hot off the press!
Guess what? Coach Alison wrote a book!
Unlocking Triathlon: Training Plans and Coaching Support for a Confident Race Day is published by Human Kinetics, and it covers swim-bike-run-triathlon skills, the principles behind fitness development, and all those coach-athlete conversations that happen throughout a training season and leading up to race day. It also, of course, includes training plans – plans that can be tailored to fit your specific athletic background. And while the book is geared toward newer triathletes, just about anyone will learn a thing or two (or three or four) by reading it.
Order the book on Amazon today.
what triathletes can steal from off-road cyclists: racing the day you get, not the day you planned
Coach Julie
I follow as much cycling as I do triathlon, and these last few races have me thinking: off-road cyclists are more honest about how racing goes. Triathlon loves “control what you can control” — true, but it can become an excuse to pretend the plan is the point. Watch Leadville and Unbound instead: the plan is just a starting position.
Keegan Swenson’s sixth Leadville win almost wasn’t. Five previous wins came from riding away from everyone — this year his gap at Columbine Mine didn’t hold, so instead of forcing it, he sat up, banked energy over pride, and waited until 14 miles out to make his move — then won it in a sprint, having simply adjusted before the day decided for him.
Unbound’s mud year was won in the pits, not the legs. Overnight storms turned the 200 into peanut-butter mud that stopped wheels cold. Survivors weren’t necessarily the fittest — they were the ones prepped for a race that might go sideways. Swenson gave up his own wheel to help a teammate, lost time, and still fought to 5th. A “did you leave yourself a way out” story, not a fitness one.
Even triathletes are catching on: Hayden Wilde won 70.3 Worlds by 18 seconds after dropping his watch in transition — no pace data for a world championship run. He paced off a competitor instead and held on. Same lesson: data’s a tool, not an obligation once it stops making sense.
None of this argues against pacing plans — you still need them. It argues for practicing the moment the plan breaks, before race day does it for you. Decide now, in training, what your fallback effort is if fueling goes sideways or your watch dies — a decision already made, not one made at mile 80 with a clear head you no longer have.
The mud and the altitude teach this every year: it’s not about a perfect plan. It’s about a second one.
lessons from feistyfest
Coach Alison
I just spent the weekend at FeistyFest – a 3-day multisport festival for active women. I went in not really knowing what to expect, but days later am still buzzing with the energy from the event.
FeistyFest wasn’t just women swimming, cycling, running, lifting, and playing pickleball. They did do all those things, but it felt like those activities were just the vehicle for everything else: supporting and encouraging, exploring and learning, connecting and engaging with openness and curiosity. And it made me wonder: what if sport is not the reason, but rather the vehicle. What if swimming, biking, running, and racing is actually just an opportunity to be a better version of ourselves, and to be better to each other. It may not always be that, but it certainly can be – and it’s pretty exceptional when it is.