Ten Years of Triathlon Training
Our mechanic Fiona is a competitive triathlete. In this month’s blog, she reflects on how her training has evolved over the years!
2024 marks ten years since I started training for triathlon (give or take a few of those pandemic years...). As I gear up for my next season, I’m taking a look back on the last decade of my swim/bike/run journey.
Don’t let inexperience get in the way of a new experience!
Wild Dog Triathlon - my first race in 2014
Racing the LA Herbalife Triathlon, October 2021
When I started racing triathlon at 17, I was a rural kid who hadn’t ever ridden a road bike. I had no idea how to shift gears, and I didn’t own a single pair of bike shorts (if anyone’s ever tried to ride ten miles in soccer shorts, you know why I went out and bought a pair after one training session). I had a background in running from cross-country, but while I had some lake swimming experience, I had learned freestyle technique completely backwards, didn’t know how to flip turn, and had never used goggles while swimming.
A cross-country friend’s dad was convinced that I’d be good at triathlon because I could swim and run, and he made it his mission to teach me how to bike. He not only coached me through my first race, but also mentored me as a bike mechanic, which led me to my position at BFF many years later. I competed in a sprint triathlon the summer after I graduated high school, which led me to my first USAT nationals and eventually to a long-term commitment to high-level training.
If I hadn’t done those first few training sessions, I’d never have ended up discovering my love for triathlon. So don’t be afraid to jump into something new headfirst! And if you’re concerned about a safety component of your new activity or just want to make sure you learn proper processes, find a group with experienced athletes who can show you the ropes and provide a supportive environment.
Consistency is key.
In ten years of training, I’ve been through a wide variety of training plans and coaching styles. Through four years of high school cross-country, I never ran more than six miles in a single session. I experienced the other extreme in a D1 track program, with some of my teammates running 90-mile weeks at the height of their seasons. Once out of school, I struggled to balance big training loads with work demands, had conflicts with bad coaches, and ultimately ended up way over my functional limit. I paid for this with my health for several years until I found a coach who was willing to be more flexible while still pursuing high-performance goals.
I’d initially been taught that more equals better, and really subscribed to the “no pain, no gain” ethos - the harder you bang your head against the wall, the more results you get. Which worked...until it didn’t. I learned the very hard way that consistency is essential for high-level performance, and to actually produce consistent training, I had to change the foundations of my training ethic. The hardest lesson was learning how to be flexible and accepting that the perfectionist attitude that had served me well in other areas was actively hindering my progress in sport.
A retired professional triathlete once autographed a book for me with the note, “Find joy first, success will follow after”. It took me a long time to truly understand what she meant. But now, I find that I do my best work when I’m pursuing training that I’m passionate about, that feels purposeful, and that lets me connect with like-minded members of the tri community. Instead of chasing giant Strava-worthy workouts and pushing too hard for breakthrough performances, I put a lot of focus into simply stacking training sessions over and over, and I’ve frequently found that the breakthrough performances present themselves when I least expect it.
Thursday night racing at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook
Don't be afraid to get creative!
Triathlon training has a lot of moving parts. Swim, bike, run, transition, nutrition, gear, logistics – the list is endless. Working on mastering three sports at the same time, plus the skills that are unique to triathlon, is a complex puzzle. This was one of the things I initially loved about training. I was always learning something new, and I really enjoyed fitting the training blocks together into a schedule that helped me improve. At some point, though, I started feeling like I was mediocre at everything, but I wasn’t progressing my skills in any single area.
When I started training seriously during college, my school didn’t have a triathlon club. So I joined the cycling team, connected with a community masters swim group, and did interval workouts with a group of post-collegiate track athletes. I never fully synced up with any one group, which was frustrating at times, but I was learning from athletes who were specialists in their respective disciplines. When I started feeling stagnant, I went back to this style of training. I went rock climbing and began lifting more frequently, I rejoined a masters swim team, and I started racing track and cyclocross bikes. I didn’t let go of performance goals entirely, but I paired them with a sense of exploration and adventure.
I learned lots of valuable lessons through these outside-the-box experiences. I returned to triathlon with cornering skills learned from crit racers, cadence and power skills from talented competitors at the velodrome, and mental quiet from boulder problems. My single biggest swimming breakthrough came from an impromptu surf session in San Diego, where hours of paddling a longboard finally connected elements of freestyle that it had been impossible for me to feel correctly in the pool.