Planning Next Season: How Many A-Races, and How Far Apart?

Every autumn, triathletes sit down with a race calendar and start choosing. A spring half-distance, a summer Ironman, maybe a September 70.3, a couple of local sprints, a club championship. Everything looks achievable in November. By August, the season can feel like a string of tapers and recoveries with very little actual training in between.

This article looks at what the research can and can't tell you about planning a season: how much a taper helps, how long recovery from long-course racing takes, why each A-race has a cost in lost building time, and how to use B and C races. There are no trials of race spacing in triathletes, so much of what follows is inference from taper and recovery data. It's labelled as such.

A, B and C races

The A, B, C system is coaching convention rather than research, but it's a useful frame:

• A-race: the focus of a training block, with a full taper beforehand and planned recovery afterwards.
• B-race: important, but not worth compromising an A-race for. A short reduction in training beforehand, a few easy days after.
• C-race: trained through, used for practice, fitness, fun or as a hard training day.

The point isn't the labels. It's being honest about which races get the full cost of a peak and which don't.

What a taper buys

The meta-analysis

The best summary of taper research is a 2007 meta-analysis by Bosquet, Montpetit, Arvisais and Mujika in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. It included 27 of 182 potential studies in competitive athletes.

• A two-week taper was the most efficient duration (overall effect size 0.59).
• Cutting volume by 41 to 60% gave the largest effect (0.72), with the reduction made progressively rather than all at once.
• Intensity and frequency were maintained, not reduced.

These were competitive athletes, not specifically age-group triathletes, and the effects are on performance measures rather than race results. TriForward's "Tapering for an Ironman" covers the detail.

A real-world dataset

A 2021 study by Smyth and Lawlor in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living analysed training data from more than 158,000 recreational marathon runners.

• A disciplined three-week taper was associated with a median finish-time saving of 5 minutes 32 seconds, or 2.6%, compared with a minimal taper.
• Strict, progressively reducing tapers did better than relaxed ones.
• Women were associated with greater finish-time benefits than men from tapers of up to three weeks.

This is observational, so runners who tapered well may differ in other ways from those who didn't. But it's large and it's recreational athletes, which makes it relevant to age-groupers.

Inference: a taper is worth doing properly, and that takes about two weeks of reduced training, sometimes three, for a long-course A-race. That fortnight is the first cost of each peak.

What recovery costs

The second cost is recovery afterwards. TriForward's "After the Finish Line: How Long Ironman Recovery Really Takes" covers this in detail. The key studies are summarised here because they set the spacing.

Inflammation and muscle damage after an Ironman

A 2008 study by Neubauer, König and Wagner in the European Journal of Applied Physiology took blood from 42 well-trained male triathletes two days before an Ironman, immediately after, and 1, 5 and 19 days later.

• Immediately after and on day 1, markers of muscle damage (creatine kinase, myoglobin) and inflammation (IL-6, hs-CRP and others) were sharply raised.
• On day 5, creatine kinase, myoglobin, IL-6 and hs-CRP had fallen but were still significantly above pre-race levels.
• On day 19, most markers had returned to normal, but myoglobin and hs-CRP were still slightly raised.

The authors concluded that low-grade inflammation persisted for at least 5 days after the race, which may reflect incomplete muscle recovery.

Function after an Ironman

A 2010 case study by Nosaka and colleagues in the European Journal of Sport Science followed one well-trained 35-year-old male triathlete who finished an Ironman in 11 hours 38 minutes. VO2max, running economy, maximal strength and jump performance fell by between 4.5% and 54%, and different measures returned to baseline at different times, between 2 and 15 days after the race. Soreness and blood markers of inflammation were back to baseline within 8 days.

One athlete is one athlete. But the pattern is useful: you may feel recovered before every system has recovered.

Women

A 2017 study by Danielsson and colleagues in PLoS One measured blood markers in 30 Ironman participants, half of them women, before, immediately after and a week after the race. Being male predicted higher post-race myoglobin, creatine kinase and creatinine, and women's responses were less pronounced over the recovery week. The authors suggested women may tolerate the race better, though the study was small and measured blood markers rather than performance.

After a marathon

The run leg causes most of the muscle damage in long-course racing, so marathon data are relevant. A 1984 study by Sherman and colleagues in the Journal of Applied Physiology tested 10 trained male marathon runners for a week after a marathon. Half rested and half ran easily for 20 to 45 minutes a day.

• Leg strength improved in both groups by day 5 but remained below pre-race levels.
• Work capacity in a repeated-contraction test had recovered by day 3 in the rest group, but was still impaired through days 5 to 7 in the group that kept running.

Inference: easy running in the first week after a long race may slow muscular recovery rather than speed it. TriForward's "The Winter Half or Marathon: Useful Training Race or Spring Setback?" looks at this question for a winter road race.

Overreaching and the crowded calendar

A 2013 joint consensus statement on overtraining by Meeusen and colleagues, from the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine, set out a continuum:

• Functional overreaching: a short-term drop in performance after hard training, followed by improvement once you recover. This is how a training block is supposed to work.
• Non-functional overreaching: when training and recovery are out of balance, performance stays down for longer.
• Overtraining syndrome: a more severe, longer-lasting state. The consensus noted that telling it apart from non-functional overreaching is very difficult and depends on clinical outcome and ruling out other causes.

A season of closely spaced A-races, each with a hard build, a race effort and a short recovery, is one route to the non-functional end of that spectrum. TriForward's "The Spring Training Camp: What a Week of Big Volume Actually Buys You" covers overreaching in more detail.

The planning arithmetic

There are no trials of race spacing, so what follows is labelled inference throughout.

Take a long-course A-race. Based on the taper and recovery data above:

• Taper: about 2 weeks of reduced training.
• Recovery: about 1 to 3 weeks before you're training normally again, depending on the race and the athlete.

Inference: each long-course A-race costs roughly 3 to 5 weeks in which you aren't building fitness. Then you need to rebuild, and the last few weeks before the next taper are the most specific and valuable training of the block.

So:

• Two Ironman races 8 weeks apart leave perhaps three to five weeks between recovery and the next taper. That's enough to maintain fitness, but not much to add to it.
• Two A-races 12 or more weeks apart allow a genuine second build.
• A half-distance and a full-distance A-race in the same season can work if the half comes early enough to be followed by a full build, or if the half is downgraded to a B-race.
• Sprint and Olympic-distance races cost less recovery, so they can be spaced more closely, but each taper still takes time from training.

For an athlete training 8 to 12 hours a week, the time cost is proportionally larger, because there's less training in each building week to make up for the weeks lost. That's a reason many age-groupers settle on one or two A-races. What works for a professional with 25 hours a week and a support team may not work for you.

Using B and C races well

B and C races don't need to be wasted. Inference from the evidence above:

• Rehearsals. A B-race 4 to 8 weeks before an A-race can test pacing, fuelling and kit. TriForward's "Racing by Feel vs. Racing by Numbers" covers pacing.
• Hard training days. A C-race in the middle of a block, done without a taper, is a quality session with company and a timing chip.
• Lower cost. Shorter races and holding back on the run reduce muscle damage and recovery time.
• Off-season fun. A winter cross-country race or a parkrun keeps things interesting without costing much.

The risk is a B-race that turns into an A-race on the day, because you feel good and race it flat out. Decide in advance, and accept that a B-race result isn't your best.

Planning backwards from the A-race

Because the taper and recovery costs are fairly predictable, it helps to plan the season backwards from the A-race date. The following steps are inference from the evidence above, not a tested method:

1. Fix the A-race date first, then mark two weeks before it as the taper.
2. Mark the weeks after it as recovery, allowing longer after a full-distance race than a half, and longer if you're older or the race went badly.
3. Work back from the taper to see how many building weeks you actually have. The final four to six of them should be the most race-specific.
4. Only then add B and C races, and check that none of them lands in the final specific block or the taper.
5. Leave at least one spare week for illness, work or family. Over a season, something usually takes a week away.

Doing this on paper in November often shows that a second or third A-race leaves too few building weeks to be worth it.

Masters athletes and recovery

The recovery studies above were in adults of mixed ages, mostly men, and none looked specifically at athletes over 50. It's widely assumed that recovery slows with age, and TriForward's "The Masters Training Week: Recovery, Intensity and Lifting After 50" looks at what the evidence says. Inference: if you're a masters athlete, allow the longer end of the recovery estimates above, and be more cautious about two long-course A-races close together.

Checking your own recovery

Averages from studies can't tell you when you personally are ready to train hard again. Some practical signals, none of them perfect:

• How easy sessions feel. If a normally easy run or ride feels hard at the usual pace or heart rate, you're not recovered.
• Soreness and sleep. Lingering soreness or disturbed sleep a week after a race suggest more easy days.
• Trends in resting heart rate or HRV, read as a trend rather than a daily number, as TriForward's "Reading the Trend, Not the Number" explains.

Inference: the Nosaka case study showed some functions recovered within days and others took two weeks, so feeling fine is a necessary sign of recovery, but not a sufficient one.

A triathlon scenario

The following example is illustrative, not drawn from a study. A 46-year-old age-grouper training about 10 hours a week plans next season in November. His first draft includes a half-distance race in May, an Ironman in July, another half in August and an Ironman in September, all as A-races.

A plan that fits the evidence better might be:

• May half-distance: B-race, with a one-week reduction and a few easy days after. A pacing and fuelling rehearsal.
• July Ironman: the main A-race, with a full two-week taper and two to three weeks of recovery.
• August: an Olympic-distance C-race in the rebuild, or nothing.
• September: a second A-race only if it's a half-distance, 8 or more weeks after the Ironman, and only if recovery has gone well. Otherwise, a C-race for fun.

He still races four or five times, but only one or two of them cost a full peak.

Common mistakes

• Too many A-races. Every one costs a taper and a recovery.
• Racing B-races as A-races, then arriving at the real A-race tired.
• Coming back too fast after a long race because you feel fine. Recovery of different systems takes different times.
• Running hard in the week after a marathon or Ironman. Easy running didn't speed recovery in the Sherman study.
• No buffer for illness or injury. A season with no slack means one cold can wreck an A-race build.
• Copying professionals' race calendars without their training time and recovery support.

What we don't know

• The optimal number and spacing of A-races. No trials exist, in triathletes or anyone else.
• Recovery in women and masters athletes. The Ironman recovery studies are mostly in men, and one included only men.
• How much a B-race costs compared with a hard training day.
• Whether multiple peaks in a season limit long-term development, compared with one bigger build.
• Individual differences, which are likely to be large.

References

• Bosquet L, Montpetit J, Arvisais D, Mujika I. Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2007;39(8):1358–1365. doi:10.1249/mss.0b013e31806010e0
• Smyth B, Lawlor A. Longer disciplined tapers improve marathon performance for recreational runners. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2021;3:735220. doi:10.3389/fspor.2021.735220
• Neubauer O, König D, Wagner KH. Recovery after an Ironman triathlon: sustained inflammatory responses and muscular stress. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2008;104(3):417–426. doi:10.1007/s00421-008-0787-6
• Nosaka K, Abbiss CR, Watson G, Wall BA, Suzuki K, Laursen PB. Recovery following an Ironman triathlon: a case study. European Journal of Sport Science, 2010;10(3):159–165. doi:10.1080/17461390903426642
• Danielsson T, Carlsson J, Schreyer H, Ahnesjö J, Ten Siethoff L, Ragnarsson T, Tugetam Å, Bergman P. Blood biomarkers in male and female participants after an Ironman-distance triathlon. PLoS One, 2017;12(6):e0179324. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0179324
• Sherman WM, Armstrong LE, Murray TM, Hagerman FC, Costill DL, Staron RC, Ivy JL. Effect of a 42.2-km footrace and subsequent rest or exercise on muscular strength and work capacity. Journal of Applied Physiology, 1984;57(6):1668–1673. doi:10.1152/jappl.1984.57.6.1668
• Meeusen R, Duclos M, Foster C, Fry AC, Gleeson M, Nieman DC, et al. Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the overtraining syndrome: joint consensus statement of the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2013;45(1):186–205. doi:10.1249/MSS.0b013e318279a10a