★★★ D.Y.O.T ⚠️ "Doing your own thing"

From time to time in your training you will come to a point where you go off the reservation and “do your own thing”. Some areas of your training this will be inherently risky and other areas this will have less consequence. Our coaches guide you on how to “engage” these limited occurrences. While we would rather you engage the plan and or reach out to us first for a blessing sometimes life will happen!

Reasons for doing your own thing beyond what the plan and coaches call for 👎👍

• Group training activities for social reasons or competitive pushes.

• Freedom! Sometimes its fun to just “let rip” and see whats under the hood.

• Moving workouts around on your schedule to accommodate training. (Note we normally ask you to get coaches approval first)

• Life and just because

• Note; most DYOT longer or harder sessions can be rebalanced with one to two days recovery.

Going “off the reservation” does have consequences and we have listed the most risky activities and training first and how to negotiate them as you recover and move forwards.

Running ⚠️👎👍

• Of the three disciplines, running has the highest risk and lower rewards for going faster, long and harder than what is RX’d.

• Most run injuries when D.Y.O.T come from poor form and or too much training stress in a shorter period of time.

• Athletes often report their rate of perceived effort to be “low” even when the pace is strong in terms of output. This is the nature of running….

• Even 30minutes of easy running extra to your weekly plan is “a lot”.

• Moving run sessions back to back is “risky” and especially higher heart rate sessions back to back.

• If you go off the rails, take a reset / rest day and regroup. Take two rest days and or rest + easy swim to reset the load on the body.

Cycling ⚠️👎👍

• Cycling is less risky than running but it does tend to fatigue the body more so due to its muscular nature and output.

• When you go longer and or longer and harder as a triathlete you will find fatigue shows up on the run and also the swim. (Yes sluggish in the water!)

• Riding longer up to 60minutes each week is possible provided it is easy RPE < 5 and no more than ~ 30-60 TSS. If you have been “doing your own thing” for running as well as cycling, try to limit the total bike and run to no more than 60min more than RX’d each week.

• Hills and going up above FTP and or bike races; For these type of rides/ group activities you may need multiple days to rest and do lighter training. This due to the fact that higher heart rate and higher intensity much like racing requires longer recovery times. Expect that there may be up to 3-5 days of lighter training needed in certain circumstances.

• If you go off the rails, take a reset / rest day and regroup. Take two rest days and or rest + easy swim to reset the load on the body.

Swimming ✌️👍

• The least “risk” of the three disciplines for injury.

• Often times you can ramp up swimming in a week or multiple days without much consequence.

• Rarely will our coaches tell you not to swim!

• Most athletes will never reach a point of so much training that could cause an injury, rather they get bored before this happens!

• Swimming is great for added recovery and overall cardio benefit.

• If you have poor form and or shoulder injury we ask you not to DYOT.

• Masters and other organized swimming is a great place to DYOT.

Other ⚠️👎👍

• Weight lifting; Be careful not to put or load legs on the same days as harder runs or hilly rides with lower cadences. (This can duplicate energy systems and cause greater risk of injury.)

• Skiing; in the off season downhill and cross country skiing is great however when you do these activities they are still stress on the body that needs to be accounted for. If you ski, leave out the run sessions. Easy bikes can be done provided they are less muscular in nature.

• If you go off the rails, take a reset / rest day and regroup. Take two rest days and or rest + easy swim to reset the load on the body.

Athlete and Coach interviews