FAQS

How does being a myTri+Plus athlete work?

  • Once you choose and pay for a training plan based on your review of our training plans and questions and answers with our coaches, we will establish an account for you in our myTri+Plus Athlete Zone. This secure website will guide you through the sign-up process, which will begin with you filling out a series of forms, including a medical form, an activity readiness questionnaire, a services contract, a goal sheet, and liability waivers.
  • After reviewing all the forms and confirming payment, we will get together with you via phone, Skype or Facetime to review the information in detail. We will discuss your athletic history and goals, review any medical or injury problems you may have, talk about your training availability and geography (e.g. do you live in the mountains, the desert, are there safe places to swim, bike and run?), understand your current nutrition/diet plan, and generally get a good understanding of what you want to achieve as an athlete and what kind of commitment you can make to training.
  • After this conversation, our coaches will discuss your plan and build it, starting with the long-term plan, and working backward to the nearest week in more detail. You will be able to view both the long-term plan (which will be less detailed) as well as your upcoming weekly plan (which will be very detailed) in your Athlete Zone account. Your next weekly plan will be posted to your Athlete Zone account within ___ days of the beginning of the week to give you sufficient time to plan your week.
  • After each workout, you will enter information on that session into your Athlete Zone Tracker (stuff like time, distance, intensity, etc.), as well as how you feel and what kid of progress you are making.
  • We will track your progress through the Athlete Zone Tracker, and adjust your upcoming week’s workout schedule based on how much progress you are making against the original long-term plan.
  • As a myTri+Plus athlete, you will have unlimited access to our webinar series (link to description of series) on the many aspects of fitness and racing. These webinar presentations will help you understand in more detail the many aspects of modern fitness coaching that ...
  • We will also be available via phone and email for weekly conversations to help you track and monitor your fitness.

I have never raced before. Will you help prepare me for my first race?

Preparing our athletes for a race is one of the fundamental aspects of our approach to coaching. Racing should be fun, and part of what we do is to work with you, through webinar presentations and one-on-one coaching, to make sure you understand how to get through your races with a smile on your face, from the moment you show up for registration, to setting up your bike and run transition, to preparing for the start, to getting through transition smoothly, all the way to the finish line.

Your training plans look really complicated. Do I really have the time to get into that sort of detail?

• The purpose of hiring a coach is to help you maximize your efficiency and the effectiveness of your training. During the process of formulating your training plan, we will work with you one-on-one to understand as much as possible about your fitness history, your athletic ability, your fitness level, your availability for training, and your racing goals. Once we understand these parameters, the hard work of putting together the training plan is ours; you will receive weekly details of your upcoming workouts, and be able to access all the training webinars and information at your convenience. The plan will only be as complicated as you want it to be, according to your abilities, your goals, and your availability to train.

What happens if I miss part of my training plan?

• One of the advantages of working with us is that we have a lot of the experiences of the enthusiastic amateur athlete: we know what it is like to get injured, to have family obligations, to have an emergency at
work that ay cause us to miss a significant amount of training time. The personal nature of myTri+Plus’ coaching methodology allows us to work with you to understand what effect the missed time will have on your training and to adjust your upcoming weekly training plans accordingly.

I was an athlete when I was younger but have been out of the gym for many years now. What kind of things should I expect of myself if I start a training program?

• Those of us who were active when we were younger but became more sedentary due to work and family obligations shouldn’t have too much to worry about - your body remembers when you used to be more active. Our coaches will work with you one-on-one to understand your athletic history and skill level, matched with your goals, to create a training plan that will get you back to where you want to be. You might start slowly, but sticking to a good training plan will get you there.

I just want to lose some weight. Why should I use a racing coaching service if this is my only goal?

• Racing fitness differs significantly from simple weight loss. Setting positive goals as opposed to negative goals, being part of a supportive, encouraging sport, reaching positive achievements, improving your fitness through exercise and good nutrition as opposed to putting your body through potentially dangerous diets - all of these make racing fitness qualitatively different from weight loss. By achieving positive goals you will create a positive feedback loop that is much more likely to keep you fit and healthy than through simple dieting.

I’ve heard that the equipment for triathlon is really expensive? Do I need a really fancy bike and wetsuit to run a triathlon?

• Like many sports, there have been great advances in equipment technology in triathlon in recent years. The best advice we can give is that you should spend as much on equipment as you can afford, because at the end of the day, equipment isn’t fast, athletes are. Bikes can range from the hundreds of dollars to many thousands for superhigh-tech carbon fiber bikes. But you should spend on equipment the amount you feel comfortable, and the result depends you, not the equipment.

Isn’t triathlon really too hard for me?

• While challenging, triathlon employs skills that almost all of us have to one degree or another. Our training methodology emphasizes the development of these skills together with your overall fitness. You can accomplish a lot with the right training plan and a coach who has been through the experience of getting off the couch and achieving goals in fitness.

I always get injured when I train really hard. Can racing fitness help me with this?

• Absolutely. One of the most common issues that athletes face is how to train effectively without getting hurt. Modern coaching methodology and science offers many solutions for injured athletes. Our coaches’ training and personal experience in overcoming injury are also valuable tools in avoiding injury in the first place, and our network of professionals can help guide you through the injury rehab process.

I have always trained really hard but can’t seem to make the kind of progress in my fitness that I want. Can you help me make my training more effective?

• One of our primary goals at myTri+Plus is to work with athletes to maximize their training efficiency and to mininize “garbage” training time. Many amateur athletes make common training mistakes such as going too hard all the time, and emphasizing training time over training quality. We can help you by designing a training plan that addresses your weaknesses, accents your strengths, and emphasizes high-quality and intense training sessions over pure training time. We also employ advanced periodization and specific workout planning methodologies that can help you gain fitness faster than you have in the past by using pure volume-based training. We learned our coaching from the pros, and know how to deploy that methodology to the enthusiastic amateur, because, well, that’s what we are!

I am really busy. How can I expect to race well if I don’t have a lot of free time to work out?

• You might be surprised at the positive results you can get from three to four training sessions per week. Our advanced coaching methodologies put positive stress on the body, interspersed with liberal doses of rest and recovery, allowing you to work out in controlled but intense periods, with plenty of time for rest and recovery. This approach allows for the busy person to add a very effective training regimen for a shorter  race to a busy schedule.

I don’t want to race really hard, but I want to participate in events. Will you train me for that?

• Absolutely. At myTri+Plus, we are focused on setting goals and achieving them. Very few of us will ever win a race. But it’s not about winning, it’s about setting a personal goal, working toward it with a sensible training plan, and achieving your goal. It’s what we do as amateur athletes in our racing, and it’s what we do as coaches.

I’m afraid you’ll have me in the gym all the time lifting weights, and I don’t want to get all bulked up.

• The myTri+Plus approach emphasizes total fitness, including resistance and weight training. However, our training plans will not make you look like a bodybuilder. You will get stronger on our plans, but not at 
the expense of bulking up.

Do you have any programs on nutrition? I want to incorporate better eating habits into my training.

• Our coaches are not registered nutritionists, so we cannot offer any medical advice on nutrition. However, we are trained in training and racing nutrition, and this is an important component of our training plans. This includes a webinar on sports nutrition, plenty or links and references to the latest science on sports nutrition, and the opportunity to communicate with a sports nutritionist who is part of our professional network.

I’ve never even run a 5K but am interested in triathlon. What distance should I think of doing?

• A sprint distance triathlon is a great distance to start with, usually consisting of a 1/4 to 1/3 mile swim (10-15 minutes for slower swimmers), a 12-16 mile bike (up to an hour for slower riders), and a 3-mile run. These races are usually held in local communities with easy courses, supportive crowds and volunteers, and an exciting racing atmosphere. Training for this distance can be easy to moderate for the beginner triathlete, and race day is a great experience. The average beginner triathlete can train effectively for a sprint triathlon with a minimum of four training sessions per week, easily manageable for most busy people.

What if I have never done a triathlon before? How do I get started?

• Triathlon is less difficult than most people expect. Everyone can run, just about everyone can bike, and most of us can already swim. The two best ways to get started in triathlon are i) hire a coach to work with you to determine your goals and to prepare a training and racing plan, or ii) to buy a guide to triathlon (there are many books and web programs available). At myTri+Plus we believe the coaching route is best for many triathletes who may be too busy to put together a comprehensive training and racing plan to meet their unique abilities and availability to train. Our advanced coaching science and methodologies will help you maximize your results with efficient effort and time commitment.

I am really uncomfortable with the swimming portion of triathlon, but still want to try racing fitness. What are my options?

• If you have determined that triathlon is not for you, there are many opportunities to race outside of triathlon. Running road races is the most obvious alternative, and there are thousands of local and regional road races of all distances held every year. If you are still interested in multisport, you might try duathlon (biking and running). Or you can set up a relay team for a local triathlon, with three team members each taking responsibility for a different leg of the race. There are many options to choose from and we can help you make that choice once you’ve made the commitment to racing fitness.