Fitness, Nutrition and Training For Triathletes

How fit are you?

Fitness is transient and you’ll lose it if you’re not active for several months. There may be latent fitness below the surface, but it takes time to regain. If you’ve never done regular sports training, it can get pushed aside by other commitments. However, if you commit to being a triathlete, it will become central to your lifestyle and eventually a natural part of life.

Healthy goals

Being healthy is more than training regularly, getting a personal best (PB) or swimming a mile in less than 30 minutes. If losing weight has always been an elusive goal, make it a parallel one to completing a triathlon, so weight loss is a coincidental benefit rather than the sole reason for training. conquering past hurdles provides the motivation to succeed. Write down anything that may have prevented you achieving a goal and post this list somewhere prominent to remind yourself of past gremlins.

Diet or disaster

Is your past littered with failed diets, poor eating routines and a lack of knowledge on what to eat? There is so much information on diet, but few people are able to control what they eat, often due to the poor choices on offer. Your training is fuelled by your diet and you are rebuilt from the foods you eat. Quite literally, you are made of what you eat. If poor foods are coming in, the recovery, progress and potential of the human body are massively impaired. Like a formula one engine, you need high-octane fuel if you are to perform well.

Make a list of foods that you have over-consumed or relied upon, then another list of foods that are healthy and you love eating – diet is as much an emotional element as a functional one. To become a triathlete you need to eat well, and this aide memoire can help you to develop new healthier eating habits.

Fitness spikes and troughs

If you have been active in one sport you already make time to train, probably know how your body works and can reduce your single-sport time commitment as your two new sports provide training variety. If you have had ups and downs in your fitness and lack consistency, it’s vital to find out what causes your enthusiasm to wane to inactivity. Master your inactivity gremlins and you can keep the training going long after previous get-fit campaigns failed. Common causes include lacking a goal, doing too much too soon, having unrealistic expectations and Impatience. Keep it varied, enjoy your training and you will stay enthusiastic.

Carrot or stick?

You probably have reasons why you do most things but you never really put too much thought into them – if we over-analyzed every action it would paralyse us. So look back and see if your actions have been based on reward (carrot) or possible reprimand (stick). Do you need to be pushed to do something or reined in when you get going due to over-enthusiasm?