Looking to break your personal best this summer? Recent research suggests a midweek event might raise your chances compared to a Sunday race. Shona Halson, head of recovery at the Australian Institute of Sport, examined the sleeping habits of 114 elite athletes from five sports, including tri, and showed that there was a link between high performance, timing of training/racing, and chronotype (essentially whether you’re a morning or evening person). This link ties in with your biological clock. In Halson’s study, the majority of triathletes, who tend to race in the morning, were morning people (or larks) and ‘naturally’ chose the sport because of their tendency to be ‘fresh’ in the morning. But, for other age-groupers, evening training might be the norm, which could tie in with their evening chronotype…
