With big early-season events such as St. Anthony’s, Wildflower and the Florida Half-Ironman behind us, many athletes are beginning to build toward their second peak of the year, at events such as Ironman USA Lake Placid or the Chicago Triathlon. You may already be looking even further down the road to Ironman Hawaii or USAT nationals. Peaking for multiple events in a season can be tricky, and, depending on the distance, you can only achieve this pinnacle of fitness one to three times each year. By following a few key guidelines you can prepare to race your best while minimizing the toll on your body.

Train to race

Performing well in an event requires that you prepare for the specific challenges of a given course. A course’s terrain is usually the most significant variable, but you must also consider other factors including weather, aid stations, size of field and type of swim start. Prepare for these conditions by doing race-simulation workouts over terrain and in climatic conditions similar to what you expect to find on race day. Also, find out what nutrition products will be served at the aid stations and use these products in training.

You should also incorporate three to five training races into your schedule. In triathlon one discipline immediately follows another, requiring you to efficiently switch from using one group of muscles to another. Try to incorporate a training race every few weeks during your race preparation to stay sharp. The actual number of training races depends on your fitness, how close your goal race is and what kind of race it is. In the final three months before an Ironman-distance goal race, for instance, you should focus more on putting in the miles than on racing.

Low-priority training races, for which you do not fully taper, test your progress and allow you to adapt to the rigors of racing and to experiment without having important season goals at stake. Don’t train hard the day before a training race. Instead, do a mini-taper (one and a half days easy) and mini-recovery (one to two days). A training race should be attacked at maximum effort level, unless you are using the event to tune a specific skill, such as your swim-to-bike transition, in which case you would do a hard swim and a hard first 10km on bike and then cruise.

Remember that recovery is important after any race or hard workout. Follow up the training race with proper nutrition, icing, a massage or Epsom salts bath. A short, easy swim or ride, or even a water-run, after the race is also a good idea. The day after, do some easy aerobic work. It’s okay for a well-trained athlete to do some long miles if your schedule demands it.

To further supplement your preparation you should do transition workouts to develop race-specific skills. I prescribe three types of transition, or brick, workouts for my athletes. Perform brick workouts every second week in the months leading up to your goal race.

Aerobic brick workout Immediately following a ride, perform a steady-state run. For short-course athletes, the ride is usually two to three hours, and the run is 30-60 minutes For Ironman folks, the long ride can range from three to six hours and the run off the bike from 30-90 minutes. For short-course athletes, the aerobic brick is mainly used in the base-training phase, but can also occasionally be included in other training phases. Long-course athletes should include an aerobic brick almost every weekend.

Swim-ride brick The second type of brick consists of a ride immediately following a swim workout. Swim the last several hundred meters of the workout hard and then go straight into your bike session.

Brick repeats The final type of transition workout I recommend is an intense session that includes several repeats of swim-bike-run, swim-bike, or bike-run. With this workout, perform two to five times through 300-800-meter swim, 4-20km ride, 1-5km run. High-intensity, repeated-brick workouts should only be performed during the speed-training phase.

Get speedy to get fast

The improvements in endurance that result from aerobic training occur due to adaptations within the muscles and from your energy systems increasing in efficiency. Once these adaptations occur, which takes about eight to 12 weeks, you should move into four to eight weeks of tempo/steady state training. After these two training phases are complete, it’s time to begin speed work ¾ that is, the ability to repeat high-speed efforts on little recovery.

Beginning four to 12 weeks out from your A-priority race, the speed-work phase is when training intensity is at its highest and weekly training volume is reduced to accommodate the demands of this increased intensity. Workouts in this period consist of efforts at 90 percent or greater of race speed, specific race-preparation sessions, such as those mentioned above, or easy aerobic recovery workouts. Sample speed workouts include:

Swim 8-16 x 50 sprint on 2:00-3:00 holding best average possible

Bike 4-8 x 1 mile on 3-5 minutes’ rest holding best possible average watts or speed

Run After at least 10 minutes of tempo running as an active warm-up, go 4 - 6 x 400m on 2-3 minutes’ rest starting at best average pace for the set

Great care must be taken to avoid entering your speed-work period too early, as it is very difficult to maintain deep aerobic fitness. Consequently, during the speed-work period, you may want to incorporate several microcycles of longer endurance training to rebuild your aerobic system. Perform one to two weeks of endurance training after each A-priority race.

Mid-season break

Continually racing between May and November is hard on both the mind and the body. Therefore, if you have a major race late in the year it is important to take a small break during the season. This will allow your mind and body to recover. Taking a week of active recovery about eight weeks out from an important event will help you to train more effectively leading up to the late-season race. During this week you should continue to be active, but cut back by at least 50 percent in your training volume and intensity.

After your recovery week, it’s a good idea to begin training again by entering into a mini-base phase of training. Build up your endurance again through 10 days of longer, aerobic activities. Include one speed tune-up session in each sport during these 10 days and you will be refreshed, fit and ready to race.

Do whatever you need to maintain high motivation and a competitive edge as we move into the second half of the season. Take a mid-season break, do a mini base-training focus — but above all, remember to have fun throughout the summer.