In This Edition

🏁 From The Coach’s Corner: Recovery Week, Finally

Welcome to Recovery Week. Yes, that sound you can hear is a collective sigh of relief from tired legs, tight shoulders, and athletes who have been pretending they are “fine” for at least the last seven days.

If you made it through the recent build weeks, well done. You made it. And now the job changes.

The build weeks are where we lay the bricks. Session by session, early alarm by early alarm, we stack the work. The swims, the wind trainer, the hills, the long rides, the strength, the runs where the first kilometre feels like someone has replaced your legs with timber. That is the building phase.

Recovery Week is where we let the bricks set.

It is not a week to throw the plan out completely, disappear into the couch, and reappear next Monday wondering why the body feels like a wet sock. It is a week to absorb. To freshen up. To back off just enough that the training actually becomes fitness. There is a real skill in finishing a training cycle properly, and it usually requires a little more discipline than athletes like to admit.

The temptation is always to squeeze in one more hard session, one more “make up” workout, one more chance to prove fitness. But recovery is part of the training. Not an optional extra. Not a reward for being good. It is the part where the body catches up to the work you have asked of it.

So this week, do the week properly. Move well. Sleep properly. Eat like someone who wants to train again next week. Keep the easy sessions easy. Enjoy the little reduction in load. And if you feel surprisingly good by Thursday, congratulations, that is the point. Do not immediately ruin it.

The next build is coming. Let this week do its job.

📚 Feature Read: When The Goal Outruns The Work

This week’s article is a really important one, and it fits perfectly with Recovery Week because it asks a question every athlete should be brave enough to answer: does your training honestly match the goal you have chosen?

The article, Undertraining in Triathlon: When the Goal Outruns the Work, looks at a pattern we see often. Athletes choose a big goal, enter the race, get excited by the idea of the event, but then the weekly training does not quite match the size of the ambition.

That does not mean the athlete is lazy. It means there is a gap. The goal says one thing, but the completed training says another. And that gap matters.

If an athlete wants to race long course, chase a PB, step up in distance, or take on a demanding event, the body needs repeated, consistent work to be ready for it. Not just good intentions. Not just one big weekend session every now and then. Not just race-day optimism and a new pair of shoes. The body adapts to completed work.

• Consistency: showing up often enough, week after week.
• Compliance: doing the session that was prescribed, not just the session that feels convenient.
• Optimisation: refining the details after the basics are already in place.

That order matters. There is no point chasing perfect pacing, equipment, nutrition, race wheels, supplements, or marginal gains if the weekly training rhythm is still inconsistent. As coaches, we can help adjust training around real life, work, family, fatigue and travel, but we also need athletes to be honest about what is actually being completed.

This is not about guilt. It is about alignment. A realistic goal trained for well will always beat an impressive goal approached inconsistently.

If you have a race on the horizon, this is a good week to read the article and do a simple four-week audit. What was planned? What was completed? Which discipline keeps getting skipped? Does your weekly training match the event you are preparing for?

There is also an audio version on the article page, so if you would rather listen while walking, commuting, or pretending your recovery walk is “training”, you can do that too.

🥇 Athlete Shout Out: Andrea At VIC Duathlon Race 1

A big congratulations to Andrea, who raced at Race 1 of the VIC Duathlon Series at Calder Park on Sunday.

And by all reports, it was not exactly tropical. Her first summary was simple: “It was freezing!” Perfect duathlon weather, then. Character building. Possibly finger-numbing.

The event used bike laps around two different race tracks, which Andrea said were great once she got her head around the modified figure-eight circuit. That first lap sounded like it required a little bit of mental recalibration, but once the rhythm was there, it made for a fun and technical course.

Andrea finished 1st female in the PTS5 category, which is a fantastic result. She was also using the race as a reconnaissance hit-out ahead of the Grand Final Duathlon State Championships in September, so there was a bigger purpose behind the day as well.

A special mention also to the four para athletes who raced. Representation matters, and it is always great to see more athletes out there testing themselves, racing hard, and being part of the event environment.

We also had two Tri Alliance members giving back to the sport on the day: Simon was Technical Delegate, and Tanya was Technical Official.

Events do not happen without volunteers, officials, organisers and people willing to stand out in the cold so everyone else can race safely and fairly. Thank you both for your time and contribution.

🏃 Gold Coast Marathon Festival: Good Luck Team

Next up on the calendar is the ASICS Gold Coast Marathon Festival, coming up this weekend on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July.

This is one of Australia’s great running weekends, with events across the marathon, wheelchair marathon, half marathon, 10km, 5km, junior dash and more. The course is famous for being flat, fast and scenic, running alongside the Gold Coast’s beaches and Broadwater, which is exactly why so many athletes head north hoping for a strong run, a PB, or simply a very good excuse to escape Melbourne winter.

Good luck to everyone heading up to race. Whether you are chasing a time, ticking off a distance, using it as part of a bigger endurance build, or just hoping the legs behave on the day, we hope you have a brilliant weekend.

A quick note from us: this list includes athletes connected with the Tri Alliance community in different ways, including squad members, training members and annual members. We are cheering everyone on, not trying to claim anyone’s result as our own. If we have missed someone, it is absolutely not intentional, so please let us know and we will happily give you a shout out.

🌍 Athlete Corner: European Summer Edition

While some of us are here layering up for winter training, a few of our athletes are currently overseas enjoying the European summer. We are not jealous at all. Completely fine. Very happy for them.

Mario has been on a cycling tour in Italy and sent through a cracking update after riding one of the iconic climbs of the Giro d’Italia. In his words, they climbed “nearly 2000 metres, 32 hairpin bends and nearly two hours non-stop climbing” on Passo di Mortirolo.

That is not a casual holiday spin. That is a proper day out.

Troy is currently in Venice, Nick is off on a cycling trip through France, and Johnny is also enjoying time in France.

We love seeing our athletes take their fitness into the world. Sometimes training is about race day. Sometimes it is about being strong enough, fit enough and confident enough to say yes to adventure. Either way, keep the photos and updates coming. We will continue pretending not to be jealous.

💙 Farewell For Now, EJ

This week we also say a very fond farewell to EJ, who is heading back to Chile after 14 years in Australia.

Not all of that time has been with Tri Alliance, but EJ has been part of our community since the beginning of 2022, and we have absolutely loved having him around.

It is a bittersweet move. EJ loves it here, and we love having him here, but he is also following love and heading home to be closer to family. That is a pretty good reason, even if we would quite like to keep him.

EJ, thank you for being part of the squad, part of the conversations, part of the sessions, and part of the fabric of this community. We wish you all the very best for the next chapter.

And we have a feeling this may not be goodbye forever. There are already whispers of athletes heading over for Chile’s IRONMAN 70.3 Valdivia in the future, so perhaps the next Tri Alliance catch-up will simply require a longer flight.

All the best, EJ. You will be missed.

🙋 Reminder: Run Melbourne Volunteers

A quick reminder that Run Melbourne is coming up, and Sole Motive is still looking for volunteers to support the event.

If you are not racing but would still like to be involved, volunteering is a great way to support the running community, see the event from the other side, and help create the kind of race-day experience we all appreciate when we are the ones on course.

If you are interested, please get in touch with the Sole Motive team and let them know you are available to help.

😴 Recovery Week Timetable Notes

Because it is Recovery Week, a few regular sessions are off the timetable to help everyone absorb the last block properly.

There will be no:

• Tuesday morning run session
• Thursday morning Hot Laps
• Friday morning endurance swim

Use the space well. Sleep in if you can. Move gently. Stretch. Walk. Eat properly. Do the things you usually say you should do and then mysteriously do not do.

TIMETABLE

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☕ Final Word

Recovery Week is not a pause in progress. It is part of progress.

So enjoy the lighter load, but respect it. Let the body catch up. Let the work settle. Let the bricks set properly before we start stacking the next layer.

Have a great week, team. Train smart, recover well, and if you are racing on the Gold Coast, run strong and enjoy every minute of that winter escape.