You are ready to race. The only thing you lack is a taper, and what I mean by that is you want to enter the race nice and rested. You'll need to take a few days easy, and by "easy" I mean that you'll have a week not unlike the "rest" week you had several weeks ago. The thing here is to make sure you not only keep your mileage down, but that you keep the effort level down as well. No high heart rate stuff.

In fact, since we have two weeks of training in front of us before the taper, and a few weeks of pretty good training just in the rear view mirror, let's take a fairly easy week this week. If you're racing at the end of this week, then, this is your taper. If you're racing at the end of four weeks, then treat this as a bit of a rest week.

Just know that you're probably ready to race now.

MISSION
You've done the work. Now you'll start to realize what serious triathletes—and, really, serious athletes in all high levels of endurance sport—know, that the hard part isn't getting to the finish line in one piece, it's getting to the start line in one piece. "Hitting the taper," and reaching the start fresh, healthy, uninjured, fit, sharp, and yet rested is a special art the highest paid and most talented athletes haven't yet figured out with precision. They struggle with how to reproduce those times in which they've hit their training and their tapers perfectly.

EXECUTION
Remember, if you're racing this weekend, this week is the taper. If you're racing in four weeks, then, this is an easy week before two harder weeks, and then it's the taper.

SWIMMING: 2 OR 3 SESSIONS X 1200 - 3000 YARDS PER SESSION
CYCLING: 1 OR 2 SESSIONS OF 60 MINUTES EACH, 1 SESSION OF LONG EASY
RUNNING: 2 OR 3 SESSIONS 20-40 MINUTES PER SESSION