Starting TR in the racing season > which triathlon plan?

Hi there,
I’m interested in the TR triathlon plans but I’m not sure which would work best in my situation? I did a race last weekend and now have 2 months until the next, when I’ll do 3 races each spaced 3 weeks apart.

I’m new to TR but not as new to triathlon. Would the base, build or speciality be best for starting in the middle of the season like this? Or will TR just figure all that out automatically for me?

Thanks in advance!

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Hey there!

TR can take care of that for ya. :smiley:

We’d recommend using Plan Builder, which will sort out all of your training phases and overall plan for you based on the inputs you give it.

Feel free to let me or support@trainerroad.com know if you have any questions on getting Plan Builder set up!

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Ok that sounds good thank you!

I’ve just been playing around with the plan builder a bit. I’m not sure what I should put as the start date, as I’ve been doing structured training all year. Perhaps mid-Oct which is when I started a triathlon-specific training block?

And it sounds like it’s better to go for the low volume plan and add additional workouts (e.g. an easy long ride on Sundays) rather than trying the medium? I’ve been averaging 6-7h/week.

Lastly, I came into triathlon from a swimming background, and my swim sessions are usually quite a bit bigger than the ones coming up in the plan. Is this OK?

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If you’ve been training for a bit already, setting your start date as mid-October sounds like a good idea. That will ensure that you start out your plan in the appropriate phase of training relative to when your goal races are.

We do generally advise starting with a Low Volume plan and bumping it up as you see fit. We also recently added a feature that allows you to customize your workout durations day by day depending on how much time you have to train.

And it’s definitely ok to sub in your own swimming sessions if you’d prefer! You can add them into your TR Calendar as a non-cycling activity for now to track them.

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Thanks for this! OK I have built a plan and am about to start. My only remaining questions are quite specific. Sorry for all the detail, I just want to make sure I get it right and also understand fully how the plan adapts if needed.

  1. Sundays are currently in the plan as a day off but I’ll probably add an easy ride. If I do this as an “other activity” will the training plan adapt or take it into account in any way? Would it be any different if I added an appropriate TR workout instead? (Or tried “Train now”?). This also applies to runs as I might add a 15 min brick run after a midweek ride that’s not currently in the plan. Would this be noted and the plan adapted if necessary?

  2. What is the best way to change a swim workout? Next Tuesday for example is scheduled to be 850m but I’ll probably do more like 2-3km. Should I just edit the activity that’s there to increase distance and duration, or delete it and add my own? Or add my own as a second swim that same day? It looks like the customise you workout durations is just for rides at the moment?

  3. If I do a different run to the prescribed workout - say instead of Saturday’s 25 min Base Run I do something harder like 45 mins of intervals, will TR recognise that additional intensity and effort and adjust the plan accordingly if needed? Or will it not care?

Thank you!

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1 – Sundays are often a great day for an extra ride if you have the time! TrainNow is a good tool to use to help you find the session you’re looking for. If you add a TR workout, it will impact your Progression Levels, and thus give you updated adaptations for the rest of your plan.

At this time, Adaptive Training will only make changes based off of your cycling workouts, so if you add in a run, the rest of your plan wouldn’t be modified automatically. There’s no problem with adding in extra runs/swims – just take note of them and be mindful of how they affect your overall plan when it comes to your recovery from those additional workouts.

2 – Editing the swim workouts or deleting them and adding in your own should both work. You’re correct that custom workout durations are only for cycling at the moment – though this is something we’d like to improve for the future!

3 – Similar answer to your first question – Adaptive Training will only make changes to your cycling workouts at the moment, so you’d have to note the changes yourself when it comes to modifying your runs. Again, though, improving these aspects of our triathlon plans is something we’re working on. :slight_smile:

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I’d recommend doing your own and known swim workouts, as the TR ones are severely lacking for those of us who have had success swimming in the past. I usually only use the bike workouts as both the swim and run are not very well done.

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