Today joining us is Mikael Eriksson to talk about some of the key components we should be focusing on in our triathlon journey through this Pandemic in order to get us primed and ready for Challenge Roth 2021 (or any Long Distance Triathlon in 2021).  I’ll admit. My Training Peaks fitness chart was looking insanely similar to the stock market. We had the unstoppable bull run at all time highs in the market at the same time I was at peak fitness in my crucial build up to Challenge Roth 2020. But right when the pandemic struck, both the stock market and my fitness levels took a huge nose dive! I think from a psychological level it’s hard for people to look ahead and put all your eggs in one basket through uncertainty. And for me I felt it was more important to enjoy the family time throughout this uncertainty rather then spend those hours in the pain cave. However, we do know the race season WILL come back one day. So, whether you’re still hard into training, or, if you’re still in “off-season mode” then I wanted to find a way to help you navigate confidently with an actionable plan to get you ready for your 2021 race season. That’s why I am pumped to be chatting with Mikael Eriksson on several topics including like how we can create a half or full triathlon distance training plan that’s not based around a race season, and how we can use this downtime to our advantage to build foundational fitness and optimize our health so that we can be more fit then ever going into our next race build up. We chat on things like training builds, polarized training, tapers, race specificity, Z2 training, 80/20 vs Polarized and so much more. We’ll also touch base on how to avoid and recognize over-training and how to be properly fueling during your daily training sessions.  We discuss Challenge Roth 2021 being just over 1 year away and how we can safely and optimally navigate training without having to rely on a 2020 race season.