My previous post about the first year in the sport of triathlon mostly covered essential and basic insights, how to start and what to expect. After my second year, it is time to shift the focus from beginner to intermediate and talk about some different experiences that have resonated with me during this year. While still being relatively new to the sport, I am trying to learn and implement more and more nuances into my own training and racing, bit by bit.

As a short recap: I’ve participated in four triathlon races this year, including one sprint, two Olympic and one middle distance (70.3), thereby completing my first half Iron Man and getting to know the Olympic distance a little better. At the same time, I achieved my first age group win (with small age groups) at the sprint race. On top of these, the Copenhagen half marathon and 2km open water swim around Christiansborg castle were checked off the list in 2024.

The swim

Much of my first post described the obstacle of learning how to swim at all (in front crawl technique) when getting into the sport. Fast forward two years, and I was consistently among the first 10-15% of swimmers in my races this year. On top of that, at the open water swim event in Copenhagen, I could finish in the top 11% of all participants. If someone showed me those results two years ago, I would not have believed that swimming would actually not be my weak point in a race, but set me up fairly far in front, where I would often keep my position on the bike, only to lose a lot of ground on the run.

The main ingredients for this improvement in the water, in my opinion, are consistency and coaching. I talked about consistency before, to get comfortable in the beginning. After making the initial steps though, it is equally important to keep on swimming, at least twice a week. Those sessions do not necessarily have to be long nor straining, but should aim at reminding the body how the swimming position feels like, more than once a week.

Second is proper coaching including feedback. Swimming is such a technical discipline that it does not make any sense to circle around in a pool on your own without any input on form, especially after the initial “getting comfortable”. I was lucky to focus a lot on swimming in my exchange semester in Toronto, where I spent three times a week in the university pool with the local triathlon club. My advice is therefore to swim in a club or with a coach, whenever possible.

In terms of what to focus on technique-wise (and in which order), I picked up the mnemonic PDLC from Joe Friel’s “Triathlete’s Training Bible”:

• Posture: Long and straight body, chin tucked in, eyesight to the bottom of the pool (slightly in front) and head rotating in line with the spinal axis to breathe.
• Direction: Arms extend in line with shoulder after entering the water, no crossing over the centerline
• Length: Long extension of the arm in front, trying to improve distance per stroke
• Catch: High elbow catch, diamond shape of the angle between the upper and lower arm

In his book, Joe advises to focus on and achieve proper technique in one stage before moving on to the next. Another advice, which I picked up from several different places, would be to start with short “intervals”, e.g. 50m, without major effort, explicitly focusing on the technique. In longer intervals, you should make sure to keep proper form until the end of the effort, and otherwise keep it shorter (or lower the interval intensity in favor of the technique).

What I want to improve and work on over the winter and until next season?

I would love to work with a camera underwater to get visual feedback myself. Moreover, my plan is to get technically stronger in pool-swimming specialties, such as flip turns and dolphin kicks.

The bike

Moving on to the bike, there is not a lot of advice I can give regarding technique or improvements in power. The only real advice that I followed myself at the beginning of the year, is to get a professional bike fit before increasing the bike volume, as it can prevent injuries, increase power, comfort and optimize the aero position at the same time. A bike fit often includes adjusting the shoes, saddle height, angle and setback, as well as the aerobars’ positions.

For me, biking is the discipline where it comes down to the variety of sessions (including long aerobic rides and short high-intensity intervals) and duration on the bike that determine your progress. The following power curves (Maximal power in Watts vs. duration) compare the first month with a power meter (February) with the last month (September). It is to note that there are a lot of variables, like different power meters, different focus in sessions etc. that cloud the comparison. I still think that the overall trend is visible well enough. I improved my FTP to 4.1W/kg, which is considered as a Cat. 3 rider.

What I want to improve and work on over the winter and until next season?

I would like to include more technique-related sessions in my training, for example high and low cadence work, sprinting, big gear accelerations. Otherwise, I would like to improve more on the translation of power to speed, mainly influenced by aerodynamic drag, by investing in some new equipment for the time-trial bike and working on my aero position.

The run

As mentioned before, my relation to running is the most difficult of the three disciplines. After a pleasing half marathon in Canada in October 2023, I woke up with a sharp pain in my right knee two weeks later. Taking a break for more than 8 weeks and getting a MRI, as well as an X-ray, did not bring up more than “overuse” as an explanation. That is also why I started 2024 with zero weekly kilometers.

What did I learn from this? Sometimes, you cannot change what happens when stressing your body with training. It is hard to accept, but it does not make any sense to force an injury to persist or re-appear when starting too quickly again. Instead, I tried to focus on strength work for the legs (more on that later) and gradually increased my volume week after week, as apparent from the following chart.

The only weeks with strong outliers were race weeks like the middle distance (16/06) and half marathon (15/09). However, the overall trend shows a slight increase each week, such that I am back to 20-30km per week, pain-free. Also, I was able to come close to a big milestone, that is sub 20min 5k with 20:06 and a new half marathon best with 1:36:02, four minutes faster than in Toronto 2023.

What I want to improve and work on over the winter and until next season?

Running is arguably my weakest discipline, so the plan is to increase speed with a big VO2Max block over the winter. I signed up for a winter running series with five 10k races to monitor my progress. Simultaneously, I want to work on and improve my leg strength, as well as responsiveness with plyometric exercises. The next big goals are sub 20min 5k and sub 40min 10k.

Strength and mobility

1. Strength training, mobility (dynamic), static stretching

Coming from a gym background, the value of strength and resistance training was already known to me before starting triathlon seriously. However, due to the timely investment of the three disciplines, strength training lost a lot of its importance to me. After experiencing the running injury and reminding myself of the cruciality, strength training started to be part of my weekly routine again. To keep the sessions short and productive, I focus on full-body compound exercises to create stimuli across all muscle regions. This includes, deadlifts, squats, military press, bench press, pull-ups, barbell rows and single leg stability exercises.

What I want to improve and work on over the winter and until next season?

During the winter, I want to increase the gym volume from one to two sessions per week to build more strength and support my joints, bones and tendons with the stress from endurance training.

Money

Triathlon is not particularly known for being a cheap sport. Especially the bike equipment accounts for a major share in the beginning. I would therefore like to list some of the ways to save money (after the initial shopping spree).

• Carb Drinks / Gels: Due to their constant requirement, carb drinks and gels can be seen as a major part of the monthly costs. After experimenting and reading around and into the science of glucose/fructose ratios, different types of carbohydrates etc., I can recommend the following website that lists a variety of DIY carb drink solutions instead of buying pre-made mixes: https://www.climbingnutrition.com/supplements/make-your-own-sports-drink/. Taken from the website, I settled on a mixture of maltodextrin and plain sugar 1:1, with some salt and optional lemon juice for flavoring.
• Bike equipment: Blessing and curse about the bike is that there always is something new and shiny to buy. Being in a club and getting to see the other’s gear at the weekly long ride or the club-internal time-trial contributes to that feeling. However, after the initial investment of a time-trial bike (which is already an advantage to a normal road bike), it can save you money to put the blinders on and focus on your aero position and strength on the bike instead to produce the speed. I am now setting aside a certain monthly amount as a saving to rejoice the process of buying a new bike, only when the money is actually available and intended for this purpose.
• Club wear: A way to save money in a club is to listen around and see whether an older member wants to weed out some club wear (often to make some space for the new wear!). This way, you get shirts and bib pants, branded, with little or no payment.
• Early race entries: Most races announce their next season’s date at the end of the previous season, along with early bird discounts. This is a good time to plan and book your races for the next season, such that you don’t pay the most expensive fee two weeks before the race.

Planning

After spending my first year trying to figure out by myself how to train in the best way, I started working with a coach at the beginning of 2024. I can say now that, at least for me, this is one of the wisest investments to make. Not only is it nice to have someone look over your training and make a plan, it is especially useful if you tend to overthink and obsess with details. In this case, it feels good to trust a coach and “just” execute, instead of worrying about over- or undertraining. Additionally, it is useful to have an external stakeholder, giving you the subtle pressure to not skip a session just because you do not feel like it. Since February, I was therefore able to keep training consistently, as shown here by weekly training stress score (TSS).

What I want to improve and work on over the winter and until next season?

I am still at the start of this chapter, but looking forward to planning the next season with my coach. I would love to be involved in topics like periodization and prioritization of races to fine-grain the annual training plan.

Conclusion

While already addressed in each section, I have a couple of goals for the winter and next season, that I want to list explicitly

• Technique work in the pool and on the bike
• Strength and speed for the run
• Sub 20min 5k and Sub 40min 10k
• Plan the next season: I would like to race my first proper 70.3 (this year, the swim was cancelled due to bacterial pollution) and another middle / some more Olympic/sprint distances. Longer distances will be saved up until a later point (2026?).