Big day at our C26 Triathlon Technical Camp. It was test day. All of the athletes attending camp, completed both a bike test and a run test today.

Testing is just one component of training for triathlon.  It isn’t the kind of test that an athlete either passes or fails.  It is a test of their current fitness, done with the purpose of establishing training zones for upcoming workouts. 

The ‘tests’ can also be used to track progress, but it is important to remember that it is just a single point of reference.  Sometimes an athletes’ test may not represent their true fitness.  Maybe test day, just wasn’t their day.  Perhaps they didn’t sleep well the night before or they are experiencing other stresses in their life.  However, regular testing, is a very useful tool.

Athletes had two options on the bike test.  For those that use power, they performed a standard 20 minute FTP test, like the one I did here.  The athletes, who train using heart rate, did a 30 minute functional threshold, heart rate test.  The athlete gives their best effort over thirty minutes. We then use their average heart rate, over the final twenty minutes of the test, to establish their training zones.

The run test was also a 30 minute heart rate test.  Athletes ran at a maximum effort for thirty minutes and again, we use average heart rate over the final 20 minutes of the test. 

It was not ideal to do both of these tests on the same day, but given the short amount of time at the camp, we decided to do it.  I was super proud of the athletes and how hard they worked on test day.