what distance tri are you training for?

Two 15 mile runs doesn't seem to make much sense. I would run more days. I typically run around 40 normally, here is what mine looks like this.

M 4 easy
T off
W 8 tempo
T 4 easy
F 8-10 interval
S 4 easy
S 12-14

M - 6
Tu - 6 tempo
W - 4
Th - 8 total w/ a track workout
F - 6
Sa -
Su - 10

Long bike ride goes on Saturday. The rest of the bike rides are on the trainer usually on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I vary the run mileage +/- 10 but that format stays the same. Easy run the day after tempo, track workouts, and the long run, with a day off from running for the long bike the day before long run.

I've done this a lot at different phases. I don't worry about how to slice it and dice it. I just try to get 45 min of running in daily 5 days of the week, 15 min a 6th day and 90 min on one day. For the 45 min runs, sometimes there may be 2x10 min run commuting to the pool and another 20-30 min run off the bike commute home. Sometimes rather than 45 min, might run 60 min at lunch. Sometimes, I will jog 15 min on the treadmill to heat my body up before hopping on the bike for a cold bike commute...and then when I get home after a cold ride home run another 20-30 min to heat back up. It's just a lot of running all over the place around the swim and bike. A few days a week some of those short runs will have intervals or hills, but I don't get too caught up in specifics...it's just all mileage and I just fill in the :"cracks" around swim and bike opportunistically rather than make time for running. I already have to make time for swimming and biking and it is too stressful to make large chunks of time to run...so just run whenever it works with a target to add up to 45 min per day somehow.

I think too many people over complicate things and end up not getting enough training in for their goals. The trick as an age grouper is not to do optimal workouts, the trick as an age grouper is to make more time to just train. If you just train it all adds up...there is not that much magic any specific breakdown will give.

By the way, I will use the same approach at other times of year when I am only running 20-30 miles per week.

During the race season:

M 4 Easy
T 3 Brick run
W 10 with threshold intervals
T 3 Brick run
F 4 Easy
S 3 Easy
S 12-14 Long

It is January after all and I'm not trying to work on anything but aerobic. It looks like this right now

Monday 8.5
Tuesday 8.5
Wednesday 8.5
Thursday 8.5
Friday 8.5
Saturday 8.5
Sunday 8.5

If I'm tired I take a day off. Simple as that. In reality, I have thrown in one or two longer runs, a couple of harder shorter efforts up a hill on my home but that is about it. The beauty of this early season work is that it is stable, you don't have to worry about racing and recovering. You get to get in enough work but not enough that you are shelled the next day and you get to see yourself go slow, but for the same pace you heart rate keeps dropping.

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I would try and sneak an extra .5 in there on day per week.. OOC is your time and course consistent?

OP here. I'm targeting a July HIM. I'm admittedly not doing anything optimal-scientific so I'm not going to give any super rational justification of my training, which is pretty easy to critique.

Mainly, I'm trying to get back to my pure runner roots after 4 years of being a pretty balanced triathlete and seeing my run times gradually worsen (they're back up to where I like them, so that part is working), I have these amazing hilly trails where I've got a lovely 2.5hr loop run of 15 miles that I don't even need to drive to, and since it's too early for my 4 month prerace build (Vineman July target race), I prefer being off the roads due to cars and much prefer being on the trails for enjoyments sake.

Not unexpectedly though, after about 5 weeks of 'gawd this is tiring' acclimating to the 40mpw run volume + some biking on top, I'm solid on the run/bike volume, and am finding that 3hr bike rides at a true 80% FTP (done on a Kickr, recently tested 20' FTP test) is no problem despite my relatively low bike volume right now, so there's def some significant x-over effects for me.

Mostly 50-55 min runs 5-6x a week. Maybe a long run of 90 mins. One run will have some hard efforts (vo2 max for now, more tempo/threshold closer to races). If I were you, I'd probably drop one of those 15milers in exchange for two shorter runs. 45mi in just 4 runs is a lot, I think, week in and week out, marathoner or not.

So does this mean you're often doing 1hr running + 1-2hrs biking in the same day more than once a week?

Absolutely...no way I could handle 59.5 on my log!

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Time drops a bit from Dec-Jan. Has gone from 108-110ish to 103-60ish. Half of the days are on a treadmill, half outside on the same course, although things like wind and weather change. Outdoors I always build into the workout. In doors I do it differently, it was a of MS 4.5x @ 8mph increase mph by .1 every minute for 10 minutes, incline 1% for 45 minutes. I just moved that 4.5x to 5x this past week. Indoors I have just focused on increasing distance, but given that might heart rate is now only peaking at about 132 on the 1 minute at 8.9 mph I'm going to have to move the pace up at some point as I'm well below where I want to be with my HR and I really don't want to move the distance to much further as I have other sports to focus on as well.

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M: swim intervals, run 5
T: 1h trainer intervals, run 5
W: run 8 to 15 depending
T: 1h trainer intervals, run 5
F: swim intervals, run 5
Sa: long ride
Su: run 20

I do run-heavy program, suboptimal but I've found I enjoy this balance the most lately. Suck at swimming and time-crunched. I can brick everything in the AM if life demands, and I stay in great shape by running about 50mpw. Also from long running background so have had no issues with injuries doing that 20 almost every week the day after a long ride. All runs easy, from 7 to 8min/mi (HIM pace about 6:30).

Thomas, if you are doing that much treadmill time, is there a reason you don't do some work at 8-12% incline....seems like that offers the cardio benefits with almost no pounding. I've even seen my bike wattages go up with I go on biz travel and do some treadmill runs in between 4-12% for the entire run and end up with a ton of intensity with close to no pounding. Most people don't like to use incline because they don't get credit for as much mileage though...

Tues and Thursday group runs (intervals) usually add on so I get 5-6 miles
wednesday 6-7 sometimes miles
Friday 5ish
saturday long run so anywhere from 15-22 depending on the week
sunday 3-8

varies but that is a rough idea

trainer rides are now tues/thurs mornings
long trainer rides sundays
swim mon/wed will add friday

training for marathon in April, duathlon May, HIM July

'

No there is no reason, actually will probably move to hill work - I'm a huge fan of it, The biggest thing right now is that unlike a lot of triathletes I don't have a permanent home and I'm always on the move. In this rare case I have a mirror in front of my current treadmill situation so I am trying to use that to work on my form as much as possible as well.

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As his coach I can answer that. Yes, it does mean that.
Don't most triathletes do that?

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

There are triathletes that do half-irons and full-irons who don't do that?!

I think ST's generally accepted schedule is:

3-5 swims per week.
3-4 rides per week (unless you bike commute, then way more)
5-6 runs per week.

Dev, what pace are you doing the incline runs (relative to flat run pace)? I have been doing a runs like that once or twice a week warming up for 5 to 10 mins and then spending most of the run in 4 to 8%. Its been too icy to do my standard outdoor hilly routes so treadmill is pretty much all I have for a quality workout. I have IMLP this year and am planning on a strong run so hill work is definitely needed.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

What I do is I run the hills at 7-8 mph 8-12% range and recover in between 7 mph at 2% if I want to feel like I am getting on flat, but if I want to do a continuous uphill run then I don't go below 4% grade. The mix between steep and recovery is typically 50/50 and I keep it short.....45-60 seconds so there is a fair amount of "button pressing". I find the treadmill hill work seems to translate well to IM running on the flats where your legs feel heavy like you are running up a hill.

Sounds great. I'll give it a shot tomorrow. Thanks

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

to add on what desert dude said, i think if you've got good run fitness, then you really only sacrifice a few watts if you ride in the evening after running in the morning. it's not about riding on tired legs, it's just getting in as much training load as possible. also, if i'm riding the same day, then I really don't worry about running hard at all. I'll just let the pace settle where it does.

Averaging my pacing for a whole week, I will hit 40+ miles in roughly 5~6 hours of running. I take half of those hours and divide them up: 2 hours steady long run, and 1 hour of quality work. That 1 hour of quality is not all in the same run though, I'll divvy that time up among hill repeats, track intervals, tempo work, quick running off the bike etc. So that gives me roughly 3 hours of easy pace running that I use as warmup/cooldown for the quality work.

This week I'm actually going to be doing 7 hours of running, so while I'll keep my long run the same length, I might stretch out my quality work into an hour and a half. But, this is the first time in months I've hit this kind of volume, so I'll probably keep to an hour of quality work until I've gotten more used to running this much.

I think more importantly than being a slave to "hard-coded" workout days like that week in & week out, as you crank up mileage you need to build up to it over time to support any structure if over 40 mpw. Why? When you finally get there--to 40 mpw, how you structure the runs really should be flexible so that you can be prepared to heal the body from being beat up too much. If you're older (40+), the body can bark at you really quick in high mileage run training.

I suggest using a loose structure but listen to your body to steer how mileage is doled out on a week to week basis. You may have a 10 miler scheduled today but may need an extra day off or two from a hill or speed workout. You may also need to bail on a land-contact run & replace it with an aqua jog session because your legs are too hammered from a previous day. Just say'n...body responses trump "hard coded scheduled training" in a long & healthy training program--another good reason to have a coach, they can protect you from yourself!