It's that time of the year! ironguides head coach Vinnie Santana shares great training and racing tips for the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona.

It seems that every time you thumb through a triathlon magazine or wander into the health food section of your local grocery store, there are oodles of new bottles that threaten you with subpar performance unless you swallow a handful of them ASAP.

As we head full on into race season, tapering is the topic on everyone's mind. Should we taper for every race, how do we recover from the race, and how do we get back to productive training as soon as possible. The process of tapering I have talked about in previous articles. What I want to talk about here is the process of training through smaller, less important races that we use as stepping stones to our BIG races.

We can only really go through a full taper process 2 or 3 times per season without losing fitness—these tapers should ideally be a month or more apart.

Your “A” race has arrived! You are so excited you try everything to calm yourself down and focus on your race. You have done the training. You have eaten a wide range of nutrient dense foods, drank lots of water the last 36-48 hours and are well rested. What could go wrong?