Episode 134: What To Do During Race Week, Triathlon Tips for First Timers, and Avoiding “Zombie Training”

Written By Katie Clayton

In this week’s episode, we share practical race-week strategies for endurance athletes, including how to prepare your bike, dial in transitions, visualize race day, and avoid common mistakes before the starting gun. We also break down our top 10 tips for first-time triathletes, from fueling and open-water swimming to pacing, bike handling, cooling strategies, and mindset preparation. Katie reflects on her experience pacing a fifth grader at a Girls on the Run 5K and the surprising lessons that apply to athletes of every level. Finally, we explore Gordo Byrn’s concept of “zombie training,” discuss the importance of recovery, consistency, and avoiding chronic fatigue, and share resources on the Norwegian Method, open-water swimming, and race-day gear. Whether you’re preparing for your first sprint triathlon or your next Ironman, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you train and race smarter. Check it out!

Insights

A few quick race week reminders

  • Clean and check your bike on Monday. If in any doubt, go to the bike shop to ensure you have a well working bike on race day.  If you are laying in bed at night wondering ANYTHING about your bike, it’s time to get to the bike shop and get that off your worry list.

  • Race week workouts are optional, keep-your-body-moving lightly workouts.  Less is more on race week. The goal is to show up 100% healthy and rested. 

  • Read the athlete guide to familiarize with where transitions are and how transitions are set up re: do you have to put all your gear in a plastic bag a “clean” transition or if you can put stuff on the ground.

  • Visualize race pace from swim to bike to run.  Swim - relaxed, long and strong. Bike - fueling/hydration on the 15’/30’, consistent monitoring of effort, anchoring in how you want to feel at T2.  Run - building into the effort, keeping on top of fueling, monitoring your body sensations especially if hot and making pacing adjustments according. 

  • Check out Episode 83 and Episode 28 for more race week tips!

10 tips for first timers in triathlon

I was recently asked by a family friend who is signed up for their first sprint tri if I have any tips for first timers. This was actually hard to answer because there are so many tips/insights that you accumulate over time! But I made a list off the top of my head to get us started…

  • Eat a good breakfast 2-3 hours before the race (carb heavy and substantial), sip electrolytes/carbs throughout the morning, and take a hit of carbs (30-60g) right before the gun goes off. It’s possible to bonk even in a sprint if you are super underfueled going in from a long morning of race prep. 

  • When setting up your transition, visualize swim entry/exit, bike entry/exit, and run entry/exit (even walk through these to practice while visualizing). Also identify a landmark or commit your race number to memory that will help you find your bike as quickly as possible. You would be surprised how many people get very disoriented after the swim!

  • Swim warmup is essential. Get in the water, ideally swim 5-10 mins super easy and practice sighting on swim entry and exit, adjust goggles to your liking, acclimate to the cold, etc. If you can’t warm up, at least get knee deep into the water and splash cold water on your head/arms/face. 

  • No one wins the tri in the swim, but you can certainly lose it; the difference between swimming easy/moderate and swimming all out is often a matter or seconds or minutes for first timers; think “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” and treat the swim as the warmup for the rest of the race.

  • If you are feeling overwhelmed in the swim, you have options! (1) Switch to breast stroke or whatever stroke is comfortable; (2) float on your back; (3) Grab onto a kayak to rest for a little while and get your bearings, which is allowed in most races as long as you aren’t making forward progress with the boat!

    • My family friend said “I’m not worried about placement etc, but sadly some ego was thinking I couldn’t breaststroke, so I will most definitely keep that in mind when I need to get bearings!”

  • Invest in practicing open water sighting, even in the pool; your fastest swim is one in which you swim the actual course and minimal extra. Within the specific prep phase (6-12 weeks leading to race day), it’s useful to sight 1x per 25 in the pool for most swims 

  • Important to practice bike handling as much as it is to build bike fitness, so get outside and practice fueling/hydrating, and generally being comfortable riding on the roads 

  • If it’s over 70 degrees and/or over 60 percent humidity (or even if you are just not actively cold!) consider dumping cold water on your heat at aid stations to get a boost of energy.

  • As a first line of defense if you are feeling bad or low energy, try taking in some carbs (i.e. bring a gel or two with you on the run and have carbs in your bike water bottle) 

  • Mindset prep is useful for everyone! At a minimum, have some mantras prepped for when the going gets tough and write out your “cookie jar” or “resilience data points” (hard things you have done in the past that symbolize the energy you want to bring to race day) 

Takeaways from Girls on the Run 5K

  • Awesome nonprofit that Elena coaches for in SLC - learn more here!

  • My trainer is a coach for a local team and needed someone to sub in as a 5th grader’s buddy, so I got to run the 5k with them

  • HUGE event - participants in the 1000s 

  • I was surprised to see that many of the lessons and approaches for a 5th grader doing their first 5k were pretty close to what we tell many of our athletes! 

    • Nerves and excitement manifesting the same way somatically in the body 

    • Racing your own race - my buddy did a great job of not getting carried away with teammates who ran really hard in the beginning; she ended up passing most of them by the end by playing it conservatively 

    • Check ins throughout on how you are feeling 1-10 scale → at mile 1 we want to feel like X, at mile 2 like Y, at the final stretch like Z etc. 

    • Walking the aid stations to get hydration in 

    • Mental tricks to break up a longer run: Back Bay streets in Boston are A-H so we were counting the alphabet down and then counting in reverse (just focusing on going from D to C)

    • “Flow state” at the end (sprinting down the final stretch and ending saying “The sprinting felt like it was easy!!”)

  • And as an aside for spring weather in general:

    • 40-50s and raining is DANGEROUS weather. Layering is essential and staying still for too long gets dicey. Super impressed with how all of the kids handled it, but be wary of conditions that seem okay but could turn dangerous quickly, especially in more remote terrain than the Boston Common 

Gordo Byrn on “zombie training”

Context:

Everyone who gets good at sport does a lot of volume. As volume increases, the return on load decreases. Eventually, we arrive at a point where there are negative returns to additional load. I call this point Zombie Training. Zombies are hooked on volume, and don’t mind the feelings associated with exhaustion. In fact, one of the only times they get a (brief) hormonal boost is when they make themselves more tired. The classic statement we hear is, “I only feel good when I train.”

Because they have zero emotional attachment to fatigue, zombie trainers perform well in ultra distance events, especially when they are motivated and willing to eat.

Where they will struggle:

  • Chronic low-level niggles and injuries, watch for tendons/cuts that don’t heal and broken cuticles.

  • One-speed training capacity, often a decent speed, but no top end or short-duration pop.

  • Suppressed heart rate and lactate response, especially in the Red Zone.

  • Heart rate quick to drop in training, but elevated at rest.

  • Low quality sleep, makes it tempting to self-medicate with drugs, alcohol and exhaustion.

  • Race performance is worse than training performance.

  • Zombie trainers believe exhaustion is necessary for success, and they’re half right. However, they have forgotten about positive adaption and the magic of compounding (without breakdown).

We are all at risk of faulty thinking. To combat my tendencies towards maladaptive stress, I collect sayings and heuristics. I want to disrupt faulty thinking at multiple levels.

  • I want to get better, not tired.

  • Preemptive recovery is powerful.

  • My run program is “just stay healthy.”

  • I do my easy training alone.

  • I want to feel superb at least once a week.

  • Half of my days are easy.

  • Re-establish the positive trend, weekly.

  • Setbacks are loading errors, never bad luck.

  • If I don’t feel like adding load then it’s time to reduce it.

  • Consistency is my protocol.

These rules form the decision algorithm in my head. They consist of things to-do and things not-to-do.”

Jim: Gordo’s lessons have a lot of overlap with the concepts in the pioneer of Norwegian training, Marius Bakken. A couple of resources to check out: 

The Norwegian Method Applied: Threshold Training and Intensity Control for Faster, More Durable Running at Every Level by Marius Bakken

Gordo’s summary of the key concepts in Marius’ book: The Norwegian Method Applied

Tri Suit Recommendations

Bento Box & frame bag recommendations

Dark Speed Works 483:

Dark Speed Works 693:

Pay attention that you get the universal mount which is velcro straps unless you have two screws on your top tube where you can screw in a direct mount bag. 

X-Labs has some nice ones, too. 

Apidura has one that is all the rage with the Unbound gravel racers:  Aero

Top Tube Module

You can also consider a frame bag which is what I mount on my road and gravel bike for long rides. Tailfin makes nice ones.  (Careful - many frame bags can stick out beyond the top tube which you might hit your knees on depending on how you pedal.)

Swim Cap Giveaway

I have several dozen high quality Endurance Drive neoprene swim caps to give away. All you need to do is send me your name and address and I’ll pop one in the mail for you!

Challenge or Resource of the week

Gear pick of the week

Katie Clayton
Next

Episode 133: Strength Training for Endurance Athletes with Maggie Mullins, DPT