It is the most frustrating thing – you have trained well all base period and then suddenly when the race season starts – BANG an injury ….
Your triathlon world turns from being a place filled with promises of PBs and chocolate flavoured unicorns (ok everyone’s triathlon world is very specific to them!) to a dark boding place where you see your dreams slowly slip away, enviously watching some person running in the rain.
But every injury does not have spell the end of a season’s goals – you need to follow the following steps to determine how to cross correct
- First stop training immediately until you figure out what/how bad the injury is – this will require a specialist such as a physio (for God’s sake Jim – I am a coach not a medical professional!).
NB Too many triathletes think they can train through an injury and end up making a small injury much worse!
- Once the severity of the injury is determined and a rehab and/or rest plan mapped out – sit down with your coach and review the impact on the plan/targets
This should be based on the following –
(a) Is rehab days or weeks in duration,
(b) Impact on feasible training e.g. some injuries allow biking and swimming – so could be considered low impact,
(c) How long until A race?
Using the above factors in a decision tree format – you get some idea of what impact you are looking on the immediate goals and what you need to do.
In the end of the day – it is key to be address an injury asap and work out what needs to be done/changed to you back in the best position to achieve your goal – even if that means replanning for a new A race.
Ignoring an injury will only result in best case a sub optimal performance or worse creating a long term absence from the sport.
Thanks for taking the time to read …. if you think I made sense here and are looking to improve your times/performance – click here to contact me about 1-2-1 coaching or click here to view my training plan catalogue on training peaks
Next weeks blog – how to work better on injury prevention!
Train safe, Train smart
Coach Steve