FYI on your HR statement - your racing HR is routinely higher than what you are able to achieve in training, so it may still exceed your threshold HR. Threshold HR can be determined by doing a 1-hour tt with constant pacing.

Regarding your HIM performance, focusing on volume is exactly what you should do, because training load is mostly a function of volume (vs. intensity). The more you train, the better you can expect to perform (at ANY distance), as long as you taper before your race to shed fatigue and you avoid nonfunctional overreaching or overtraining by limiting the duration of the high-volume training block.

The one thing that hasn't been addressed in this thread is periodization. I don't know (maybe I missed it) how much time before your race but why not do intervals at all the intensities listed? Phil's green book lays out such a strategy if I recall correctly.

Nate Pearson wrote:

That 20 minute accerlator plan is written by a guest coach and targeted for members of BeginnerTriathlete.com.
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tldr; Start with sweetspot/threshold, move into Vo2, threshold and anerobic. If you have extra time add sweetspot.

Yes, I would start with intermediate base. That's designed for someone just in your position.

Yes, I would start with intermediate base. That's designed for someone just in your position.

Hey Fella,

See below...



Oh, I'm not here to defend Tilburs per se. He's a sharp guy and I reckon he can do that himself. I just want to clarify what these terms really mean, where they come from and some of the physiological context.



It's a fair point. That said, the work I've done since my last MSSE paper has been very interesting with respect to the kinetics of the W'. I reckon it is the kinetics, rather than the absolute size, that really makes all the difference and may have some more significant strategic implications and warrant a careful analysis. Once I get this next paper out we ought to have a beer or something and talk about it.

You coming to ACSM in June? I think you'll dig our (Jones/Vanhatalo/Poole/Skiba) symposium.

Phil
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Yes.

But in certain circumstances it is also appropriate to work on total work capacity too.

I am NOT suggesting one simply trains with a specificity relating to W' as the sole preparation for an Ironman....just so it's clear.

This is an interesting point, and one I'll address in some detail in my forthcoming book. There are a few things worth keeping in mind here:

1) Yes, for an HIM, I'd suggest spending some considerable time there. For most decent athletes, throwing a few (no more than 4...seriously) 10 - 20 minute intervals at "tempo" power in per week will be more than enough.

2) The athletes I have seen in both the medical and coaching arenas who have developed non-functional overreaching or bona-fide overtraining syndrome (irrespective of sport) seem to have been spending an inordinate amount of time riding "tempo". My opinion is that since this sort of riding is easy enough that you can do it for several hours, but hard enough to severely tax glycogen storage, it represents a potential risk. The athlete can end up in a monotonic cycle of constantly doing this sort of work and eventually, they fry. (Look at some of the references in my green book with respect to monotony etc. Properly discussing the implications of that type of training and the "frying" that occurs would take an entire book.)

3) You *could* do something similar riding too much threshold. However, (and again, this is my opinion / impression) riding a lot of threshold tends to fatigue the athlete enough / make them feel crummy enough in the short term that they don't end up doing enough of it over a long enough period to get into really big trouble. They can still end up overreached for sure in the short term (if highly motivated) but they incidence of really wrecking themselves seems less.

It is important to understand that a lot of the questions with respect to "how much time should be spent in any given zone" are difficult to answer with any certainty. It is highly variable between people and sometimes you don't know what will work best until you hit it by tweaking / trial and error. Some of it just can't (yet) be predicted in advance, and that is where the art of coaching becomes really important.

Phil
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Is that a bad thing?

Another Steve Seiler devotee, I see.