Prioritize & Periodize

Most athletes spend the off-season waiting for motivation to strike. But success in swimrun, a sport defined by multipart synergies and long-term commitment, isn't about waiting, it's about building. 

Your next season doesn't begin in 2026, it begins today!

Most athletes approach training like a crash diet: a burst of discipline followed by a slide back to old habits. But if you're already putting in the hours, why not make them count? The real difference comes from long-term, structured training that prepares you for the unique demands of swimrun.

This newsletter lays out a full-season blueprint: the principles, the phases, and the small details that add up to big gains. Think of it as a roadmap to becoming your own best coach.

Two Classic Traps

Many recreational athletes fall into one of two traps:

• Copying someone else’s recipe: following a pro's plan or your friend's Strava workouts without knowing if they fit your body, goals, or schedule.

• Being ruled by the plan: sticking to it so rigidly that you ignore signals like fatigue, soreness, or lack of motivation.

The solution isn't to throw out structure but to learn the art of combining principles and intuition. A good plan provides direction, but you need the confidence to adjust. That's how you become your own best coach.

The Swimrun Difference: Why a Unique Sport Needs a Unique Plan

Swimrun is not just swimming plus running. It is a sport with its own rhythm, demands, and tactics. Here are seven elements that make it unique:

• Muscular Endurance in the Swim: Successive swims with paddles and a pull buoy are more about durability than pure aerobic output. For many, the swims become "active recovery" from the runs. But only if you’ve trained them that way.

• Tactical Swim Speed: That said, being able to hold a stronger pace for shorter durations in the water is critical. It allows you to catch feet, bridge gaps, and stay in a pack. This is especially true since drafting in water, which is around 800 times denser than air, can save you significant energy and many minutes over a long race.

• Tempo Running: Most of the distance and elapsed time is running, each section is a chance to move at a strong, steady effort, tempo or threshold, while saving just enough energy for what comes next. Think of long tempo run intervals with active recovery on the swims.

• Technical Trail Running: Much of the running is on technical, uneven terrain. You cannot express your aerobic fitness if you lack the agility, stability, and foot speed to move efficiently over roots, rocks, and slippery ground. This ability is a core skill that must be trained.

• External Gear Management: You wear/carry all your gear (shoes, pull buoy, paddles, tether, most of your nutrition) for the entire duration of the race. Training must account for the physical and cognitive load of handling it while fatigued.

• Transitions & Environment: Moving from water to land and back again is defined not just by speed, but by adaptability. Success depends on handling rocky exits, navigating the constant shift from the open water environment (waves, currents, cold) back to technical land terrain.

• Team Dynamics (Pacing & Communication): Racing as a pair is a strategic partnership. Your final time is dependent on your combined, synchronized effort, not just individual fitness or speed. Success requires balancing differing strengths, maximizing strategic drafting, and constant communication.

Training for swimrun means preparing for the synergy between these elements, not just improving them in isolation.

Foundational Principles for the Training Ahead

1. Stress + Rest = Growth 

From Peak Performance (Magness/Stulberg); adaptation happens only when stress is balanced with recovery. Finish each week by asking: What was the stress? What was the rest? What adapted? This reflection keeps you honest and prevents overtraining.

2. The Four Pillars (Matt Dixon)

• Endurance: mostly easy, sometimes hard. The aerobic engine underpins everything.

• Functional Strength: twice weekly in the off-season, once in-season. This keeps you durable and efficient.

• Nutrition/Fuelling: fuel the work, don't diet the work. Under fuelling is the fastest route to burnout.

• Recovery: consistent sleep and discipline on easy days. Recovery isn't passive, it’s a skill.

3. Build the Chassis (Steve House & Scott Johnston, Uphill Athlete)

Think of this as your foundation. Aerobic base, mobility, and general strength are built here. Critically, this is also where you build Strength Endurance — the capacity for muscles to generate moderate force repeatedly over long periods. This muscular durability is what allows you to maintain pace over uneven terrain and through multiple transitions without breaking down. Later phases simply express what you built in this period.

4. Polarize Early, Specify Late

The bulk of your training should be easy, with strategic doses of hard. Save the race-specific tempo and threshold efforts for later. Early restraint pays off with freshness and speed when it matters.

5. Swimming as a Superpower 

Running may cover more kilometers, but swim speed often decides outcomes. Paddles allow you to exert and sustain greater power through the stroke, pull buoys offset leg/shoe drag, and technique under fatigue is what separates good from great.

6. Train Transitions as a Discipline

Transitions are not just logistics, they are skills. Short “transition circuits” teach your body to move smoothly from swim to run and back again.

7. Guardrails Against Overdoing It

Fatigue is normal. Chronic fatigue is not. If performance drops for more than a week, reduce load by 20 to 40 percent for a micro-cycle. Smart restraint is part of progress.

A Five Phase Training Model

Swimrunners often compete in multiple events, ranging from sprint to ultra distances, which requires a flexible training strategy. Here’s how you might structure your season, with both the what and the why.

• Phase 1: General Fitness & Strength (Oct – Dec)
  Build the chassis. Aerobic base runs, pool technique, and strength training. Address weaknesses, develop resilience, and prevent injuries. This is the most important phase for long-term progress.

• Phase 2: Speed (Jan – Feb)
  Tune the turbo. Add interval running, fartlek, and short, sharp swim sets with and without paddles. Develop the ability to go fast and recover quickly. Raising your short pace/power is essential so that longer duration pace/power is not capped. This block raises your ceiling.

• Phase 3: Tempo & Threshold (Mar – Apr)
  Bridge to race fitness. Long tempo runs and threshold swim sets build the ability to sustain tough efforts. Here you learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

• Phase 4: First Race Block (May – Jun)
  Race-specific prep. Brick sessions, gear testing, and nutrition practice. Focus sessions on your target distance: short races = high-intensity bricks, long races = extended steady efforts.

• Phase 5: Maintain & Sharpen (Jul – Sep)
  Keep the engine running. Between races, maintain volume with a mix of aerobic work and short sharpening blocks that are specific to the demands of your next race. Use tapers before key events to arrive fresh.

Phase 1 Sample Block: The 14-Day Chassis Build

To bring the "Build the Chassis" principle to life, here is a practical, repeatable 14-day microcycle designed for the General Fitness & Strength phase. This block is scalable: beginner athletes should stick to the lower end of the range, while advanced athletes can increase duration. This version places the biggest volume on the weekend, this structure is designed to be repeated multiple times before a dedicated recovery week is scheduled.

Note on Recovery: As a master of your own plan, place this recovery day where it best serves your body and life schedule. Listen to your body, if you wake up unexpectedly exhausted, take the rest then, and shift Friday's light session earlier. Same if life throws you a curve ball and you need to take a day off — no guilt or regrets, stay flexible and move on.

Consider incorporating heat exposure (sauna or hot bath) 3-4 times per week. Heat acclimation is a powerful tool to provide stimulus, enhance recovery, increase blood plasma volume, and improve your body's ability to regulate temperature under race effort.

Why This Matters

This approach goes beyond preparing for one race. It builds a fitness base you can carry across seasons, making you more durable, adaptable, and confident. Swimrun rewards athletes who can switch gears, between swim and run, between effort and recovery, and between seasons.

Your 2026 season begins now! Build the chassis, tune the turbo, and practice the art of moving seamlessly between elements. Do this, and you will not just be race-day ready, you’ll be building success that lasts season after season.

Coach’s Bookshelf

• Peak Performance by Stulberg & Magness (stress + rest framing)

• The Well-Built Triathlete by Matt Dixon (four pillars framework)

• Uphill Athlete by Steve House & Scott Johnston (aerobic base and durability)

• Swimrun Skills & Gear (Envol community resources)