triathlontraining

Hitting the Wall or Hitting Your Stride?

Music’s Impact on Endurance Training and Racing By Coach Maria Simone I love listening to music when I train. Give me a good beat, and I’ll be ready to run through brick walls to get that workout done and dusted. Many athletes feel similarly, and we’ve come to rely on music to help us drown[…]

Jump around! Can plyometric training give your performance a boost?

By Coach Maria Simone In high school, our crew team started each session with a warm-up routine that included 3 sets of 20 tuck jumps. Coach called them “jumpies.” We stood with feet shoulder-width apart, jumped as high as we could, tucking our legs toward our chests, and repeated the movement as quickly as possible[…]

A Coach’s View of Structured Workouts

By Coach Maria Simone For those interested in optimizing their fitness, structured workouts in TrainingPeaks offer a detailed approach to training. I’ve been using TrainingPeaks for well over a decade. During that time, I’ve worked through a series of updates on the platform – some changes I love, some I can definitely do without, and[…]

Are You Overtrained?

By Coach Maria Simone It was July 2016, and I wasn’t feeling right. I had just finished a 100-mile race, but it felt awful (well, more horrible than it usually does). Most of my training leading into that race was subpar as well. I experienced months of extreme fatigue, so bad that I was falling[…]

How to Level Up: Intermediate & Advanced Edition

By Coach Maria Simone As Ben Franklin once opined, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes…and the desire of an endurance athlete to go faster and/or further.”  Okay, maybe I added that last bit. But it’s true, right? Athletes seek to improve as a constant state of being.[…]

Triathletes vs the Kick

By Coach Lindsay Zemba Leigh  The freestyle kick can be a source of contention among many triathletes, at least for those who don’t come from a swimming background. I’ve had many athletes ask me if they need to kick, or if kick sets are worthwhile (I wouldn’t prescribe them if I didn’t think they were[…]

Should I Train When I’m Sick?

By Coach Maria Simone ‘Tis the season when flu, virus, colds, and more circulate in our closed spaces. Despite our best efforts to remain healthy, getting sick is usually not an if, it’s a when. So, when it happens you may find yourself wondering if it is safe or smart to train. Sometimes training while[…]

Wrist Based HR Monitors: Do They Work?

By Coach Maria Simone You may have heard me say before that wrist-based HR monitors, also known as optical sensors, don’t work. A look at any file from a wrist-based strap will show you pretty quickly their general lack of reliability, and tendency to provide erratic readings.  Below is a graph of a run that[…]

How To Read An Elevation Profile

By Coach Maria Simone When the course profile came out for Happy Valley 70.3, many on our team were abuzz because of the considerable climbing on the bike and the run (and maybe the swim). But, Happy Valley isn’t the only race out there that takes us over hill, over dale.  As we move into[…]

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