Should You Race a 70.3 Before Your IRONMAN? Your Race Planning Questions Answered| Ep 598

It says, should I enter a 70.3 in July before I do Ironman Cascades Portugal in October? The way to frame this in your head, we don't need to think about the specifics of the race, but essentially Cascades is an autumn race.

It's in October time.

A July 70.3 will sit about three months out from race day.

My advice to athletes is usually there's one of two things to do.

It's either have the 70.3 far enough away from your Ironman so you can do the race as a race, then recover and then build again.

And then usually you need about 10 or 12 weeks after this to fully recover and do a full build through to an Ironman.

The second way to go about it is to enter your 70.3 as a B race and have it be in the region of five to seven weeks out before your Ironman.

And then it actually fits really well into the build.

With the athletes I work with, I can build 70.3 into any point in the training plan.

But if you're sort of self-coached, it's a bit more complicated.

So that's the kind of guidelines I'd give you really, I think.

If you're planning to do a 70.3 and you want to race it and then you want to recover and do your Ironman, leave about three months between the two because that's going to give you time where firstly, you can recover and freshen up.

And a lot of that is mental.

You know, you're going to be quite mentally tired after a block of training for the 70.3.

But then you've given yourself about three months to really build the longer endurance sessions through to Ironman.

Other than that, have that B race be between five to seven weeks out and then it fits in really nicely into your training plan.

I typically in the training plans that I'll build, If an athlete hasn't got a 70.3 at around that time, we'll build in a couple of race simulation weekends into the training plan anyway.

So if they enter the 70.3, usually that 70.3 will slot in in place of the first racing weekend.

If not, it's no problem.

You don't have to do that 70.3 on the way to it.

But it is a great thing to do.

I'd really strongly encourage people who are listening to not have the Ironman be their first ever triathlon.

There are so many things you'll learn from doing a triathlon before the actual event itself.

There are so many things you'll learn from doing a 70.3 before doing an Ironman.

Plus, on top of that, you'll get a really nice fitness bump a couple of weeks after doing the 70.3.