I'm not disagreeing that there is a benefit to riding an extra half hour after a swim and a 10 mile commute or whatever the case may be. I am questioning whether it is fair to count this time as training. I commute most days to work each week, plus to and from the lake or pool to swim. I also spend a good 25 minutes each day stretching. But I don't count any of that time in my training log, and if someone asked me about it, I wouldn't count it then either. Bike commuting is something that most of us, at least those that live in a city, don't have a lot of control over. I just don't think it is fair to count time that, you may spend weaving in between a bus and a curb at 4 mph (for example) as training time. If you live somewhere where you can cruise for 30 minutes then maybe I will relent. But not where I live.

It's hard for an Ironman athlete to do a race where there are significant pace changes? That's hard to envision. The point is that the average speed is S-L-O-W. It doesn't do any good to go 36mph for 30s if you are going to let everyone who couldn't do it catch back up.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Well, if it is exercise and my heartrate is above 100, I count it. I've run the entire IMC marathon in 4 hours at bonk induced 115 bpm, so I figure if you can count that, you can count 100 bpm :-). My commute involves a few stop signs, but I can wind it up to 50 kph if I want to on most sections (not that I do, but I could as the road would allow it). From home to work there is a 6 foot wide bike lane/shoulder to the road the whole way. This is the benefit of living in a pseudo socialist, high taxation regime known as Canada. Other benefits include cheap university and free healthcare (pretty good quality relative to most of the world, but we always complain about it)....oh yeah...taxes are high...

I say you should count the time on the bike. It all adds up. There are no wasted miles on the bike. They all help in the big picture.

you should go on the onlinetri.com a french forum...
one of the guys there races the french grand prix (VERY competitive too as all the germans and aussies, spanish guys etc. race there as the money is good) and some itu races. He is also part of the national track team (4km pursuit) and a low 48' 40km TT...and a really good swimmer (can't run though)...
He talks often about strategy in draft legal races. Most of the time the courses are not selective enough to really get rid of the guys...so what they do is they have designated riders to hammer for bouts of 30''-1'-2' to trash the legs of some guys...the point is not to drop them, but to hurt them...unless you race one of those races or actually talk about someone racing them, you don't really know what you're talking about I'm afraid.

Several of the french guys for instance are cat1-2 riders (Bignet brothers, Marceau who races for Switz. now, etc...) they could do a 52' 40km...but it's not the point.

I don't doubt most (or a lot) of them could do well in Cat. 3. Since I know lots of local triathletes that do quit well in 3. But Cat 1/2 I would assume the amount of ITU'ers "kicking butt" would drop off significantly.

They are not kicking butts as cat 1-2, but they are pretty good ones...
Charly Loisel for instance was offered a contract in a pro team
Laurent Galinier (duathlete) rides for a second tier pro team

Francois, why do you bother...?

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

I know that several of the US ITU guys are Cat 1-2, the whole Team Kenysis was built around bike racers that could swim. The goal was to get Plata up to the front pack after he came out of the water.

The goal of the ITU bike leg is to hurt your competitors more than your legs are dinged for the run. It's much easier to hurt someone over 40k, even if you ride 1:00:00, by accelerating, sprinting off corners, turn arounds and hard bursts than it is if you ride a steady 58:00 40k. But then you bike race so you would realize this, even though your posts indicate that you have failed to.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Oh....you had some coffee....

Had a Coke :-D

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

If you believe that a coke can replace coffee, you are ready to come to America ;-)

"My run split sucks and my swimming isn't very good, . ."

Whatever the format, triathlon is about swimming, cycling and running with a lean towards the run, if for no other reason than it's last. It's always been this way, drafting or no, short or long - in a competitive world class event if you are well placed at the end of the run and run strongly, you will do well! Those who don't like this, are really going against the whole set up of the sport and should really be campaigning to change the order of the events. However, I suspect that the chances of that happening are remote at best.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

[reply]I REALLY would like to see a "normal" guy try to do that schedule...[/reply]


Id do it if someone would pay me and baby sit my kids all summer. Of course you would probably need a year or ten to build up to that volume of training. Last year I took a week off to try and do an epic week of training, mostly riding, and I was dead at the end of the week.

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Brian;

I get the point of the ITU bike leg and why the times are what they are.

However the orginal comment that Eric responded to was "The top guys could hand the majority of non-professional cyclists their arse.".

When you're talking Cat. 3 or lower; yes. Cat. 1/2 (semi-pro) I don't think so.

You can't compare a crit to a tri - 25 mph for a crit is slow. Try running a 10k all out after your next crit and post the time.

I've done some ITU races and trained with some ITU athletes and agree with Eric. They're great swimmers and runners but generally, with some exceptions, they're not very strong cyclists. And before anyone says anything I'm not claiming they're not great athletes. 9/10 would kick my ass on any given day in a triathlon but to state, as someone did, that they "could hand the majority of non-pro cyclists their arse" is actually ridiculous.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

 

C'mon, you count commuting time? Please. That's like counting stretching. Or eating well. you can't be serious.[/reply]

I believe Gordo endorses quite highly more frequent smaller volumes to many athletes. It's been said many times that if you want to improve your swim times, try doing 5 1/2 hour swims instead of 2-3 hour long swims. I know my running has come a LONG way since I added two smaller runs onto my schedule. Time in the saddle is time in the saddle imo. And knowing Dev, he doesn't do junk miles. I on the other hand....:)

C'mon Bjorn what do you know about biking! :-)

bjorn and trevor . . . . THANKS.

And my sentiment mirrors Trevor's, even if I didn't express it that well. These guys are not going to spank a bunch of Cat 1 racers. Period. I'm not saying they suck.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

True, good point :) I think I should reply more to the run posts instead so I actually know what I'm talking about.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

Here's one from the old archives from Wolfgang Deittrich. If you thought Kemper's hours were huge, then you better sit down. And yes, I know he was training for Ironmans, but the quality was a lot faster than you can imagine.

Cycling week- 700+miles
Running week 85 miles
Swimming week - 6 days (4000 meter average pe day)

All this in the same week, and this was just about 10 to 15% more than a normal week for him. I did every other day with him, and it turned out to be my biggest week ever. This was back when he would lead Ironman for most the day, and then get 3rd or 4th at the end. Of course the germans would do a long build up to get to this level, but once they got there, no one could do those mileages and race as well as they did.....

By the way, this is Monty here, forgot to log out PT. He is up here for a few training days....

Markus...I think the word junk miles is thrown around too liberally. In running, yes, there really are junk miles. When you are just plodding along with poor form, totally fried, you are taking away from your next 'quality run' and reinforcing bad technique and risking injury. In swim and biking, there is no reason why you cannot still maintain good form even when tired. Plus you don't risk injury (in general) and you can can recover for the next "quality session". All these miles add up to your aerobic base.

...so in summary...junk miles don't exist for the swim and bike. Every mile helps. Junk miles do exist for the run, especially when you are training for triathlon (limited time). Every run has to have a real purpose.

this is really incredible..

...so Monty... the Wolfgang plans works out to

4K swim, 160K bike, 20K run per day (6.5 hours at Wolgang pace). Nice. These guys rocked. It was totally cool when Wolfgang would lead the Ironman for 7.5 hours...just a regular training day for him !

Hey Bjorn, reference the whole qoute that I used - you've chopped it up a bit. I actually said:

"The top guys could hand the majority of non-pro cyclists their arse."

i.e. those few (the exceptions you mentioned in your post) that can whip out stand alone sub 50 min 40 TT as some previous posters mentioned. Not ridiculous by any means. However, you're quite right that the majority of athletes racing ITU races aren't great on the bike (i.e. me) and couldn't dish out the slaps to full-time roadies.

There we go. Everybody should be happy now.

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"Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parents of it, the mind. No glass so mirrors a man's form or likeness so true as his speech." - Ben Jonson, Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter.