New Coached Training Programmes For Running and Triathlon

One of the fun things about having our performance lab is we can test our programmes and continually tune them based on our findings.

We’re not content to always do things the same way, so we continually try to evolve based on our learnings, research and feedback from our athletes. We want to offer the highest quality training plans and support that we can, at an incredibly reasonable price.

When the global pandemic swept in, forcing us to close our lab and group training sessions, it freed me up to focus deeply on the development of our new training plans. I had already made a start before COVID-19 hit, but with the additional time, I was able to finish them significantly faster than I originally planned.

Since March, we have completely rewritten our training programmes for running races, triathlon races and triathlon fitness. I will be working on our new running fitness plans into 2021.

The new programmes are significantly different from our previous ones so if you have been Coached before; it’s worth trying our new & improved programme.

What’s Changed?

Our last programmes were great. They helped many people to achieve PB’s, run Boston and compete at the Ironman World Championships. In our lab, we saw these improvements with positive changes in lactate clearance and threshold, fat burning and aerobic function. They also helped people to lower their rate of injury.

What I feel we underutilised based on athlete feedback and lab results, was the high-intensity component of training, and helping people to dial in their race pace.

Now don’t get me wrong, we had high-intensity training in our programmes, but I feel the timing and ratio may not have been as good as I’d have liked.

We’ve fixed that, and I believe the new plans have struck a better balance.

So what’s new?

Programmes Are More Polarised

Our programmes have always been polarised and progressive, moving from a general focus early in the plans to a race-specific focus closer to the race. That remains, but the way we do it has changed. We now include some high-intensity work in all phases of training, the exact intensity and ratio changing as you progress through your programme.

We Use A Hybrid Of Heart Rate And Pace To Prescribe Intensity

Up until recently, we’ve primarily used heart rate for prescribing intensity. Heart rate works great for low-intensity training (and for assessing recovery) but is less useful when you do shorter high-intensity interval sessions.

In our new training programmes, we use a mix of heart rate and pace (along with power on the bike) to prescribe intensity in each of our training sessions.