My training plan had two workouts scheduled to be done today.  I had a very hard, big gear, bike workout, followed by an easy twenty minute run off the bike.  I got both workouts done early, and so when my wife said she was going to the pool for a swim, I decided to join her and do an extra workout.

Is it okay to add an extra workout to your plan?  Like most things in triathlon training, it depends.  As long as you are smart about it, it is generally perfectly fine.  Here are some do’s and don’ts regarding extra workouts.

• Don’t make the extra workout too demanding or long.  Go for an easy effort ride or swim.  If the extra workout is a run, go super easy.  My extra workout today, was a swim and I made it very easy by using a pull buoy, to rest my legs.
• Don’t do extra work on days that are meant for recovery.  In most plans, there are days that have hard effort workouts and days with a much lighter workload.  Doing extra work on recovery days, is going to compromise your body’s ability to absorb the load.
• Do make sure you are fit enough to be able to handle the extra work.  Don’t do additional workouts to make up for lost time!!  Make sure that any additions, don’t leave you exhausted and unable to effectively execute your plan, in the next few days.
• Do extra workouts only occasionally.  Do them to enhance your enjoyment of the sport.  Doing extra to be a ‘hero’, or to boast on social media, is the wrong reason to increase your workload.

So, even though I did three workouts today, two of them were easy effort training.  Together the three workouts made for a big day of training, but today was scheduled to be one of my hard days this week anyway.  I feel really good about my extra workout, and am looking forward to my easy effort ride tomorrow.