the warmup question though. You can train to race at a high level, be competitive, achieve your goals, and still do that within a reasonable time constraint. Most people have an hour a day to dedicate to their fitness, or they should. It’s just one of those things that, if you’re properly balancing your life and planning your days, you should be taking at least an hour, give or take, for yourself and focusing on your fitness. And you can get a whole lot done in an hour a day. Maybe you’ve got a little extra time on the weekends or somewhere during the week and have the opportunity to race some of those longer distances, but your lifestyle can absolutely align with your hobby and your priorities like your family, your profession, all of those other things. I think it goes back to that myth that you have to train large amounts of volume, high hours per week to be competitive, and you just don’t. That being said, with that myth debunked, I think we can debunk this one. Triathlon doesn’t have to take over your life, and you can still be very engaged, very competitive, and still be happily, happily married.
Andrew: This is one of the things that attracted me to TriDot as an athlete in the first place, is I wanted some smarter tri coaching. I wanted somebody who knew more than I did to be writing my training plan, and the price was right, but even beyond that, the fact that TriDot was promising you can train less because you’re training smarter. Sure enough, as soon as I jumped on as an athlete, I was training in all three sports less hours than I was when I was coaching myself, and I was improving at a faster rate, and that remains the case to this day. So thank you, John, for thoroughly debunking that. That may have been Myth #10 on our run sheet, but it’s Myth #1 in our hearts, so glad that one’s killed off.
Myth #11, hitting the back third episode of the day, a lot of people believe that you must run a marathon before doing your IRONMAN or a half-marathon before a 70.3. The bike and swim equivalent of this also exists, where people think, “Oh, I need to do a century ride before doing my IRONMAN.” Elizabeth, bust this myth for us.
Elizabeth: I feel like maybe you gave that to me because the marathon is my favorite. You’re like, “Say this for yourself, you don’t have to go do this.”
Andrew: Let’s see what Elizabeth has to say!
Elizabeth: “Or maybe she’ll say ‘Yeah, we all should!’” No, let’s answer this truthfully here. You can do a marathon before an IRONMAN, but you definitely don’t need to. You certainly don’t need to within the training build to racing an IRONMAN. Just as John was talking about the difference between running and running off the bike, running a marathon and running an IRONMAN marathon are less similar than I think most people would expect, both in terms of the training preparation, and the race-day experience. Most standalone marathon runners are predominantly gaining their aerobic fitness from running, whereas a triathlete is building that through swimming, biking, and running. So the run volume of the marathoner is going to be much larger than that of a triathlete. Then from the race-day perspective, it’s a little bit different starting fresh at mile one of a running event versus coming off of a 112‑mile bike ride. Just like doing a twenty-minute run off the bike as your transition run in training feels a little bit different when the legs are little bit like Jello. Yeah, you’re not going to have those fresh-feeling legs coming off of a 112‑mile bike ride either. So while running a marathon outside of an IRONMAN may give you a sense of accomplishment, or maybe a little confidence about having covered that distance before, it’s still an incredibly different experience in an IRONMAN. And having run a marathon before an IRONMAN doesn’t mean that your performance is going to directly translate, because they’re still very different experiences. I would suggest that, if you want to do a marathon before an IRONMAN, or a half-marathon before doing a 70.3, do it in the season prior to that triathlon event, and not as part of those triathlon preparations. Now, more experienced athletes may be able to do this and not necessarily race it, but use it in incorporation with some of their long run training. I know athletes that just love running, myself included, and we want to put those events in every so often as well, but just know that you may be sacrificing some of that performance potential from the triathlon event by placing those other race events in there. Just as we talked about not racing your way to fitness, there is a cost of racing often. I really think, as much as I love the marathon, it’s a much better idea to keep that separate from any preparations of preparing for long-course racing.
Andrew: Myth #12, going into strength training here. I’ve heard a lot of triathletes express that they are hesitant to do too much strength training, because in triathlon you think that leaner is better, and you don’t want to bulk up and put this unnecessary muscle on, and then have to carry that muscle on race day. John, why is this a myth?
John: Again, there’s a certain amount of truth to it, but as a rule, it’s a myth. I was actually talking with Jeff Raines earlier today. Earlier in the year he’s been doing a lot of weight-lifting, and he’s talked about putting on a few pounds. He’s got a marathon coming up, looking to have a great race, but he talked about, “I’m a couple pounds up because of this weight training.” I’ve never had that issue. I’ve certainly raced a few pounds up, but not because of my weight training. With my body type, I can work out consistently in the gym for a year and I won’t gain a single pound. I know other people who go to the gym three times and gain ten pounds. So it’s really about being intentional with what you’re doing in the gym, and knowing what type of body type you have. If you are that type of person who, for better or worse, can go to the gym and add several pounds relatively quickly, what you do in the gym is going to be important, because we know there’s a cost to additional weight in triathlon. Any weight that is gained will need to produce more power, more speed, so you need to make sure that it’s a profitable gain. And like the beach muscles, having bigger biceps isn’t going to make you a faster triathlete. It’s more about being intentional with what you’re doing in the gym, focusing on building power in the muscle groups you’re going to be using to swim, bike, and run, also obviously core strength, mobility, working on the smaller muscle groups for injury prevention and those kinds of things. It’s about being intentional with what you’re doing in your strength training. It’s obviously a very important component to it. It’s an opportunity to increase power and speed, but your intent is not to bulk up, your intent is to be faster, more efficient, more injury-averse. It’s really about what you do and how you approach those strength-training sessions.
Andrew: Myth #13 is that the swim isn’t all that important because it is such a small percentage of the race. I’ve even heard triathletes express that, “The swim is just a prelude. You get through the swim, and it’s the bike and run that really matter.” In terms of race pacing that can kind of be true, but in terms of your overall performance and what we need to be doing with our training hours, we gotta be able to swim. Elizabeth, talk to us about the myth of the swim not being all that important.
Elizabeth: Yes, I can tell you from personal experience that the swim absolutely matters. As you were saying, Andrew, I understand the basis for this myth, as the swim is the smallest percentage of the distance, the smallest percentage of time that we are going to be spending in the triathlon event. Many people will argue that it’s not worth the hours and hours of training time that would be necessary to improve their swim performance by a few minutes. To that point, it truly is about your personal goals within the sport, and if those few minutes matter to you. But the swim itself, yes, it’s important. It's the first discipline of our sport, we have to get out of the water to be able to even get into T1 and progress onto the bike. For many people, the swim can be a large barrier to either their participation or their enjoyment in the sport. You need to be comfortable in the water, you need to be confident in your ability to complete this portion of the race. Then I’d say once you’re comfortable, once you’re confident, then it becomes a question of your performance improvement and the value, especially the value of your time on that improvement. Do you want to be spending the time to get those couple minutes faster? Maybe not, so there’s maybe where the myth comes in and they say it’s not important. Well, maybe it’s not important because they’re already confident enough in completing that part of it. But if you’re worried about the swim, you have to take that part seriously. It is the first discipline, we’ve got to do it, it is swim, bike, run. It’s important. I think one of the things we also hear in this sport is, “you’re not necessarily going to win it on the swim, but you can lose it,” and I can say, competing as a pro now, yeah, the swim is important. I’ve really got to work to close that gap, because it makes a big difference in my personal racing.
Andrew: Yeah, I love the fact that you point out, Elizabeth, that this really depends somewhat on who you are and what your goals are in the sport. I know for me, now that I have my first IRONMAN under my belt, my next goal is going sub‑five hours at a 70.3. Right now in my swim fitness, I’m a 37 to 40‑minute swim leg on a half IRONMAN, and man, I’m going to have such a better crack at going under five hours if I can knock five minutes off of that. So for me, getting that swim fitness improved is certainly going to help me attain my next personal goal in this sport. I think of a friend of mine who is a staff member at Precision Fuel & Hydration, his name is Chris Harris. Shout out to him, he’s actually on the TriDot Preseason Project right now trying out the platform to see what he thinks of the training. Chris grew up swimming in the U.K., swim club, swim team. He just raced Kona this last year, and he went 51 minutes in Kona as his swim split. So yeah, Chris doesn’t spend a whole lot of time in the pool. He told me, “I get in the pool just enough to keep my feel for the water, and to keep those skills sharp, but I’m spending more time gaining fitness on the bike and run.” So it certainly depends on who you are, what your background is, and what your next goal is in the sport. Great stuff there, Elizabeth.
Two more myths to knock down today, #14 is that all of the training gear in triathlon is so expensive. If you become a triathlete, you’re just going to be slinging the credit card around all the time to get everything you need. And this can certainly be true, but it doesn’t have to be. John, why is this a myth?
John: Oh, it’s not a myth. This one’s true.
Andrew: This one is real!
John: Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be. There are lots of opportunities to handle the sport, navigate the sport on a budget. We’ve talked about this through lots of different podcasts. I think we even have a couple episodes dedicated to this, “triathlon on a dime” kind of a thing. But I think, like we mentioned on the bikes, it’s starting with what you’ve got. I’ve heard so many people who did their first triathlon on a borrowed bike, a used bike. There’s people that are constantly upgrading, and looking to offload some of their older equipment. There’s still some equipment with lots and lots of miles left on it that you can pick up at a great price. The second-hand market is great, or just borrowing from friends. My first couple seasons I borrowed race wheels, and I raced every race I ever did on a set of really fancy race wheels, and fortunately because of a good friend, they didn’t cost me a dime. Then the other thing is just building up over time. Maybe it’s once a year you add one of the bigger-ticket items, maybe it’s strategizing around holidays, birthdays, Christmas kinds of things. We’ve talked about these things in the past. You can certainly go all‑in and just throw a chunk of cash down day one, but most people go slow, and it takes a couple years. The great thing is you eventually will arrive largely at a critical mass where it does get a little cheaper, when you’ve acquired all the toys, and it gets a little cheaper after that.
Andrew: Yeah, so this could be the least myth‑y myth on this list of 15 myths, because to your point, it CAN be true, but it doesn’t have to be. We’re going to debunk this across the board, unilaterally, this is not always true. We’re going to call it “somewhat of a myth” for the purposes of this episode.
Okay, shut us down here in the main set, Elizabeth, with Myth #15. A lot of people have the idea in their heads that triathlon is an IRONMAN, and you are not a true triathlete if you have not raced a full-distance event. Bust this up for the love of everything good and holy, and we’ll call this episode a done deal.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think we just say, “False, false, false, the end.” That’s just not true!
Andrew: Hogwash! Rubbish! Poppycock! I’m done.
Elizabeth: I mean, I’d rather race an IRONMAN than a sprint-distance event myself. Each of us is gifted with different interests, different strengths, different abilities.
Andrew: Sprints are hard! Sprints are really hard!
Elizabeth: Yeah, my strength is not in short-course racing. But you would never say that the athletes that compete in triathlon at the Olympics are not true triathletes. Some of them may not ever due a full-distance event, but you wouldn’t look at an Olympic triathlete and say, “Oh, you’re not a triathlete.” So yeah, swim, bike, run, if you do a triathlon, you’re part of the triathlon family, whatever distance that is.
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Vanessa Ronksley: Welcome to the cooldown, everybody! I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! For today’s Coach Cooldown Tip, I am joined by TriDot Coach Jarryd Irvine, who usually lives in South Africa, but is currently in Muscat Oman running the water skills program at Cheltenham International School. Jared is an avid trail runner, and has expertise in swimming and strength training. He has been coaching triathlon for four years with Infinitude Multisport Coaching, and with TriDot, as an athlete and as a coach since 2020. And you know what? He loves TriDot! But most importantly, Jared is passionate about helping athletes achieve success that they didn’t even think was possible for them. He specializes in coaching athletes on swim technique, biomechanics, trail running, and integrating holistic wellness. Something that most people don’t know about Jarryd is that Jarryd was an overweight young boy, so he started swimming. Not only did this help him become physically healthier, it helped him gain self-confidence through skill development and performance. Welcome to the cooldown Jarryd!
Jarryd Irvine: Great to be here, thanks Vanessa!
Vanessa: Okay Jarryd, hit us with your Coach Cooldown Tip for the day!
Jarryd: My tip for today is a little more of an insight from myself, so I hope you guys find it valuable. The tip for today is to figure out how your training adds value to, and when it starts detracting from, the other elements of your life. Obviously I don’t want to get airy fairy about this, but if I look at when I started doing triathlon in 2018, I had a good swim base, I had a good run base, and I did some cycling, but I wasn’t a good cyclist. What triathlon taught me, which was completely different to other races, or maybe on par with trail running, is that you really have to prepare for everything, every eventuality. Without completely overcomplicating it, there’s a whole bunch of processes involved that aren’t involved in other races – like a half-marathon or marathon-type of thing, if you have your running shoes, you should be all right, because they’ve got water stations and things like that – whereas in triathlon, you need to be quite a bit more self-sufficient. That caused a change in other aspects of my life, like running my business and dealing with clients and managing communications with friends, family, or colleagues, that type of thing. It streamlined the way I process things and the way I prepare for things. Obviously I’m not perfect. I still get those things wrong, but I do think about it more systematically.
Vanessa: Yeah, I totally agree with you, that so many elements that people learn from the sport of triathlon can definitely be taken and inserted into various aspects of their lives. I know for myself as well, the strength that I find in hard training sessions and in racing situations when things don’t go quite as planned, the strength that I gather from those moments definitely helps me to propel other areas of my life, and to know that it’s much easier to do those hard things because I have the skills that I’ve learned through the difficulty of experiencing the hardships of racing. I totally agree with you.
Jarryd: Cool. But also be able to notice when it starts taking away from the value of the other aspects of life, like family and things like that. I think other people and coaches will also teach this, is you need to be able to know, “Okay, I need to do this hard training session, but maybe my family is more important today, or maybe work is more important today.” I think doing triathlon, you should become better at assessing what’s the priority.
Vanessa: Yep, that’s also something that’s very important, because I think a lot of people, especially as a newer triathlete potentially, they go all out. They go all into their training, and it can eventually lead to burnout, because they’ve exhausted their training capabilities, and they’ve exhausted their family as well, in terms of their family’s ability to put up with all of the things that we constantly ask for in terms of time. I think that it’s really valuable to be mindful of how much we’re asking of the family to support, and hopefully that can mitigate burnout for the athlete when the time comes.
Jarryd: Yeah, so true.
Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.