I've used the Full Tri plans. The first time I used it, I went through from start to finish very closely. It was awesome to see the progression I made over the 24 weeks, I used the mid level plan.... fast forward a couple years and 4 full IM latter... I still use TR, and loosely use the tri specific plans... I've done all the workouts now, I know what my favorites are, I know which days will be VO2 work tempo long rides etc.... So I've just started creating ,y own plan just to spice it up....

I'd say it's 100%worth the money. The plan had me more than ready for race day. And most importantly I went from dreading the indoor work to really looking forward to it! Going from not being able to complete a workout during week one, to crushing the same workout six weeks later is extremely gratifying.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

I've used TR for both IMs that I've done with good success.

The first time I used it, which was for IMWI, I followed pretty close. I did the mid volume. Since it was my first IM, I wanted to include some outdoor rides. I also live relatively close to the course. I substituted 2 trainer rides, one 80 miler and one 100 miler. I think I split one or two of the long trainer rides (4 or more hours) with half out then finish in. I felt well prepared for the race and did as expected.

This year I did the low volume for IMMT (the program also changed slightly from when I did it 2 years ago). I followed the program almost to a T until the last month. After the longest bike ride, I tapered the following week with 80 miler inside of the scheduled 4hr ride. I also substituted some of the mid week rides with outside during this period. I actually had hard time doing the scheduled midweek rides due to intensity. This happened after my last FTP test prior to race. It was a significant jump and partially messed it up, so might have been inaccurate. I went 25 min faster than IMWI (if you don't include my mechanical issue), and I ran ~20 min faster.

Did you follow it closely? Yes (Cycling Only)

Did you only follow the cycling plans? YES

Did you add rides in? Only recovery rides commuting to work on my eBike.

Which level did you choose? High Volume for Base and Build - I switched to Mid volume for specialty because my work schedule and the training was starting to beat me down and I wasn't recovering as quickly (more shift work / lack of sleep than the training I suspect).

Did you go through each base-build-specialty full distance plan? - Yes. I did sweet spot bass mid volume first (missed many work outs as I was doing a run focus), then Sustained Power Build High Volume

Only during the last 6 weeks did I start to swap out some of the long trainer rides to ride on the road when it worked out schedule wise. And that was purely a "I want to be comfortable on the road on my tri-bike with my race wheels and aero helmet" thing. I was surprised to find how okay I was spending 4-6 hours on the trainer. It wasn't fun, but when come ironman time you know you're not going to struggle on the bike.

Highly recommend it. Not sure what to say about the swim/run stuff, but I did better with TrainerRoad than I did with a coach.

I followed the whole Base-Build-Specialty Full Distance High Volume plan this year and had somewhat mixed results. In hindsight, I think following the High Volume plan was too ambitious for me and whilst I was more than happy to commit the time, the training stress was just too high to reap maximum benefit from it. I don't know if you've looked in detail at the plans, but they basically follow a two week cycle, which is great for establishing a routine around work etc. As a summary:

I breezed through the Base Phase, probably only missed about three workouts over the 12 weeks and was feeling absolutely great.

Moving into the Build phase, the "hard" bike workouts shifted away from the sustained sub-threshold efforts of the base phase, to over-unders and VO2 max intervals; the run and swim workouts followed a similar pattern, more time spent at high-intensity efforts and after a few weeks the quality of these workouts really started to suffer. I wasn't recovering well enough from one session to the next and was bailing on intervals or just substituting in another easy session instead of a high-intensity workout. I think this was compounded when the nice spring weather came along and I started doing the Friday and Saturday easy and long rides outdoors and invariably would exceed the prescribed TSS by a good margin, which just heaped on more training stress in a fairly unproductive fashion.

My progress stalled and by the time I dialled back the workload and established a sustainable routine again (following the medium volume plans) it was a bit of an uphill struggle to get back on track for my A-race.

Overall I was happy with the results, but I think my self-coaching and execution wasn't ideal. As you can probably expect, I'd strongly recommend starting on the conservative side, volume wise and gradually adding more volume IF you're nailing all the quality workout sessions. As with all self-coaching program, you need to be objective in the analysis of your execution and be prepared to adjust as necessary; I wasn't (and didn't!) and my progress definitely suffered for it.

Having said that, I'm now following the Oly-distance plans for some end-of-season B-races and then I'm going to get back on the Full Distance plan again next year for another IM; so all-in-all I was happy enough with it to use it again.

I used TrainerRoad all season for my 8th Ironman this year. I likely did a mix of the Sweet Spot base low/mid volume and Ironman low/mid volume all year for the last 8-9 months. I would use the Ironman training plan as a guide, but sub workouts depending on how I felt. I did stick closely to the speciality plan as I came closer to the race. Overall, I'm happy and did get a lot stronger on the bike this year. If it wasn't for a flat, I would've had a bike PB and get in a good position to run. I remember looking at the signs for 110, 120, 130k, etc..coming so fast and feeling good. I would've negative split for sure and felt great until flat at 165k.

Like someone else mentioned, you just get used to the longer sessions and save so much time. Some days I would substitute the 3-4 hour sessions with 2.5 hour sessions with Tempo/SS intervals (eg: 5x20min SS). You get a lot out of those sessions, save time, keep the bike clean, and get stronger. I'm not sure about the swim/run advice they provide, seems like it could work but they prescribe a LOT of hard V02 stuff for the other sports, which may be pretty tough to keep up over a long period of time.

Hi,
I did the mid volume plan. Only the bike und run. I just tweaked the last three weeks and did the coach cox tapering.
Second long distance. Roth in sub 9:40 on a 14h average per week including strength and conditioning. I only did three long bike sessions outdoor.
I am 41 years old and started with triathlon seven years ago. No significant sport history.
Choosing the trainerroad plan worked out great! Especially if you have kids and a demanding job.
Dan

That was certainly my experience too.

Hopefully I don't annoy the TR guys by divulging too much information here, but as a general overview, there are 4 run workouts scheduled each week:

• 1x interval session
• 1x brick run @ tempo
• 1x easy run
• 1x long run

The swim workouts are similar and the bike workouts are generally harder. That's quite an intense schedule and for the running especially, I think most people would advocate more easy running to back up those hard sessions. Obviously it's tough to strike a balance with only 4 sessions per sport per week but as I mentioned above, I breezed through the base phase then really started to suffer at the Build phase with the increase in intensity and accumulating fatigue. It's not a criticism of the plans per se, because I'm sure more talented athletes than me can handle that load, just a word of warning of what's in store!

My wife followed the TR Low Volume plan for all phases last year for IM Lou. I am following the same for IM Choo. She had great success. Since this is my first, it's too early to say how successful I will be.

That said, I certainly feel prepared. I'm following the planed as Rx'd, however I skipped much of the swimming in base and part of build. I don't always do all the swim drills, and often times substitute them with hard 100s or 200s. All of my bike training has been on the trainer, unless I have a "b" or "c" race, in which case I'lll usually substitute one of my hard 60 minutes bikes with the race. I didn't do the 20 minute test for the Specialty phase because: A) I didn't want do and b) it was scheduled the same week that I had a weekend race. I replaced that 20 minute hard effort with an all out sprint triathlon race. I feel a little guilty...but not much.

The same thing happened to me. Hit a wall about 3-4 weeks into the build for my half-distance plan. Had to take an entire week off to get back at it.

I did the same thing (see my post above). I did switch to mid volume for specialty, but maybe I should have done it for the Build phase, too.

This is a big thing we try to preach. It's better to start at a lower volume and work your way up. Just because you have the time and willpower to train at a "high volume" level doesn't mean your body will agree to it :).

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CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Thanks for all the info everybody. If I do end up signing up for the race, I'll definitely be going the way of TR centric training. I was already thinking that I'd try to stay perfectly to the plan during the week and follow most weekend rides, with occasionally changing the really long rides to shorter ones with more effort. My goal is to really get my FTP up and get stronger, but not spend 10 hours on the bike waiting at red lights and what not while outside.

I'll keep an eye out on the run workouts but won't be committed to their plan, especially since you guys are saying the intensity gets a bit high. I'm not going to be looking at any tough running. Just want to stay consistent and do most Z1/Z2 running.