Beginners should not even attempt to overreach. A novice triathlete's body simply isn't resilient enough to positively adapt to a full week of training without any recovery opportunities. If you have less than two years of consistent endurance training experience behind you, it is best that you never go more than three our four days without training lightly enough to fully recover from your most recent batch of hard workouts. Wait another season or two before you try to overreach.
Planning to Overreach
To plan a week of overreaching, simply sketch out a week of workouts that represents the most total training you think you can absorb in seven days without becoming injured or experiencing a severe decline in performance before the week is through. I find that the safest and most effective way to plan an overreaching week is to retain all of the hard training sessions you normally do in a week and replace any and all light sessions with moderate ones.
In other words, when overreaching you need not make your hard sessions any harder than normal—although one or two of them should be a bit more challenging than the previous week's key sessions. What transforms the week from a normal progressive training week into an overreaching week—in a manner that limits risk—is reducing the amount of recovery you are able to enjoy between hard sessions by replacing light days and rest days with moderate workout days.
Let's look at a hypothetical example of an Olympic-distance triathlete who wishes to overreach for one week. Below are three sample training weeks. The first represents the week preceding the planned overreaching week. The second represents a progressive training week that would normally follow the first week if the athlete were not choosing to overreach. And the third week represents a sensible week of overreaching.
As you can see, the key workouts in the overreaching week are not more challenging than those in the progressive training week. What makes the overreaching week more challenging than the progressive training week is that Monday's rest is replaced with a 20-mile bike ride, and two-mile runs are tacked onto the end of the other three rides.
These additions of moderate-intensity training make the overreaching week roughly 15 percent greater in volume (measured in training hours) than the progressive week.
If planned appropriately, a normal, progressive training week is already challenging enough to leave the athlete in need of the following Monday's rest day. In light of this fact, it's easy to see how the modest additions in the overreaching week will push the athlete very close to, but not past, the brink of overtraining.
Week 1
| Monday | Rest |
| Tuesday | Swim 2K - Main Set (MS): 10 x 50m | Run 6 miles (mi) w/ 3 mi. @ Aerobic Threshold (AT) |
| Wednesday | Bike 20 mi. w/ 5 x 4-minute hills |
| Thursday | Swim 2K - MS: 3 x 300m | Run 6 mi. w/ 6 x 1-min fartlek @ 5K pace |
| Friday | Bike 20 mi. w/ last 3 mi. @ AT |
| Saturday | Swim 2K steady | Run 10 mi. moderate |
| Sunday | Bike 35 mi. moderate |
Week 2 — Normal Progressive Training Week
| Monday | Rest |
| Tuesday | Swim 2.2K - MS: 12 x 50m | Run 6.5 mi. w/ 3.5 mi. @ AT |
| Wednesday | Bike 20 mi. w/ 5 x 5-min. hills |
| Thursday | Swim 2.2K - MS: 3 x 300m | Run 6.5 mi. w/ 7 x 1-min fartlek @ 5K pace |
| Friday | Bike 20 mi. w/ last 4 mi. @ AT |
| Saturday | Swim 2.2K steady | Run 10 mi. moderate |
| Sunday | Bike 40 mi. moderate |
Week 3 — Overreaching Week
| Monday | Bike 20 mi. easy |
| Tuesday | Swim 2.2K - MS: 12 x 50m | Run 6.5 mi. w/ 3.5 mi. @ AT |
| Wednesday | Bike 20 mi. w/ 5 x 5-min. hills + 2-mi. transition run |
| Thursday | Swim 2.2K - MS: 3 x 300m | Run 6.5 mi. w/ 7 x 1-min fartlek @ 5K pace |
| Friday | Bike 20 mi. w/ last 4 mi. @ AT + 2-mi. trans. run |
| Saturday | Swim 2.2K steady | Run 10 mi. moderate |
| Sunday | Bike 40 mi. moderate + 2-mi. trans. run |
Overreaching periods like the one above should only be done in the latter weeks of training for a peak race, when you are already fairly fit.