With the growing popularity of the sport of triathlon, free triathlon training tips abound - both on the internet and in your local triathlon club, master's swim, and group rides. But have caution! Not everything you hear is true, and not everything you read will necessarily work for your unique body, fitness and training lifestyle, especially when it comes to getting faster. So here are the top 5 free triathlon training tips you should probably ignore if you're trying to get faster. Once you've checked these out, head over to http://www.
#5: "Don't go too hard in the swim." If you're in your very first triathlon, this free triathlon training tip is probably a good idea to follow. But if you're actually trying to beat your time, get faster, or podium, then go ahead and just try and find someone who consistently wins races, but isn't jockeying to be in the lead or a lead pack during the swim. In most cases, you can swim your guts out, and by the time you're a few miles into the bike, you've completely forgotten about the swim - aside from the fact that you're in a much better race position than if you had taken your sweet time in the water.
#4: "You need to carry at least one bottle of water for each hour of the bike." Not really. One big problem with this free triathlon training tip is that most races now have aid stations. Technically, all you need is just water to get you from aid station to aid station. Anything more will weight you down, unless you have a strategy of "dropping" your competitors at an aid station as they slow for water, in which case you could carry enough water to get you through two aid stations.
#3: "Ease yourself into the run, and don't start too hard." Your run pace is going to be dictated by how you set the pace in the beginning, and while this free triathlon training tip will probably have you finishing without feeling too exhausted, it's not going to make you any faster. Go out of T2 like you've got a pack of wolves chasing you, get your feet moving with a high cadence, and find your maximum sustainable pace. The recommendation is not to set yourself up to blow up early, but rather to get achieve a mindset early in the run that you are, in fact, racing!
#2: "Practice it in your training before you try it in your race." Huh? How could this free triathlon training tip be something you should ignore? It's actually true in most cases, but a big mistake made, especially by longer distance triathletes, is to feel like they need to cover the entire race distance in their training. Because of this, a triathlete might arrive at a race completely overtrained, having attempted a 112 mile bike ride, a 22-26 mile run, and a 4K steady open water swim in the last few weeks leading up to the race. Here's a tip: as long as you have completed about 75% of the required distance for each skill at some point in your training, you'll do fine on race day. It's better to be 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained.
#1: "Get up early and eat a massive breakfast several hours before the race." This is a trickle down practice from Ironman and even Half Ironman, but in pretty much any Sprint and Olympic distance triathlon, you're going to be unecessarily shorting yourself on sleep if you try this free triathlon training tip. Your body has enough carbohydrate stores on board to go about 1.5-2 hours, and if you have to choose between sleep and breakfast, you can actually get away with slamming a quick gel just before the race starts. If you do eat breakfast, remember that you don't need a 1500 calorie smorgasbord. A couple small sweet potatoes or yams, or an energy bar, will usually work just fine.
