Ok, so I’ve been getting into tri for the last couple of years, I got into cycling back in 2014 and was a national level swimmer up to about 18 (11 years ago!)

Anyway last year I did my first HIM, it was super hilly and I’m from a pretty hilly area! I got a stress fracture 4 weeks out so didn’t run at all that last month hoping it would heal by the time I raced. I ended up with a 29 swim, 3.45 bike and a 2.30 run. Pretty abysmal, I didn’t fuel at all!!- on the bike, it was chucking it down with rain and a pretty miserable ride, I properly bonked around mile 45 and crawled back to t2 where my wife convinced me to just run/walk if needs be. I have no idea why I didn’t take on a gel when I started to bonk on the bike but then downed 8 gels in t2 (astoundingly this actually helped LOADS and didn’t give me ridiculous GI problems!!)

All in all the whole experience really gave me a proper appreciation for the toughness of these kind of events (and utter respect for IM!)

Anyway this year my training has been consistent although I don’t have as much time as I’d like to devote to it. I’m averaging around 9 hours per week, split roughly as 2 hours running and 7 biking. I havent done a swim session since I quit swimming and I’ve always just coasted by on swims in tri, that said the HIM did make me realise that’s about my limit off technique alone, I reverted to backstroke for half of it because that’s was always my stroke and I needed the rest!

I do plan on putting in some swims, and I know I definitely need to sort that, but I not going to spend ages on it, so I’ll just fit in what I can there. My question is really for my bike/run work, what kind of split would you recommend? Race pace half marathon is 1.40 and my ftp is about 3.5w/kg at the moment so nothing stellar and I’m not expecting to be FOP but I’d love to maximise what I can do with my 9-10 hours per week. Work was pretty nuts last year so after the HIM I let the stress fracture heal properly and took most of the year off, I’ve only really been back at it since January so I’m really only looking for measurable ‘results’ towards the end of the season at best!

That’s really interesting to hear and quite comforting too tbh. I think most of the stuff I read on here applies to the majority, but there are always outliers and with my swim usually putting me top 3 without any training it’s pretty difficult to find the motivation to hit the pool (a decade of high level swimming training and the knowledge that I’ve most certainly had my swimming peak don’t help either!)

From reading these comments it seems like I need to pick up the run training, I might aim for 3-4 hours of running and 5-6 biking. As we move into summer here in the UK I’ll probably up the bike just because I love getting out on the roads but I’ll maybe aim to use that as ADDITIONAL training time whilst making sure I stick to a minimum of 3 hours running.

I love the idea of a swimming block then cutting back, I think that’s definitely one for the off season at the end of this year. For now I will aim to start just putting in one session a week in the pool just to compliment the other training.

Would be really nice to think I could be competitive, at the moment I feel like I could get my bike closer to FOP but the run speed just seems a little out of reach. One of the main reasons I like the idea of HIM/IM racing is that it suits my pace a bit more, I find that I can redline for a long time and endurance has always been my ally. I won’t ever be able to run the kind of paces at 5k and probably 10k but I know I can keep going!

I think the main thing for me is just improving my own fitness and competing against myself for now, but part of that for me is getting the biggest bang for my buck in terms of hours spent training :)