I’d say you are on the right track with your training.

Two suggestions are to incorporate a fueling (nutrition) strategy into your training and include at least two shorter local races your schedule. Done right, both will accelerate your learning curve, help manage your expectations and improve the execution of your A race.

Edit: and consider using Best Bike Split to design your plan for pacing the bike.

Scott

It will be a challenge to improve FTP while ramping up running and swimming, or it will be a challenge to improve running while ramping up swimming and cycling. You have a mental model of how to move forward, but it's just that, a model. You might just need to pick one and stick with it.

I'd disassociate goals from process and just do things right day to day. Your time will be what your time will be.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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This^^^^

Plus OP, the worst thing you can do is pace too hard on the bike. You need plenty in the tank when you start your run.

What you're doing right :
- good volume
- background of doing each of the 3 disciplines as individual sports. That's invaluable, particularly the swimming

What you're doing wrong :
- trying to improve all 3 sports simultaneously, particularly from a fairly high starting point. Good recipe for burning out, the TR plans are awesome but also take a lot out of you, if you're doing them properly then you will likely find that run and swim have to go into maintenance mode while you're improving your bike

Challenges :
- execution. I.e. Pacing, nutrition, and all the little things that can mess up your day. Particularly as you're just getting into tri. Do some shorter races. Do some race pace bricks. Get used to everything, your position, your nutrition, etc.

Mostly what Eric and Cartman said..

Also, since you say most of your bike training will be on the trainer, ensure you get a reasonable number of longer outdoor rides done too, and try to spend the duration on the extensions. You don't want to end up with lots of power and unable to go fast because you can't stay tucked for the duration.
Even if you stay on the extensions on the trainer, it's not quite the same, in part because you're not watching the road ahead in the same way, and also because you don't have to absorb bumps, etc, which can put some stress on your neck.

I spend some time on the trainer in the tuck but tend to sit up a lot too. I just hate staying tucked on the trainer ;)
However, I do get outside and ride for sustained periods on the extensions too, and that seems to be sufficient.

Since you suggest it's hard to improve all three sports simultaneously, how would you suggest going about with the training in terms of improving? Is it just a matter of only improving one at a time and maintaining the other two?

Also coming from a college swim background, I try to focus on just maintaining the swim and improving bike/run at the same time. Instead, do you think I should be going through phases of just improving bike while maintaining swim/run, and then just improving the run while maintaining swim/bike?

I have my own ideas too but curious what you think. Always open to suggestions and change. Obviously depends a lot on each individual's background/history of course too though.

I think maintaining the swim and then doing alternate focuses on the bike and run would work well. Certainly my experience has been that the hardest balance is between the bike and the run, simply because they both hit the legs and that limits how much quality work you can do.

Do you prefer a high-volume approach with some quality mixed in, or are you more of a high-quality most of the time person?

I always have had to do high-quality right away because of the actual swim season and having to fit a whole bike/run training season into just four months. Now that I'm graduating from college swimming though, I'm taking more of a high volume approach and not necessarily focusing on early season results. Gonna do a much longer bike/run build and add in the quality once the summer comes, trying to focus on September racing (when swimming and classes normally start full-time again).

sounds like you have a nice formula for triathlon success...

depending on how many years out of swimming you are, do not underestimate the time it'll take to get your "feel back" - I took ~13 years off of swimming and it took a few months to get there...but otherwise, good luck, 4:30 might be do-able!

Not a chance that you won't finish. 4.30 should be quite easy unless the course is tough. Don't agree with the others regarding the improvement in several disciplines at the same time. Just keep the easy days easy and the hard days at the right intensity. If you're not improving, find out why. If you are improving, find out what you are doing right and keep doing that. Oh, and find some good legs to draft from on the swim. Even though you're probably strong enough to be in the pointy end, aim to arrive in T1 as fresh as possible. You'll get a much nicer day that way, and it will probably be faster too. Don't be the hero with a swimmers ego who has to show everyone that he has been a college swimmer.

On bike I'm definitely high quality. Time limited (job and kids) so I can consistently train in the 10-14 hour range but not more. That's simply not enough time for a high volume approach to cycling. Run is more of a halfway house, running is less time intensive so I can do more of a volume approach, plus I've found in the past that trying to fit in too much intensity work in my running just leads to injury.

Last 70.3 I averaged 10-14 hours of training. Biking roughly followed the TRcmid volume plans for half distance, with some outdoor riding and races replacing some of the rides. Running was in the 30-40 mile range, but that was running 5-6 days per week so a lot of short runs, mostly fairly easy pace, typically just one higher quality run consisting of hillwork, longer intervals (usually half mile or mile), or a longer block of tempo work. Would add an extra quality run into the weeks where TR had me recovering on the bike if the legs felt fresh enough. And in practice there were some work trips and weekends away with the family in there where cycling wasn't possible and so those became natural periods to do more of a run focus.