Yes, if you want to commit that time to training there is time. If you have other things higher on your priority list that's perfectly understandable.
Im up at 6:30ish most days and immediately roll out for a 45:00 run. Many evenings Im on the indoor bike trainer until 10pm because other life situations took priority that day but I still managed to train regardless. I have a one hour commute to my office both ways.
I always ask myself these simple questions.
1.Are you sick? If not train.
2.Are you injured? If not train.
3.Are you tired? Too bad, train anyway.
I rarely sleep more than 5.5 hours per night, sometimes 6 but its rare.

And there are those--Dev among them--who would argue you are shorting yourself significantly on sleep as you should/must be getting 8+ to maximize training. So now you must add 2.5 of sleep to your daily routine in addition to the extra training hours.

I want to be as best as I can be at Triathlon. My life is definitely NOT balanced right now.
Training is a priority. I've put other parts of my life on the back burner these days.

When I'm done, I'll find a better balance. Until then, non-training related things get ignored, delayed, shortened, half-assed.....

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz

I don't think there is anything magical on 14 hours per week. I can get to the same race results on 7 hours per week or 21 hours per week or 28 hours per week as 14 by modulating intensity-rest-diet.

But that's not the point. I'll just share some amplification:

• 2 hours per day CAN be an achievable number off 2 workouts per day. A short lunch workout, a longer early morning or evening workout. It "CAN" fit into the schedules or many, not all. 3 hours per day is possible (been there, done that), but I have found that even if you open up the time to do the training it can dramatically impact performance at work. Most of us need energy for day to day life
• Carrying the 2 hour concept over to the weekend, that's 1 hour on one day, and a 3 hour pass from family on the other day. The 3 hour pass may be hard for some to negotiate, but if your family is supportive, being on the road by 5:30 am and back in at 8:30 am and showered and ready for family by 9 am, and you just missed helping with breakfast. Still doable
• At 2 hours per day, you don't NEED to think that much about optimal training load to get to say 95% of ultimate performance. Go easy some days, go hard on other days. Its enough volume to get you close just going with the flow. At 7-8 hours per week, you can get the same results, but you need to play more scientifically with the intensity balance and the diet and how much time of the 8 hours you give to each sport. At 14 hours per week, all sports can get "enough" attention if you want.
• At 20 hours per week when you layer on top of that work and family, you're playing with fire a bit more in terms of burning the candle at all ends and trying to make time for sufficient rest

So yes, nothing magical about the 2 hour per day number. I just find its an achieveable target for a lot of people willing to do the 2x per day training plan without burning the candle at every day, getting mentally burnt out and having enough energy for life, and it leaves a lot of wiggle room for just doing whatever training you want when you want and going with the flow and still getting faster. You can get faster on less with more science but you won't have as much flex to wing workouts, and you can get way faster on the 20+ hrs per week program, but you need to be even more ultra organized and you're at the razor's edge in terms of torpedoing other aspects of life (and you could torpedo your fitness to by overcooking on all fronts).

My view seeing what people have pulled off in 'real life'. A lot of people say they will do things, but often when push comes to shove, they don't. If on the other hand, I give them tools to have fun, and get faster by just getting to today's training start line and enjoying today's training, then we're getting there. But the key is they can't get burnt out on other ends of life.

2 hrs seems to be a sustainable sweet spot for reasonably committed individuals if they want it.

Great summary, 4th year of racing and I am training more hours and working more hours then ever before and what i have found is exactly what you said: Get your ass out the door! Get int what you can but get it in consistently every day! Boom, nice write up!

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Can I ask you a question (to you specifically and to this thread in general in case anyone else wants to answer).

1. When the alarm rings and you take the first few step out of bed do you want to train?
2. How about while having coffee a few minutes later?
3. Or how about after eating some oatmeal <insert your quick meal of choice>?
4. How about when you start putting on workout clothes? Do you want to train yet?
5. How about 2 min into your warm up?
6. What happens at 7 minutes into the warmup?

For me for 1-5 the answers are NO NO NO NO NO. I absolutely don't want to train at all those points in my day, but the answer to 6 is "BRING IT ON !!!". I have to haul myself through this endless daily process where the voice inside my heads goes, "you're out of your mind, how about going back to bed". Yet I endure that entire process knowing the reward at the end is worth it and makes me happy.

I don't know how many times at mile 22 of a race, I've had to call on the same mentality...."DON"T LISTEN TO YOUR BODY SAYING NO, JUST GET THROUGH THIS HUMP....NOTHING WORTH HAVING COMES WITHOUT THE VOICE SAYING PACK IT IN"....by mile 25, its all worth it.

I feel the same way 1-5 Dev... unfortunately I'm not yet mature enough to come to the realization that it will be worth it once I'm up and going... I also blame my wife and dog for looking very warm and cozy in our bed!

I answer yes to #1, #5, and #6. But as soon as I get up (4 AM) and out of the bedroom, I am into the kitchen to make breakfast (english muffin w/ PB and honey, plus a banana) and an espresso. The second I sit down on the couch with that meal, I don't want to go to my bike/treadmill/the pool. Though, the second I get my legs moving, or push off the wall for my first length in the pool, I'm ready to fucking go. Not a moment sooner though.

And there are those--Dev among them--who would argue you are shorting yourself significantly on sleep as you should/must be getting 8+ to maximize training.

I would argue that you need 8 hours of sleep to maximize your health and that has nothing to do with training. Getting good sleep and eating well is far more important to health than training.

For ME 14 hours or so a week (2 hours a day) is doable without making training feel like a second job. One can always throw in a few weeks of more training if a longer race is your goal.

2 hrs seems to be a sustainable sweet spot for reasonably committed individuals if they want it.


Dev,

Thanks for the earlier mentions.

I agree with what you said above. If you are going to take seriously being one of the better athletes in your AG, going for podium places in that AG, qualifying for national AG team spots on the ITU side of things or qualifying for the the IM World Championships - I'd say you need to be looking at roughly 14 hrs/week as a Jan - Oct average.

But people should not get all wrapped up in the numbers - as they tend to do these days. And as in the other thread, it's not week-to-week that we are looking, or even month-to-month - I'd say the minimum time chunk to look at is about 6 months. What to the total volume of work you have been able to do in that 6 month period of time.

One thing I always did, was to have a set race at least one month out of each month of the year that I would do almost every year. In the triathlon off-season (Oct - May) these would be running races or XC-Ski races, and then obviously in-season (May - Sept) triathlon races. What this gave me is a focus and motivation for each month of the year, and then of course the ultimate bench-marking - how well did I do in the race??

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I'd answer "yes" to all of those questions but I still don't train for roughly an hour (sometimes more) after I get up. Reading, coffee and walking the dog are higher on my priority list first thing in the morning. Once that happens there's no stopping me.

The workaround for me in the AM is I don't sit down! I, like you, find that when I sit down I want to go back to sleep. So I grab whatever I am going to eat, then feed the cat and get stuff ready for whatever workout it is. Then I sit on my throne and workout after that!

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Hmm...interesting to see different takes on these responses. During the week, I'm a NO on #1. Like JReilly, I solve 2-3 by standing. Oatmeal is already made in the fridge, stand and eat it while the coffee warms in the microwave. Once the clothes start going on, "put me in coach!"

If its still at "NO" by #6, then I'm probably going to adjust the workout plan (skip the intervals or whatever, and go easier).

On the weekend, I'm good to go at #1 (fatigued/overreached state notwithstanding).

Alright, I'll try this tomorrow. I have to be on the bike at 4:45 AM for 1hr 45min (TrainerRoad's Gibraltar) then run 30 min. I'll stand (or sit at the island in the kitchen), drink the coffee, and skip the couch/TV.

Give it a try. I also found when I sat down to eat I would get on my phone and procrastinate too much too. Now if I have to bike I do all of that during my warm up.

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Thanks for starting this thread. It has motivated me to get more focused on my training. Since doing IMMT the first two years it was held I have been off and on with my training. I have no excuses not to get to 2 hrs/day since my work is only 1 km from home, kids are all out on their own and career is in a great spot with no desires to go to the next level.
I'm curious about what you include in your training hours. Obviously swim/bike/run but do you also include the time doing weights, yoga, core work or other strenuous activities. Also do you have a minimum time threshold, i.e. activity needs to be >10 min

This is great advice...interestingly on biz travel in a hotel, I make my oatmeal and coffee all standing up in my hotel room and I find in spite of jetlag, I am ready to go much faster than at home when I sit down after making oatmeal and coffee and start browsing the web or reading the newspaper....then I don't want to get up. Tomorrow, I will try your standing only plan. THANKS....you learn something new in every thread (good and bad LOL)

Glad I could help! I'll be doing this tomorrow before my swim. But instead of making anything I'll grab a stroopwafle from the cabinet and get my bags ready then head out. Let me know how it goes!

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On body composition, what is your best advice?

X2. I wake up and start making either coffee or espresso immediately. As the coffee is brewing, I will sweep the kitchen, do some dishes, fold some laundry, etc. while listening to a podcast. It's easy to keep the kitchen clean like this and it's easy to just knock out something like that quick. After that I will set the trainer up and then get ready for my workout. If I sit down, I start thinking about the workout and once I start thinking about what I'm about to endure, I start to dread it.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

No nutritionist here, but by and large, my 2 cents is to eat from the outside aisles of the grocery store, and try to get the bulk of your calories in the first half of the day. Couple that with 14 hours per week of training and sufficient sleep and you get lean pretty fast....cut out refined sugars...no sodas for sure, black coffee etc. Limit deserts to a few treats per week, good fats only, cut out sat fats....what else did I miss? Eat as much as you want during workout and as little as possible after ~8 pm.

No way I could ever do that. One of the best parts of my day is snuggling up with my Dachshund each morning drinking coffee and doing a bit of reading.

That's my bedtime routine! Play fetch with my cat, yes cat, and read. He snuggles with the wife when I leave to go swim in the morning. But weekends are different. Way more time in the AM for tv and snuggles!

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