As the saying goes, 'A change is as good as a holiday' but as with most sayings; it is bullshit. Changing your tie colour can never be compared with, say, a weekend hitting mountain-bike trails in some exotic location, or moving home to a new town will never be as good as travelling to an Ironman event in some foreign country. In more triathlon circles the saying might go 'A change in training venues is as good as a training camp' but unlike other more worldly sayings, there might be some truth in it.

I have been out training in Australia now for a couple of weeks and probably just put in one of my best week's of training ever.  Now, this could be down to a number of things like having a bit more time as I am still in the hunt for work but I think the excitement of discovery new cycling routes or running paths has a lot to do with it.

I now have 50m pools at my disposal as opposed to only 25m back in the UK and I am already beginning to reap the benefits of  that. The weather is also perfect at the moment as we head into Autumn with crisp sunny days neither too hot nor too cold being the order of the day. 

A triathlete's paradise you might say and yes, it certainly has some positives but like everything, there is always some  drawbacks. The importance of good training buddies must not be under-estimated. For example, with a group comes strength. Thinking practically, open-water swimming can be dangerous but doing it as a group can eliminate a lot of that danger. Road cycling is always dangerous but less so when doing it as part of a group. For example, I was out Friday doing a bit of interval work on the bike and although I was minding my own business sticky to clearly marked cycle paths, I had abuse shouted at me no less than 3 times and had an object thrown at me by passing rednecks! Not to say this would not happen when riding as a group but rednecks are timid folk and rarely challenge beyond the confines of their benefits-financed vehicles when they do not outnumber the opposition by less than 3 to 1.

So the safety benefits of training within a group are clear but there are many more advantages. Think motivation. Getting out knowing you have a hard session ahead can be made a lot easier knowing you will not be doing it alone. You also get the 'I will not say if he/she doesn't' scenario - You might be feeling like shit from the previous day's session but you don't want to be the one that suggests cancelling today's training and be labelled 'the one who broke first'. This can, however, be a disadvantage and should be moderated before every session ends up a race. The best way to avoid that is by sticking to your training plan.  
If you have an easy group run planned, then make sure it is an easy group run. Keep the 'racing-each-other' bit for those specific sessions where that would be beneficial or better yet, for the races themselves.
So if you are getting that flat feeling with your training, try spicing things up a bit. Try different routes, cycle to far away lands and get a lift back or drive to a different location and explore it during your run session but most importantly, if you haven't already; get yourself some good training buddies.

Laters,

Simon