5. Great Threshold Workout
Many triathletes, even long-distance athletes, are realizing the benefits of training their threshold. These races provide a great environment for this type of training. Sprint tri's can vary in length, but generally you're looking at something like: 750-meter swim, 12- to16-mile bike, and a 5K run. Depending on the course and conditions, completing the race can take about an hour for the speedy folks and around an hour and a half for average triathletes with a few races under their belts.
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I like to pace these races as a long, hard, threshold effort. Every "zone" you have should have a range. Your threshold on the bike may be 250 watts, however you threshold zone may be 235 to 265, so you have some room to work with here.
Go for your threshold pace on the swim (1,000-meter time trial effort), a solid, normalized, threshold effort on the bike and then see what you've got for the run. If you can knock off a threshold pace for the run at the end of an hour or more race effort, you're looking pretty good in my book. Not to mention you just did a killer threshold training session.
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If you didn't hit your threshold run pace, you should start looking into why. Did you go too hard on the bike or swim? Too many spikes in power on the bike? Just got fatigued? If so, how far off your pace were you? This can be valuable information and data for future training and give you some clues to where your weaknesses may be.
6. Sprint Tri's Will Make Your Ironman Feel Like Slow Motion
Sprint triathlons are hard. Don't let short distance and larger numbers of beginners fool you. Coming out of the water and getting right into a threshold effort on the bike is tough to execute. With the high intensity it is very easy to go too hard and blow up.
On the other hand, if you take too long to find your rhythm and "warm up" into any part of the race, you'll lose a huge amount of time. That leg could be over by the time you get into the groove. Becoming efficient and comfortable at this will pay you back.
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Being able to blast through transition and find your pace and rhythm at these speeds and high intensities will make your longer races feel like Sunday brunch. You will be far more in control, minimizing the chance of making an error and maximizing your ability to execute your race to perfection.
You may not find that a training race is on the schedule and that's fine. You may have spent the last three years doing short triathlons, and now it's time to try a longer one. It always depends on the individual. We are all different. We have different strengths and weaknesses, different backgrounds and resources.
But next time you're looking for some racing to do before the big one, give a local sprint triathlon a go. You'll learn more about yourself than you think.
Train hard, train safe!
More: 10 Training Rules for Triathletes
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