Over the last few years there has been a vast improvement in the way that people train for triathlons. Even our elite athletes have made big gains in this area. Sam Warriner, winner of the Triathlon World Cup in Japan, knows that one of the reasons that she has started the 2005 season so well is that she is paying attention to ensuring that it training is specific when needed. Sam does a lot of training especially running, but her programme is also rich in the components required to be successful. She is showing her body part of an ITU race every time she steps out the door or jumps in the pool.

Getting the most out of your training programme is a very fine balance between listening to your body and your training programme. You need to back off when needed but also get hard and get on with it at the right times. More on that in our related article here.

Most athletes can train hard and long. What most athletes don't do is that they don't train the right bits needed for racing hard. They just train hard. Consequently they don't get the results they deserve. I'll give you a specific example; I often hear athletes talking it up pre race, they have gone to the track and done a set of intervals and absolutely blasted it, running way faster than their expected race pace, what then happens is that they have set the internal pace for them too fast, consequently they run out too fast at the start of the run leg in their event. Of course there is a place for speed work that is faster than race pace, because that's one way to lift your game, but I'm just saying that you need to ensure you have a balance here. Some attention to pace judgment and getting the opening 500m right off the bike is a good idea if you are a triathlete. Same goes for Marathoner, people doing bike TT's and other endurance events.

On the other side of the coin, if you can't sustain race pace during a key training session close to an event, what's the value of grinding it out at a slower pace? You should consider packing up and going home - maybe move the session to the next day. That's something that experienced athletes get good at doing, listening to their bodies to improve the quality of their training.

Arthur Lydiard was very keen on this idea. Peter Snell would go to the track and run 400m reps. They wouldn't time them and they wouldn't be concerned about how many he did. Snell would just go until he felt like it was time to stop. The programme might have had 7x400m at mile race pace or something but Lydiard knew that listening to your body was more important. Now some might say that is just getting soft but I doubt that there is anyone who would call Lydiard soft. He is still regarded as THE hard man of training. Snell is still the best 800m runner New Zealand has ever produced and given modern shoes and a modern surface his best times would still be right up there. Listening to your body is crucial - don't just blindly do a programme.

Making sure that you show your body EXACTLY what will happen on race day is extremely important. I'll give you a few of examples of what I mean.

First example: At the 1998 ITU World Triathlon Champs, the elite men and women had trouble getting their wetsuits off after the swim. During the long run up from the water to the transition, their wetsuits had dried and they were harder than usual to get off. If the athletes had gone and done a swim followed by a transition, that was setup as closely as possible to the race day transition, then they would have found this out in advance and could have done something about it. In the cut throat ITU drafting races 10sec saved can be the difference between the "in contention" front group and the "thanks for coming don't bother doing the run" group.

Second example: If I were training for ITU world cup events today, my long bike rides would be very different now than what I did when I was racing. Instead of going out and just riding say 3 hours, I'd be out riding 3 hours with 4-6 others lapping it out, I'd go and ride where there are lots of short rolling hills and lots of corners and roundabouts (new sub divisions are perfect). There's going to be more benefit in this type of 3 hour ride than just going out and riding 3 hours.

Final example: Training for the Ironman swim. There is a big difference between 50m in a pool with lane ropes, a line on the bottom and leaving with 5 seconds between swimmers. In the ocean or lake you have to contend with wind, sun, waves, often a wetsuit, no line on the bottom, and no turning (you stay in that hyper extended body position essentially for the whole swim). If you have ever swum open water and felt like your arms or pecs have been ripped apart then you need to consider doing more specific open water training. If you are one of those swimmers that does better in the pool than in the open water then you also need to do more open water swimming. There is only one way to get comfortable swimming with others around you and that is to do it in training. There is far more to fast swim times than just fast pool swimming.

Spending some time planning is one of the most valuable things you can do. Start by looking at your event and breaking it down into the various parts and the skills that are then required. If the bike has a steep hill in it, better make sure that you do some of that before you race, if you are going to be tucked down on your aerobars for 180km then do some of that. If you are going to need to run a very even pace for a long period, like in a Marathon, you'd better do some extended periods at that pace somewhere. With good planning, you can ensure you cover all your bases for your upcoming event - there is always a way to make your training better.

So why have a programme then? Why not just listen to your body? Why not just go out and train all the time on the race course if possible. The answer revolves around the problem of peaking on a given day. You need to race well on race day, not one week earlier or one week later. Plus you have to make sure you cover all the "show your body the race" components before the event at the right time. The world is full of athletes that have left their best performance out training. To avoid that means doing certain things - like the big mileage at the right time, starting training at the right time, and doing speed work for just long enough.

A good programme takes information from the past and links it with the current situation. Things like how many races you need to do to get fast and less hills towards the end of a programme when you are doing a flat race. A good programme also takes your strengths and weaknesses into account and works to improve your weaknesses while maintaining the strengths.

So get your plan out, look and see what is prescribed, check out how you feel when you wake up and in your warm-up and do some quality training. Anything else would be junk.