The transition phase from winter to pre-season can be a hard one. You may have trained as much as you thought possible. Or perhaps the cold winter days, mixed in with the holidays, or a beach vacation, made it hard to get on the bike or treadmill at all.
But that’s okay. Whether you let one run, three days or several weeks slip by, falling off the wagon is perfectly normal and happens to everyone – even the most dedicated triathletes.
Depending on how much damage you’ve caused (how many workouts you’ve missed) will depend on how you should get yourself back on track. Here are some tips to help get you there even when you think it’s a lost cause:
One workout
Missing just a single workout isn’t going to set you back that much. You may have to work harder the next day, but don’t make it a habit of missing workouts. As long as it doesn’t happen regularly, missing a single workout isn’t a big deal.
Three workouts
There is a difference of missing three workouts because you’ve been sick and missing three workouts because you’ve been lazy. When you’re sick you need to give your body time to recover and you’ll know when it’s time to get back to training. Experts say that if you’ve been sick, simply mark the days as missed and pick up from there. No need to “make them up” – you’ll come back stronger doing it that way.
If you were in fact just being lazy, perhaps you need to team up with a workout buddy – someone to make yourself accountable – to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
One week
Perhaps you went on vacation and thought you’d get some swimming and running in every day and that never happened. Should you throw in the towel? No!
When you’re back, be sure to move some workouts around and tweak your plan to avoid injury. Your long run and long bike ride might be too much this week, so pick only one to focus on and focus on the other one next week. You’ll regain your form quickly and will be ready to jump back into full gear in no time.
Two weeks
Once you miss two weeks you need to re-evaluate your schedule and ask yourself if you’re too busy to be training for a triathlon. If you’re healthy enough in every aspect of your life and feel you can get back to training, then by all means do it. Be sure to ease into it to avoid injury.
Just remember, sometimes we all need a break from training – but whether it’s a few days or a week – you always have to ease back into your training to avoid injury. If you have gone off track and need some help getting into the groove again, contact me so that I can show you how to do that the proper way.
