What is your bike and run volume like?

Putting aside your power stats for one second, if you're coming out of T2 fucked, running 5.20s and never getting any quicker then you're either over-biking or haven't done the run training. It's normally a case of forcing yourself to slow down in those first few kms. How did you feel on the bike, what was your HR like? I seem to find that many people over-bike even guys with PMs then they struggle on the bike. As a rough guide I ride at a level where I could still hold a conversation, I've seen guys riding where they can only utter a few words at a time.

If you log all your activity on strava, then it's looks like you're only running 2 hrs per week for 12.5mi, and biking 2.5 hrs per week for 38.5mi this year, and look to have an average weekly total of training hours of around 5hrs.

I'd say you were doing well off those totals. AG podiums are more likely to be doing substantially more in terms of volume and training variety for faster times.

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Swim. Overbike. Walk.

You say you don’t swim often. Do you think the swim is taking more out of you on race day than you realize?

1) I used to underestimate the swim. I realized how it screwed me on the run when I went into a race with a poor swim training. Don’t underestimate the swim. I bet your HR coming out of the water is at the highest point of the race.

2) bike volume!

3) work on your position. 3:03 on 183W is not good unless it’s a very hilly race. My position is ok and on 183W, I would expect to be around 2:40

4) what is your open HM time? 1:43 may not be that bad. I am about 10 min slower than my open HM time.

Well my attempt this season was to follow trainerroad 3x per week, 2 runs and 1 swim and 1 rest day. 1 workout per day with two, sometimes only 1 TRX workout.
So, around ~8-10 hrs per week max I guess. With the weather improving, since April, I have been doing 2x OW swims, 2 outdoor rides (one long 2hrs, one short 1hr) and 2 runs (one long 2hrs, one short 1hr).

My HR avg is 137 which is middle Z2. I went up to Z4, 151 during uphills. So I don't think I should be messed up during the run.

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Paulo Matos

Err, I have probably most of my workouts on strava. On strava I don't have strenght workouts and some swims but I guess I totalled about 8-10hrs during most high vol weeks and 5-8 on the weeks before the race.

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Paulo Matos

Not sure I understand the comment. I spent maybe 8 weeks during Dec and Jan with no swimming. Otherwise I swim 1hr per week on the pool until April and 2 hrs open water per week since. Pool is quite far away so it's easy to do open water for me, but not during winter.

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Paulo Matos

1) Probably you're right. I swim 1, max 2 hrs per week but why would that be an issue for the run?

2) I have been doing 3-4 hrs up to April on trainerroad and 3 hours outdoors since then.

3) Position on the bike? How can you _work_ on it? Should I get it checked out?

4) HM time is 1:43 as mentioned. 10 mins slower would be 1:53, I think that was my time for Kraichgau but can't match that since.

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Paulo Matos

Maybe you ran out of fuel???

It sounds like your results are reasonably in line with with what you can expect from not training very much.

Sounds cruel and flippant maybe, but: You're swimming slow because you don't swim enough. You're not biking enough to be able to do a fast 56 miles leaving your legs in a runnable state, and you're not running enough to be able to bang out a fast 13 miles on tired legs.

Raise your training to 10 -12 hours a week, all quality sessions (not 2 hour rides at 100 heart rate), and you'll notice a difference for sure.

As people have said, your times align with your training.

Guys, thank you for all the replies. I think we have agreed that the times align with my training volume.

Without a coach (I understand this would probably be best but I can't commit financially at the moment) what's the best resource to devise a good training plan?

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Paulo Matos

keep using trainerroad and start doing the BarryP run training (search for it on the forum), get your run volume up to 40+mpw.

Why not just use the TrainerRoad HIM plan. It includes all the bike/run/swims. Pcik the volume and run with it. I am doing the IM plan and love it. Just sat on a trainer for 3 hours for the 1st time ever.

there's not enough easy running in the TR programs imo

I agree. I do the same. Use the bike plan and do BarryP plan for running and my own swim stuff.

You don't need a coach.

- join a swim squad
- run lots, 1 x long easy run, 1 x tempo, 1 x threshold 1 x brick

Increase your training volume up to 12 - 14 hours and you'll see progress,

You need to increase your volume a lot. The guys winning your AG probably train 15+ hrs per week and are faster so they get more volume in per hour. You say you can't finish your run but it doesn't sound like you even run the total distance of the race (13.1 miles) per week. Of course you will struggle on the run. Same with the bike, same with the swim. I run 45-50 miles per week (which is a lot compared to what most people are) plus big bike and swim volumes. Bump up the volume, don't worry about structured workouts. Just swim, bike, and run more.

While train more is the easy answer, I also wonder if you're racing smart. For example, you're clearly under-performing relative to potential on the bike. On the bike are you managing the terrain well? Are you braking on descents or using them to pick up speed? Are you using your momentum on rollers to carry you partially up the hill. Are you a crappy climber and spinning up hills at 100 rpm in a granny gear, or are you doing enough low-cadence interval works so you have a few matches to burn?

Wait what?

This blog post summarizes my thoughts the subject of cadence on hilly courses. There is a growing body of research that backs this up. I just don’t have time to find the citations at the moment.

http://blog.trisutto.com/low-cadence-triathlon/

I'm not sure I agree that spinning faster is always a bad thing. It's one of those personal sweet spot things.

I'll usually spin at 95 RPM and that will go higher when I'm pushing it. For instance when doing FTP tests I'll settle at 100-102 RPM as my natural cadence.


I tend to have a fast spin when outdoor riding, especially when climbing and I'm at 4.4W/Kg and can out-climb anyone I usually ride with. I realise that it makes my heart rate 4 or 5 bpm faster than a 90RPM cadence but the trade-off is my legs feel fresher after the bike.

I can also stomp at 75 RPM for extended periods of time if i need to but it feels like i'm doing "strength work" and not naturally riding.

I think your numbers fits.
Last season 2x swim per week on average (some 1 some 3), 40 min swim time, 2:42 bike time on 186 NP (85kg guy), following trainer road middle distance 3x rides per week, doing the long ride outside when the summer hit. And a 1:59 HIM on WAY too low run volume (like 10-12 km/week). You are running a bit more than me but maybe the course was better, maybe you messed up the hydration/nutrition.
But i think it is just a matter of putting in mor time tbh as others say too.

The barryp suff looks quite complex. Is there a brief explanation of how it works somewhere?

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Paulo Matos

So, I assume you end up doing at least 2 workouts per day, and this is not even counting strength and conditioning, right?

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Paulo Matos

Interesting, I always heard you should never go low cadence and should remain seated on the bike at all times. It seems this absolutely contradicts that.

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Paulo Matos

Yes, 2 a day works well. You get up early for an hour on the trainer or a swim, have a run at lunchtime or in the evening, and a trainer ride or outdoor ride in the evening. About 10 sessions per week is easily doable once you get into the habit.

Also, Barry P running crippled me. I usually never ran more than 20 miles per week and could do a 1:30 HM. It was generally focused on hill reps and intervals with an easy or a long run once per week as well. When i ramped this up to 30mpw of lots of long and slow i knackered my feet and now i've not run for 6 months. Just my N=1.

That would be the training regimen of an advanced age grouper, probably not of someone who looks to improve from going slow to a bit faster. And - at least according to my experience - from someone who either has no family and hardly any other interest - or sets the wrong priorities. If someone wants to improve and do well on a half, increasing volume from 5 hrs/w to ~8 hrs/w while adding quality should result in a significant improvement. Of course, 12~14 hrs would be nice and "better", but requires slow increase and should be sufficient to bring one in the AG's top 10~20%...

BarryP is very easy. Basically run 6 days a week with 3 runs of x miles, 2 runs of 2x miles, and 1 run of 3x miles.
Let’s say you want to run 30 miles a week,
You do 3 runs of 3miles, 2 runs of 6 miles, and 1 run of 9 miles.
For 40 miles it’s 3 x 4 miles, 2 x 8 miles, and a 12.
Don’t worry about intervals and tempos for now until you have more volume for a few months.

Don't start knitting just yet...

Swim Fitness is run fitness. Get in the pool with a squad and swim at least 3 days per week, ideally 4-5.

Increase your FTP and get comfortable pushing big watts while maintaining aero position.

Put an emphasis on running frequency over volume. The speed will come. Stay patient.

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Toro Performance

yeah, but the OP said "Meanwhile I frustrate myself year after year in a futile attempt to improve".

There are no short cuts to this. You can't get out more than you put in. (unless you're one of those gifted people that can run a 16min 5Km and swim 60s/100m) You're right that it does cut into other activities and you have to be careful to work around the family but it's not that difficult once you learn to become efficient with your time. This is manageable with a full time job with lots of commuting and 3 school-age kids who also need taking to the pool/track many times per week. But it does get you to the top 10% of your AG. Maybe just do it for a season to get fast and fit and get your results and then ease back to a happy medium level for later years.

Well, then I take my hat off to you. I do not even have a full-time job (well, would call taking care of my little kids a full-time activity at least ;-)), have just two kids, reduced job travel to a minimum, don't do much more than family, job and a bit tri-life and still I do not manage doing much more than 10hrs/w. At least until I do not sacrifice more than what feels ok. However, unless having big race podium in sight (e.g. IM Germany/Frankfurt or Challenge Roth) I feel that this is sufficient to be on a competitive level (top 5%). But of course - this is just a very personal ind individual opinion, goal and setup...


Who wants to do that??? ;-)

Assume you just to improve your time a bit, and not qualify for a world championship, don't take all of the over the top advise some people give to serious. Of course training more will help improve the results, but I guess if you would be extremely bored you would be training more already.

For normal people with lives outside triathlon would suggest to aim for 3 sessions in each sport. If you want to cut somewhere, do only 2 swim sessions, on a HIM we are talking about 2-3 mins probably that the 3rd training session can give you, you can lose much more in cutting the other disciplines. And concentrate most of the sessions on the weekend, better than planning your whole day around working and training.

For run aim for 1 session with intensity (for example 4km warmup, 6x1km at 10km race speed, 2km cooldown), one one-hour run, and one easy long run on the weekends (min 1.5h, better 20k). Same structure for bike, 1 intensity session maybe on a trainer (for example 1,5hrs with 5x3min at FTP with 5mins rest), one long easy ride on the weekend, and the third somewhere in between (longish, potentially some short sprints or a little more pushing up the hills). Strength and core stability just build in before or after your sessions ( strength before, core after). Also would be nice to combine a ride and a run as brick, to also train what the body is going through during a race.

So lets say, on Saturday you start with a swim, in the afternoon you do a long ride. On Sunday you first do a longish ride, then the long run in the afternoon. You will have lots of hours in, and it leaves a swim, a trainer session, a 1hr run and some run intervals. That's 4 sessions for during the week, so it gives you a recovery day too. That's one workout during the week, 2 on the weekends (not counting strength etc). And this will make you faster!

Important thing is to not start right away with this but ease into it. if you always run 15miles a week and now some people are suggesting you to run 40-50, sure way to an injury. Start with lots of slow base miles and don't increase by more than 10% per week.

The guy was comparing his times to the AG winner in his original post. You've got people on here that have won their AG telling him what it's going to take to get competitive at that level. It's not over the top. It's what it takes.

If he just wants to be a have fun completing triathlon guy, then he should just keep doing what he's doing. He's getting pretty dang good results for the training he's putting in.

New guy here in ST, although long time reader.
I was also in St Polten this Sunday, so I think I might have some input. I'm not sure about why that run time (it was quite hot I have to say), but definitely you are not getting all the bang for your buck in the bike. As an orientation, I did 188W AV and 201W NP, for a 2:32:45 Garmin time (2:35 chip time).
I am 67kg, and the equipment is fairly budget: BMC TM02 (old version), 105, 55mm deep open mold rims, latex tubes, sleeveless 2XU trisuit and a Bell Javelin. My point is that I definitely wasn't racing in a superbike or a magic trisuit (or a disc).

But I took a lot of time to dial the bike position. I am an aerodynamics engineer, so I might have obsessed a bit too much over it. Anyway, I'd advise you to get a good tri-oriented fit and try to fix both the slow bike and the heavy legs afterwards. If not possible, do some research, if you are nerdy/dedicated enough, everything is in the internet, at least for the big watts stuff.
Then when training, try to do the above FTP efforts in the TT position. It is a good indicator of how sustainable/powerful you TT position is. For me it took at least 3 months of hating trainerroad until I got used to it. I also think that the low volume training plans in TR don't have enough bike time. I usually mix the low volume run/swim with the mid volume bike and I find it works for me.

I hope you manage to smash that elusive good run.

Consider you may be going to hard on the bike, thus zapping energy to have a steady run.

I consistently have set PR's at the half distance by managing my bike effort (coming in a little slower than ideal) and having a steady run. Typically if I am 3 minutes longer on the bike, I can drop 10 to 15 minutes on the run. When I try and crush the bike, my run SUFFERS.

Also consider building more strength and fitness on the bike so you can maintain speed and not have to work as hard to have more for the run.

The race is an energy balance equation. You have to figure out where to spend it and how it will affect the other disciplines.

Personally I like to hit the run at mile 8 and feel like I have something to burn rather than it be a death march to the finish line.

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Ryan
http://www.SetThePaceTriathlon.com
http://www.TriathlonTrainingDaddy.com
I got plans - https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...dotcom#trainingplans

Nearly everything we do (depending on where we we live) is a choice. One choice I've made over the past few years is completely cutting out any TV watching (other then when on the trainer or treadmill). I make the choice to get up early to do the work to be competitive - I was up at 3:45 this morning and biking at 4:10. Most people I talk to think this is crazy, but with two kids and a full time job it's what needs to be done to get the results I'm after. I've gotten in 70 hours of training this month, mostly by getting up stupid early - it's a choice I've made.

We all have 24 hours in the day - some choose to use them differently than others. Can you train more? The answer is a definite yes - a lot more.

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Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

Even if your position is good, you need to make sure you can hold it. Using myself as an example of how not to do it: I have a tendency to want to be an FTP hero, so I slay Zwift intervals sitting up on my TT bike, and outdoor I ride way to much on my roadbike, standing up too much, just to make sure I make the Watts. Result is that when I race, I can't hold a proper aero position, or when I do it's hard to hit the power I want/need.

So: get your position looked at, either here or by a professional, and then ride in aero a lot. Be cool with your "TT FTP" being lower than your "All-out FTP". Pace according to your TT FTP.

ETA: My club coach yells at me on a regular basis to stop obsessing about Watts, because it's speed that wins races, not power. So if you leave speed on the table as a result of poor aerodynamics associated with trying to hit higher power numbers, you are losing. Because nobody will impressed by your average power when you finish, it's only the time on the clock that counts.

(The corollary of that is of course that nobody is interested in your bike split when you have to walk half the run).

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

I did St. Polten a few years ago and that bike course isn't the easiest I've done in a 70.3. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Might have to do with the course, which is harder than some but nothing like Rapperswil-Jona, which killed my run last year.
I have put down my results here: https://docs.google.com/...Myk/edit?usp=sharing

In any case, I just came from some short holidays and wanted to summarize this thread. Thank you so much for your help (and honesty). :)

Bottomline: I need to up my run. I just checked my TP run volume graph and I attach it. It's not as bad as I initially had predicted but it's still just 18km/wk over the last 6 months. More recently avg is maybe about 25 or so.

I have Zell am See in 13 wks so I will be going full on trainerroad mid-volume triathlon plan for the bike part and 2 times OW or pool swim.

For the run I will give barryp a try starting with 20kms/wk (avg of last 28days) and upping 10% every week from there. I have created the spreadsheet to go from 20km/wk to 62.8km/wk (https://docs.google.com/...Ckg/edit?usp=sharing). Training paces actually look ok (attached). Given the warning on the plan that the paces might look too slow, I was expecting them even slower.
I understand I will probably not reach 63km/wk as I will have to taper but the spreadsheet will be a guide.

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Paulo Matos