It depends on a lot of things. What do you weigh, for instance, and how much of what sort of training have you done up to this point?

IM training will (hopefully) train you to keep going at a reasonable percentage of your FTP for a very long time. If you can raise your FTP then you get to go faster for a long time. Have a look at Trainer Road. I used them from my beginnings as a cyclist 2.5 years ago and through a few HIMs and an IM and my last test shortly after my IM was nicely up in the 300's, so focussed indoor training definitely works. 30 watts extra is certainly possible in 4 months, depending on the training. It's worth going through the process of beasting yourself into being a good cyclist as it's way more fun if you can go faster. Having said that i got dropped like a biatch earlier today on a Zwift race by people that were properly fast.. so it's a sliding scale.

Just out of curiousity

Height
Weight
How many hours of training per week bike only
How many hours of training per week doing IM training
How many hours of sleep per week

Most of this is not rocket science. I see no reason why FTP cannot be raised during IM training. Ask Lionel Sanders or Sebi Kienle. Sure there is a trade off, but you can get fitter in each of the three sports during IM training depending on your starting point.

I'm 172# currently and 5'11. Hoping to get into low 160s by race time. Not exactly watching what I eat now. Spending about 5-6 hours a week on the bike now, out of a total of around 11 hours. Long rides as of now are only about 3 hours.

I just started with a coach and need to have this discussion with him, but figured I'd wait until after the holidays. Previously trained for a 70.3 this fall and my FTP gains suffered, but that was me following a prepackaged plan, and doing it poorly. Inconsistent and rarely pushed myself as I was so focused on getting long easy rides in that didn't make me too tired to run. Just very poor execution. In the last 3 weeks, Ive gained 20 watts. So Im pretty much building up from a crappy fitness level, not squeezing out the last little bit or anything. I am optimistic that I have some big gains in the next month, but also realize it won't be 20 watts every 3 or 4 weeks and I'll plateau soon enough. Also not running recently due to tendonitis, so I probably have another 3 weeks to focus on the bike more although I'm spending a lot of time in the pool (haven't run in two weeks). Just wondering how going back to a full workload on the legs will slow down progress.

From a sample of N=1:

- Making decent FTP gains while training all 3 sports is possible if your bike training prior to that was less than optimal
- Making decent FTP gains while losing weight is also possible if your diet has been fairly poor and you have some easy pounds to lose
- Making decent FTP gains if your bike training is already pretty good and you're adding in running and swimming as well is tough
- Making decent FTP gains when you're already in good shape and trying to lose those last few pounds to get the skeleton look is tough.

E.g. if your current 5-6 hours/week on the bike has been high quality training, and you're going to be maintaining similar volumes for IM training, and if you're currently ~13% bodyfat and looking to get down to ~8% bodyfat, then I'd say that going from 220 to 250 watts would be pretty hard. On the other hand, if your current bike training is "just ride" with little structure and lots of junk miles, and you have 10 pounds you can lose pretty easily just by cleaning up your diet, then it should be very achievable.

Also, if you're doing 11 hours of training/week then "long easy rides" shouldn't be part of your vocabulary! They're a luxury that you may be able to afford if you're doing 20+ hours/week (even then many would argue that the only easy miles on the bike should be warm-up, cool down and recovery periods between intervals), but on lower volumes then every ride should have some intensity in my view. Running is very different - there is definitely a place for easy running miles.

Definitely worth focusing on W/kg, not just W. Small increases in FTP multiplied by small decreases in weight can mean pretty decent improvements in W/kg.

It sounds like there is a lot of scope for improvement as it doesn't sound like you've been squeezing the best out of your training so far, which is encouraging because 220W is a good number to be coming from. As has been said - you don't have the luxury of being able to waste precious training hours doing long easy rides as there is little benefit to be gained there. It's useful to be able to do a 100 mile ride but it takes a lot of time and you don't need to do it very often really. Like anything, it all becomes more complex the closer you look at it but, once you've optimised your diet and recovery (so you can do 2 quality workouts a day), you need to make every hour count. IM is a lot about getting to the start of the marathon on good legs so there is a lot to be said for concentraing more on the bike than on the run. I am certainly very run-injury prone so i do very low average run miles but i was doing 130 miles a week on the bike and the fitness translates across to the run reasonably well.

Have you got an indoor trainer? That is the best investment you will make in training. Then you want to be doing focussed training at different power outputs. For instance, instead of riding along at an easy pace, try doing quite long intervals in your sweetspot 85-90% FTP. These can get longer and longer from say 3x10 minutes to 3x20 minutes. I remember building up to one on TrainerRoad which was 2 solid hours of non-stop pedalling at about 85% FTP. Mix these in with very hard 120% FTP 2 or 3 minute intervals with short recoveries - ones that get your heart up very high and have you sweating hard and you'll potentially notice big gains.

You say that you've only got 3 weeks to focus on the bike so that's not a lot of time for much in the way of adaptations so i'd probably just practice banging out sweetspot intervals as these don't tend to leave you worn out.

Have a look at Trainer Road for next year. And the Sufferfest is pretty good fun as well and a good way to make yourself enjoy the pain of riding very hard.

+1. Indoor Trainer and Trainer Road is invaluable. I was at what I thought I was the high end of my bike potential for about 3 years. I've been a lifelong swimmer and biker who never was serious about run training. About 5 years ago I built up my running while slightly dropping swim/bike volume. My biking stayed pretty much where it was at until I bought Trainer Road 3 years ago. Even though now I bike a bit less as I finally got really serious about getting myself to ~50 mile run weeks, TrainerRoad has me at my highest ever FTP, w/kg, 5 minute, 20 minute, 60 minute and IM split power.

I do most of my riding indoors. I did trainer road in the past and did see improvements, but it was all bike at the time, no triahlon or just dabblig in the other sports. My 70.3 plan was something I found online and mostly used their workout descriptions which were by RPE. They really helped my swim a lot, but they did not fit me for the bike.

Currently following what my coach gives. He comes from a cycling background. My week is typically 1 or 2 interval type rides (3×8 @FTP, 3 x 12 @FTP, etc), 1 technique focus ride (cadence drills or something), and 1 longer moderate ride (2:45 total, with 2hr@ 75% FTP followed by 15 min @ 85%).

One talk I want to have with my coach is lack of training over FTP. In the past I did workouts such as 10x40 sec @ 120% with 20 seconds rest. Follow that with 5 min rest and do again until I couldn't. Or 3 minutes intervals at 110% with 5 minutes rest. Only been training with him for about 4-5 weeks and the focus is getting through my first Ironman, not putting up a pretty FTP number. But I'd love to do both.

As far as losing weight, I've gotten down to low 160's with just cleaning up what I eat. I eat junk food constantly. High body fat content for my weight. I don't have any concern about losing 10-12 lbs except for having the will power to put the pizza and cookies down.

I know 3 weeks really isn't a bike focus, but at least a time to try out the harder workouts in that 100%+ FTP range more often. At least that's what It think, but I'm not an expert so following my coaches advice. Will talk with him though to see if he thinks it's a good idea.

you need to be focus on the big picture. Having a high FTP isnt the priority for you at this time. Even more, you not running right now it s a much bigger priority/issue. very hard riding isnt always the solution to get you back to running...

Hopefully you pick the right coach and i would advise to trust him. it s his job to get you back to running ASAP and on a balance training.

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

Certainly. I have been following what he says exclusively. Like I said, just looking to have the talk with him so I have a better understanding of his vision for the next few months. And this thread really isn't about ramping up training over these next few weeks I'm not running and more about FTP expectations with a balanced load as I hope to be back to that soon When I originally signed on with my coach, I said 230 was my goal after a poor 70.3 training. Now being at 220 from 200 in just 3 weeks since setting the goal, I'm looking to see where more realistic goals should be set.

Also to note, I don't expect to max out at 11 hours. I fully expect to get up into the 15 hr range as training goes on and the long rides amd runs grow.