Announcing Masters Triathlon Plans 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[SeanHurley]

Today, we’re launching Masters Triathlon training plans and updating our existing Triathlon plans!

Masters Triathlon Plans

Recently, we launched Masters cycling plans. Many of you requested that we do the same for Triathlon; now we have!

Masters Triathlon plans use a 2:1 load-to-recovery week ratio. With a Masters Triathlon plan, you’ll get a recovery week every third week throughout your plan, as opposed to every fourth week in a non-masters plan.

This design allows us to preserve key workouts across all 3 sports each week, while still facilitating extra recovery throughout your training.

Who’s it for?

Just as with our Masters Cycling plans, we recommend the Masters Triathlon plans for older athletes or anyone else who needs additional recovery.

This could be new parents, shift workers, athletes with high-stress jobs, or athletes with sleep issues, to name a few examples.

Getting Started

Masters Triathlon plans are available in the training plan section on both TrainerRoad.com and in the TrainerRoad apps. They are also available in Plan Builder. Please make sure your app is updated to the latest version.

If you’re already on a Triathlon plan, you’ll get a popup notice after your next recovery week, asking if you’d like to switch to a Master’s plan.

You can also switch your existing Triathlon plan to a Masters Plan from the calendar. Click your plan’s name and a plan overview window will appear; on the web you’ll see a Masters toggle switch here. In the apps, you’ll need to click the pencil-shaped “edit” icon at the bottom left corner to access the toggle switch.

Any changes you make here will affect the rest of your plan, beginning after your next recovery week. This will also reset any volume changes you’ve made to individual phases in your plan.

Note: Unlike with cycling plans, you can’t swap out individual phases within your Triathlon plan for Masters versions. This could cause unintended consequences due to the differences in load-to-recovery ratio.

Improvements to All Triathlon Plans

We’ve also made some improvements to our regular “non-masters” Triathlon plans.

All Triathlon Base, Build, and Specialty plans are now 8 weeks long (6 weeks for Masters). Custom Triathlon plans built with Plan Builder may still include longer or shorter phases as needed to optimize your training.

We’ve fine-tuned the workout progressions within these plans, and standardized their load-to-recovery ratio to 3:1. This means you’ll get a recovery week every fourth week in any non-masters Triathlon plan.

If you have an existing Triathlon plan, we’ll update it with the new settings after your next recovery week.

That’s it! Head on over to TrainerRoad.com to check out the new updates, or sign up today to start getting faster!

[foldingbikebass]

Thanks for the update Sean.
I got a pop-up within the desktop app just before you posted this. I’m looking forward to looking through the plans and compare/contrast the normal vs masters.

@SeanHurley

We’ve fine-tuned the workout progressions within these plans, and standardized their load-to-recovery ratio to 3:1. This means you’ll get a recovery week every fourth week in any non-masters Triathlon plan.

If you have an existing Triathlon plan, we’ll update it with the new settings after your next recovery week.

I have a custom plan which has a 2 week Base period inserted after my first 8 week Build and before a further 8 week build. Will this change in relation to recovery weeks, or does your quote only apply within a full-length block of 8? I.e. there will continue to be exceptions to this rule for custom length plans?

[SeanHurley]

Custom plans will still work around whatever amount of weeks you have available to train, but will maintain a more consistent load:deload ratio within your plan than they did before.

[foldingbikebass]

Is it possible for you to give a worked example or expand on this more specifically?
I appreciate that in 3-4 weeks time, everyone will be transitioned as they reach a rest week, so it’s a short-term query. But a lot of the questions in the Cycling Masters thread were about transitions/adjustments. So it may be worth getting ahead of these.

Feel free to use my example of 8week Build - 2 weeks Base - 8 weeks Build, or your own as you see fit.

[SeanHurley]

I can try! Which triathlon discipline is your current plan?

[foldingbikebass]

I’m on Half Distance Mid Vol. If an example isn’t best, it would good to understand the mechanical principles of what Plan Builder will do.

[SeanHurley]

It’s a bit difficult to generalize about Plan Builder’s updated logic, as it’s specific to your discipline, plan length, volume, events, and other unique personal variables. But as a general rule, long stretches of weeks without recovery will be eliminated, and if there are a few “extra” weeks to fill in, you’ll see a shorter phase somewhere within the plan—scheduled strategically where a little reduced load will be most helpful. In the case you describe, the old plan structure includes that long stretch you mention with two weeks of base and then 4 weeks of build, giving you 5 weeks of loading before a recovery week. That stretch will be updated to 4 weeks of build (with recovery on week 4) and 4 weeks of base (also with recovery on week 4). You’ll most likely have a shortened, lower-intensity few weeks of base before a recovery week and a steady 8 weeks of Specialty before your event. As always, once your plan updates, reach out to support if you have any questions!

[stegosaurus]

Exciting updates! I’ve just started my second TR triathlon plan recently.

We’ve fine-tuned the workout progressions within these plans,

Does this include the runs/swims? Coming into my middle distance plan I would have expected my run volume to start a little higher based on the offseason runs I was doing. In other words - it seems like every 70.3 base phase starts with the same set of runs (distance/intensity) regardless of past work, unlike how the cycling workouts would work.

[SeanHurley]

Hey there, the updated progressions do include runs and swims, for more sensible and sustainable week-over-week progressions. However, right now runs and swims aren’t adaptive the way cycling workouts are, and don’t respond to your training history in the same way that cycling workouts do.

[bfrostieone]

Question - can you explain the reasoning behind the large swings in running volume week-to-week? Example: Masters Half Low Volume Specialty

Wk1 - total run time = 3 hr 20 min, with the longest run at 1 hr 35 min
Wk2 - total run time = 3 hr 10 min, with the longest run at 1 hr 05 min
Wk3 - total run time = 1 hr 5 min, with the longest run at 35 min
Wk4 - total run time = 4 hr 5 min, with the longest run at 1 hr 50 min

This seems like huge jumps in both total weekly time and in the longer run time for the week.

[SeanHurley]

Good question! In both the Masters and Non-masters Specialty phases, we often avoid increasing your Long Run distance every week as they start to get really long, instead alternating with a shorter run the following week and focusing on a very challenging swim that day instead. In the Masters plan, since the third week is recovery, this gives you that third week of much lower volume and shorter runs as you recharge from two weeks of tough runs and swims, before again pushing the distance one last time on week 4.

[bfrostieone]

Thank you

[SeanHurley]

You got it!

[bfrostieone]

@SeanHurley I have another question: I scanned the masters half distance low volume plan again. There are only two brick runs the entire base/build/specialty. A 20-min brick in week 2 of build and a 25-min brick in week 2 of specialty. Can you explain the training philosophy behind why there are not more (and longer) brick runs to prepare for a half marathon after the swim/run in a half distance triathlon?

[SeanHurley]

Good catch- a couple of bricks slipped through during the plan promotion process. I’ll be adding those in this morning.

[nickster]

I’m in the HIM build phase and was just looking at the specialty phase and it seems to make no sense. There is no race at the end of the phase and there is no taper. The last bike workout is 1.5 hours at a pretty hard level. The last two weeks are both difficult.

[eddiegrinwald]

Hey @nickster,

It looks like you’ve been simply adding individual “ad hoc” training phases into your calendar rather than an entire training plan.

If you want a full-length plan that’s built around your event in mid-July, I’d recommend using Plan Builder to create a custom plan that’s designed for you to peak for that event. Plan Builder will fill in the time between now and then with a solid training plan that will include a taper.

It looks like you’ve already gotten some Base and Build training in, so you could backdate the start of your custom training plan to account for this if you’d like. I’d be more than happy to help figure that out once you get things in place. Just shout If you’d like my help!

[nickster]

I will do this but these plans have 3 weeks on and then a rest week as opposed to the masters plans that have 2/1 which is more appropriate for me (I will be 66 next week)

[eddiegrinwald]

You can make your custom plan a master version if you’d like! You’ll have that option when selecting your weekly schedule towards the end of the process.