What Are The Key Sessions In A Triathlon Plan?

Key triathlon sessions have the biggest impact on your fitness progression, enabling you to be race-ready in time for your event.

A well-structured triathlon plan includes key workouts to build endurance, speed, and efficiency across swim, bike, and run disciplines. These sessions vary based on race, distance, and experience level. 

Swim Workouts

• Endurance Swim builds aerobic fitness and stamina. For example, 3 x 500m at a steady pace with 30 seconds of rest.
• Threshold Swim improves sustained speed. Example: 10 x 100m at threshold pace with 15s rest.
• Open Water Practice prepares for race conditions (sighting, starts, drafting).

Bike Workouts

• Long rides build endurance for race day. An example is 3–5 hours at moderate intensity, with intervals at race pace.
• Threshold Intervals develop sustained power. For example, 3 x 12 min at 85–95% FTP with a 5-minute recovery.
• Brick Sessions adapts the body to running off the bike. An example is a 1.5–2-hour ride followed by a 20–40-minute run at race pace.

Run Workouts

• Long Run enhances aerobic endurance. Example: 75–120 min at a steady pace.
• Threshold / Tempo Run improves race pace control. For example, it involves 30 minutes at tempo effort (~80–90% max HR).
• Brick Run – Simulates race conditions. Example: 30–40 min off a race-pace bike ride.

Strength & Conditioning

• 2 strength sessions per week focusing on injury prevention, mobility, and power, including squats, lunges and posterior chain activation.

Prioritizing Key Sessions

If you need to drop a session, consider your strengths and limiters based on your race distance.

• Focus on where you can make the most gains on race day. If running is your limiter, prioritize run sessions and skip a swim or bike workout instead.
• Choose sessions that support progression. If you swim only once a week and have good endurance and technique, prioritise the swim speed session.
• Align your sessions with race demands.
  • For short, high-intensity races, prioritize interval sessions.
  • For longer events, maintain endurance-focused workouts.
• Ensure race-specific practice in the Peak phase. This includes pacing, nutrition, and brick sessions to simulate race conditions.

Rest Days

Finally, your rest day should be considered a key ‘session’ for recovery. Without adequate recovery, you will not make the adaptations you are training for and risk injury or overtraining.

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