I am currently in a build for my final 70.3 of the season. I'm doing Atlantic City September 23rd. After, I plan to drastically lower my bike and swim volume for a month and up the run for a marathon at the beginning of November. As I'm gearing up for AC, should I be focusing more on getting the time in on the bike, or focus more on intensity? For example, I've been doing 7-8 hrs of cycling a week, with 1 hard workout, 1 long bike with race pace intervals at the end, a group ride, and the rest Z2. Should I try to get another workout in and drop the time in saddle to 5-6 hrs? I just can't seem to hit 2 hard bike workouts a week with 8 hrs in the saddle.
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Re: Cycling - Time vs Intensity [Conky]
[ In reply to ]
I'm sure more qualified folks will chime in here but I'll give you my non-refundable 2 cents on this.
I recently peaked for my A race at the end of July. I was riding 8-9H per week broken into 4 sessions: 1 VO2Max, 1 Sweet Spot, 1 Long Ride and 1 Easy spin. After the peak and the hard effort I haven't been able to get the same fire burning to complete a structured workout, especially the VO2Max stuff.
Since I still had 4 races left on my calendar so I need to keep some fitness if I am going to perform well. I now do a Zwift race once a week which combines the Sweetspot and VO2Max work into one effort and then I do a long ride with some hill climbs on the weekend and a easy spin as well. This dropped my volume to 3 rides totaling 5-6H a week. I wasn't sure how it would play out but my second race I hit a PR for 5, 20 and 60 minute power so it's doing the trick for me.
Take it with a grain of salt as I only race Sprint (20-30K bike legs) however its kept me sharp with the one hard effort per week so far.
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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"
I recently peaked for my A race at the end of July. I was riding 8-9H per week broken into 4 sessions: 1 VO2Max, 1 Sweet Spot, 1 Long Ride and 1 Easy spin. After the peak and the hard effort I haven't been able to get the same fire burning to complete a structured workout, especially the VO2Max stuff.
Since I still had 4 races left on my calendar so I need to keep some fitness if I am going to perform well. I now do a Zwift race once a week which combines the Sweetspot and VO2Max work into one effort and then I do a long ride with some hill climbs on the weekend and a easy spin as well. This dropped my volume to 3 rides totaling 5-6H a week. I wasn't sure how it would play out but my second race I hit a PR for 5, 20 and 60 minute power so it's doing the trick for me.
Take it with a grain of salt as I only race Sprint (20-30K bike legs) however its kept me sharp with the one hard effort per week so far.
------
"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"
Re: Cycling - Time vs Intensity [Conky]
[ In reply to ]
Conky wrote:
I am currently in a build for my final 70.3 of the season. I'm doing Atlantic City September 23rd. After, I plan to drastically lower my bike and swim volume for a month and up the run for a marathon at the beginning of November. As I'm gearing up for AC, should I be focusing more on getting the time in on the bike, or focus more on intensity? For example, I've been doing 7-8 hrs of cycling a week, with 1 hard workout, 1 long bike with race pace intervals at the end, a group ride, and the rest Z2. Should I try to get another workout in and drop the time in saddle to 5-6 hrs? I just can't seem to hit 2 hard bike workouts a week with 8 hrs in the saddle.What other training are you doing? How it all fits together will be key (overall volume, overall intensity, structure)
Re: Cycling - Time vs Intensity [tuckandgo]
[ In reply to ]
12k-15k swim a week and 40-50 miles of running. I’ve been trying to pull back the running because I need to focus on the other two. I do 4-5 swims a week, 5-6 runs, and 5 cycling workouts. Usually 2 hard swim workouts and a hard run with repeats and a hard, short run off the bike.
Conky wrote:
12k-15k swim a week and 40-50 miles of running. I’ve been trying to pull back the running because I need to focus on the other two. I do 4-5 swims a week, 5-6 runs, and 5 cycling workouts. Usually 2 hard swim workouts and a hard run with repeats and a hard, short run off the bike.Okay I can only go by my own training of the past few years (successful but self coached based on bought programmes/info off the web etc.) but that seems like a big workload (whatever the overall volume.)
Perhaps aim for 1 hard, 1 tempo and 1 long session per activity a week and then add in further stuff (such as short easy runs of the bike, drills in the swim etc.). If you 'drop' to that you may be able to fit two tempo or hard bike sessions in to make 4 in total.
I'll let coaches chip in but your current sessions seem like a lot to me. If you want to emphasise the bike you are going to need to cut back elsewhere.