Okay — so you’ve done triathlon for a little while and you’ve hit the age group podiums. The medal and recognition is nice, but you want to be a better triathlete.
You want to be faster and more competitive.
You want to win.
But your training is pretty good and you’re not sure what more you can do to get to the top of the overall podium.
I am here to tell you — there’s a lot more to be done. Here are ten things you can do to be a top age group triathlete.
Athlete Mentality
1. Understand what it means to be a great triathlete
a. Know what it takes to compete at a higher level
How fast are your fastest competitors going? What are their USAT scores? Do they share their workout data on Strava? Knowing how far you have to go is not meant to intimidate you — but it is meant to help you understand how long it might take to accomplish your goals by understanding the gap that you need to bridge.
b. Commit to triathlon for the long-haul
Endurance sports are a long game (no pun intended): Unless you’re very talented, you can’t get to the top in a single season. It takes several years of hard work to put your full potential on display, so buckle up and settle in. Becoming a better triathlete doesn’t happen all at once: Athletes tend to improve unevenly across sports, and getting there can take time. Don’t judge your own improvement timing by everyone else’s; people progress at different rates and can still reach the same level of competition.
2. Train consistently over days, weeks, months, and years
a. Understand what it means to be consistent
Consistency doesn’t mean you train a few times a week during the spring and summer and hope that your August A-race goes well. Consistency is following a training plan, adjusting for fatigue where necessary, and checking the boxes every damn day — even during the winter. And then, maintaining that consistency over the course of several years. The best triathletes manage to string together strong training blocks over the course of seasons and years.
b. Take time off only when planned or necessary
In triathlon reality, there literally is no off season. You should take a week or two completely off after your last race, but that’s it. Training doesn’t stop for holidays, vacations, or bad weather. The top athletes, even at the amateur level, make it work.
c. Take care of yourself
That being said — training should stop or be toned down for injury and illness. Know your body, and listen to it. Longevity is essential for consistency, and taking care of yourself is essential to longevity in sport. To be a better triathlete but still keep your sanity, know when training is going to cause stress on top of your other life activities, and plan accordingly. Your typical weekly schedule might get rearranged so that easy days of training line up with stressful days of life — just make sure that this doesn’t happen very often.
3. Make triathlon training a priority
a. Prioritize your training and recovery time
If you don’t make your training a priority, your day will fill up with other things that make it difficult to get your workouts done. You have to have a plan for each day: When you’re going to do each workout, how you’re going to fuel for it, and how both training and recovery will fit into your work or school schedule.
b. Communicate how important your training is with those around you
You also need to let others around you know that triathlon is a priority, and ask them to respect that. Otherwise, it’s easy to let others’ expectations of how you spend your time eat into the time that should be spent training. You don’t have to tell people your ultimate goals (like becoming a pro, winning an elite race) if you’d rather keep those to yourself; just let them know that you’re trying to become a better, more competitive triathlete, and that it’s important for you to get your training and recovery in.
Habits of Competitive Triathletes
4. Fueling properly for training
a. Nutrition during and around training
Nutrition is key: both for fueling workouts, and recovering from them. In a sport where you’re training multiple times per day and have high-intensity sessions more than twice per week, it’s so important to fuel yourself with high quality nutrition, and to do so frequently. Being a better triathlete is not just about doing more volume or more intensity — it also requires good (preferably great) nutrition habits: A well-rounded and diverse diet, eating before and after workouts, and choosing healthy snacks in between meals.
b. Know the difference between training fuel and nutritious food
I’m not talking about the best protein powders and sport bars — this is about real fuckin food, like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein. Too many athletes fuel with such shit. Jelly beans during long runs, donuts during long rides, grabbing for the fastest processed snack post-workout. None of these are good ways to replenish glycogen stores and help your body heal from the hell you put it through. To become a better triathlete, it’s not enough to do the workouts and reward yourself with a pizza afterward — it’s always about replenishing from the past, and fueling for the sessions ahead.
c. Eat your damn carbs
For the love of all things holy, please eat your carbohydrates. Whole grain bread, wheat pasta, potatoes, beans, legumes — these are all great options. I don’t care what the latest low-carb diet trend is — keto, paleo, carnivore (ew). Whatever your friends or Joe Rogan is telling you, it’s a lie. You need carbs to fuel and refuel. Eating a low-carb diet will only lead to extensive fatigue and eventual burnout.
5. Getting enough sleep
a. Value your sleep time
The importance of sleep has gained traction in recent years, thankfully, although so many athletes still don’t catch enough Z’s. Sleep is critical for recovery. Without it, you’ll break down, get injured, burn out, and have to stop training. That is the antithesis of consistency.
b. Increase your sleep time when training more
While poor sleep habits are detrimental to health and performance, great sleep habits can boost performance and foster better nutrition habits. This includes getting more sleep when you’re training more — so if you’re training 12-14 hours per week, you should try to get an extra hour of sleep per day, on top of your typical sleep patterns.
c. Develop healthy sleeping habits
You’re probably familiar with a lot of these: Sleeping in a dark, cool room; using a white noise machine or fan; avoiding screens in the hours before bedtime; going to sleep and waking up at consistent times each day. Each of these practices will help you fall asleep faster, and sleep more soundly.
6. Completing workouts as planned
a. Don’t rely on motivation
This is a big one. Many athletes train “when they feel like it” or only if the rest of the group is doing it too. Relying on motivation or other people is not the way to become a better triathlete. Dedication to consistency is the way to get there — doing a workout when you don’t feel like it, getting in the pool when it’s cold, going for a run in the rain. Check those boxes every day.
b. Follow the prescribed efforts
Other examples of non-compliance include skipping intervals, or the biggest issue: doing workouts too hard. Competitive athletes make this mistake all. the. time. Stick to your training zones. If your coach hasn’t given you training zones, get a new coach. Going too hard during your workouts might provide fast returns, but eventually it’ll only lead to injury and burnout. Let easy days be easy, let hard days be hard.
7. Mastering the basics of triathlon
a. Do the work, day in and day out
Don’t look for the magic pill, special gear, or silver bullet that makes you a better athlete — there are no shortcuts in endurance sport. The biggest gains will always be made in the fundamentals: swim, bike, run, eat, sleep. If you can’t do those five things well, buying an expensive bike, race wheels, or top tier wetsuit won’t produce the results you want.
b. Practice race-day skills
Open water swimming, transitions, mounting and dismount your bike — practice all of these things. When race day comes, these things should be second nature. If you don’t have local teammates, look for local triathlon clubs that do group open water swims or ask a friend to join you with a kayak. Getting a feel for the water, swimming in a wetsuit, and learning not to panic will all help you better transfer your pool swimming to the open water.
c. Recovery
Great athletes are great at recovery. Refueling immediately after workouts, keeping life-stress to a minimum, eating healthily between workouts, avoiding inflammatory foods and drinks, stretching, foam-rolling, practicing core strength, and getting the occasional massage. All of these will support your training and help you become more durable.
Training Properly
8. Make friends with your local lap pool
a. Swimming is important for all triathlon distances
If you don’t have a swimming background, the pool is probably your enemy. It doesn’t have to be this way (I promise). Swimming gets its own section here because too many people (looking at you, long course athletes) say it’s not very important. Think about it this way: if you’re coming out of the water minutes down on the competition and completely exhausted, that negatively impacts your race — so, you’re not swimming enough.
Proper swim training means getting in the pool at least four times a week, preferably more. It’s incredibly important to consistently get time in the pool because so much of swim performance depends on technique and feel for the water.
b. Work on technique first, then fitness
Swimming is difficult for non-swimmers because more effort doesn’t necessarily translate to more speed. This is because technique — efficiency in the water — is the most important thing you can master in swimming. Hopefully, your coach can help with this. If not — again — get a new coach.
Even if your coach isn’t on deck, they should be able to instruct you to take different angles of swim footage, and then analyze that footage to help you improve body and head position, adjust your hand entry and catch, and improve your overall form in the water. Gaining swim efficiency will make you better, faster, than gaining fitness will.
9. Manage your training intensity
a. Learn how to go easy
I’ve mentioned this at least once already (see point 6.b.) — do not go hard all the time. You’ll get short-term gains, sure. But over time, training too hard too frequently will result in overreaching, overtraining, and injury. Save the intensity for your hard sessions. Make sure your aerobic sessions are truly aerobic. Zone 3 is not the same as an easy, aerobic session, and will wear you down before you can put together a consistent block of training.
b. Leave your Strava/Zwift ego behind
Constantly racing for KOMs and segment leaderboards will degrade your training, so resist the temptation and stick to your prescribed paces and power numbers. You don’t have to prove that you’re a good athlete by telling everyone about it on Strava. Your body will thank you. If you want to do a KOM-hunting ride, plan it with your coach as an intensity session done as a fartlek.
10. Remember to have fun!
Enjoy the process. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you fail a workout or have to take a session slower than usual — it’s normal, and everyone does it. Everyone experiences heavy fatigue and substandard performances; it’s all part of the game.
One of the best things you can do to become a better triathlete is to continue enjoying the sport. If you don’t enjoy the training and work that goes into your performance, it’s going to be difficult to stay in the sport long enough to become good.
Do you agree with these steps to becoming a better athlete? Is there something I missed, or something you’d like to learn more about? Let me know in the comments!