Over the coming months, I will take you through the things you need to be thinking about as you get towards the race.  This is by no means the hard and fast rules for approaching this race, but having done it plenty of times before, I’ve figured out how to get to race week with the best preparation and least amount of stress.

I will go into more detail on the months of  October to January in future posts, but below are my suggestions for September.

September – T minus 5 Months:

Start to build your aerobic fitness.  Now, this is a fairly wide-ranging thing because some of you may already be quite fit and have had a few years of experience in Triathlon, but for some of you, this may be the first time you are dipping your toes in something of this distance.  Regardless of where you sit on the continuum, the same rules apply.

Regardless of your ability, the only reliable way to get through a long endurance event such as the Tauranga Half is to develop a large amount of aerobic fitness.  Overall fitness trumps speed in this case.  Your aerobic capacity will dictate how successfully you get through the day by increasing your metabolic efficiency for a sustained effort on race day, and it will also set the foundation for the training to come over the coming months.  Come race day you will be calling upon your aerobic fitness as the hour’s tick by and fatigue begins to set in.  The fitter you are the longer you can go for, and the less you will slow down.

This doesn’t mean you need to be out doing hours upon hours of long slow distance, not at all.  In fact, the most effective thing for you would be to start with some regular exercise or movement.  Consistency is the key to building aerobic fitness.  I see far more fitness gains from athletes who are able to get out regularly at low to moderate intensity than from those completing poorly structured, sporadic workouts.  The latter group tend to be at a higher risk of injury, carry greater levels of fatigue, compromised immunity, are less resilient when it comes to increases in workload and often struggle with focus.

Below is a typical training week our beginner athletes will follow through a fitness preparation phase prior to settling into an event-specific Training plan such as the one we have available to our Online Coaching members.  Fitter and more competent athletes will do a bit more training, but it doesn’t need to be a lot.  You certainly don’t want to be training to your maximum here as you won’t be able to lift your level to what’s required to see further fitness gains.  This aerobic training phase should take 4-6 weeks, so you have plenty of time to build up and feel more comfortable.