Your Complete Knowledge Center
D3 University is our library of articles and videos from the D3 coaches and other experts to help you train and race your best.
Acclimating to Race Day Conditions
The upcoming summer months of high temperatures and poor air quality pose a threat to an athlete’s endurance performance. When evaluating an upcoming racecourse, proper assessment of the potential race day environmental conditions is critical to maximizing race day performance.…
60 Seconds to Calm Your Nerves on Race Day
You have an icky feeling in the pit of your stomach the night before or morning of your race. You know the feeling—butterflies or churning or queasy or something. Your brain notices that feeling and makes a judgment about it—nervous,…
Oceanside 70.3 – 2020 Course Preview
If you are racing this course – you want this information! Coach Julie Dunkle shares a number of important strategies and tips to help you race this course successfully!
How to Get Faster by Developing your Internal Pacing
Why: Why should you develop your internal pacing when you have everything you need right in front of you on digital display? In a race, you probably know what your paces, heart rate, and power should all be ahead of…
Racing the Ironman World Championships – 3 Top Tips!
D3 Coach Simon Butterworth has had the most incredible athletic prowess of racing the Ironman World Championships fourteen times. He is about to embark on his 15th this October. His knowledge of the course and conditions is unparalleled. He is…
Challenge: Race Without the Metrics
Whether it’s your first race, your A race, or a big race, I’d like to share some reminders that will take you beyond the metrics and help keep you relaxed and confident going into your race. The goal is to…
Research These 6 Points Before Committing to a Destination Race
We have all been there with the post-race blues. Reflection and contemplation. You wonder, what can I race next? And your one genius friend says lets race in _________ (insert exotic location). And at that the moment, you both say,…
The Part II: Clarifying Protein Needs by Gender and Carbohydrates by Race Distance
In the article 3 Nutrition Must-Haves for Triathletes I shared information about protein, carbohydrates and hydration needs for endurance athletes. That generated two important questions about protein intake by gender and carbohydrate needs for different race distances. This Part II…
Race Day Readiness with a Proper Warm-up
“This is where my husband was telling me a lot of my race sucking today was in my prep. I didn’t warm up… it was my first swim in the new wetsuit. I didn’t jog or anything beforehand and just…
Race Day Planning, Part 2: The Pre-Mortem
Everyone knows what a post-mortem is: examining a corpse to determine the cause of death. Gruesome, I know, but there is another kind of –mortem that can help you execute your races better. It’s the pre-mortem. It’s a proactive, pre-emptive…
Strategic Race Planning: The Swim
I have been accused often of being a bit overly obsessive about race planning, but my obsession is your gain. This article addresses the swim portion of a race, as the swim is something I always plan out carefully for…
How to Write a Race Plan in 7 Steps
There is some magic between the hand and the eye, the heart and the mind, when you write something down. In triathlon, one of the most important things you can write down is your race plan. Whether it be your…
Using Training Benchmarks to Set Race Goals
Far too often, athletes set their race goals and define their race-day execution based off of fantasy. That fantasy might violate the time-space continuum, as in: I did [insert race] in [insert time] back in [insert today’s date minus 3…
The Power of Proper Pacing
The three D’s of D3 (Determination, Desire and Discipline) are all integral for success in triathlon. However, all to often on race day, many athletes seem to forget or ignore discipline. The discipline required to properly pace their race. Having…
1 Key Tip for a Successful Athlete-Coach Partnership
When you are paying for coaching, you want to make certain you are maximizing your coach’s knowledge. But to get that value and to create the foundation for a strong athlete-coach partnership, you need to pitch in. How an athlete can…