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80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases
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Help!

I'm going for my first Olympic distance race season after completing 3 sprints last year - objective is to complete somewhere around 3hrs to 3hrs 30min mark.
I've been in base period for 12 weeks and working Zone 2 (not much else). 2 x bike (2x 1hr20mins cycles = 35k per cycle), run (2x 30mins = 5k per run), swim (2x 25mins = 900m per swim) & wanted your thoughts on what i should do between now and first race in 22 weeks time?!!

Having read a lot on 80:20 rule I'm a little lost on how I go about continuing to build time/distance (currently adding about 7% time per session per week) but also intensity to be 'race-ready'?
I'm on training-peaks & have old power-pedals I got from my brother but don't have the money to buy a plan or hire a trainer and am struggling to find a free plan online that shows how to manage this!

Specific qs are:
How would you suggest I train between now and race day?
What zone should I race in? (I'm told race in low zone 3 but i've also read that I shouldn't do any training there!!)

All help greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
ConorMc
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Re: 80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases [ConorMc101] [ In reply to ]
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Hey Conor,

Congrats on stepping up to a higher distance. It looks like you've been gradually building that base, and that's an excellent start.

There's a few ways to slice prep for an Olympic this far out, and so here's a few questions that would help any recommendation:

1) how much time a week do you have to train?
2) can you add sessions, or is once a day your limit in terms of schedule?

We're sort of in the same boat: I have an Olympic in 25 weeks, although, I'm not specifically preparing for it per se, just training generally.

Cheers,

-Eric
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Re: 80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases [EricTheBiking] [ In reply to ]
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Hey Eric,

Thanks for the reply!

I tried 3x sessions per sport but it was too much with work & family commitments (particuarily getting to the pool x3 sessions!) !
I cycle into work (24mins each/way so could make more of these if required either intensity wise or additional duration if it didn't become more than 45mins?). I could also probably add on an run session if necessary.

If I was to follow my current plan (7% weekly build, 2:1 week recovery, everything in zone 2) by biggest week would look like this...
2x Cycles (2hr:24mins each) ; 2 x Runs (52mins each); 2 x swims (40mins each). Concern with doing this is it's all zone 2 and no race-pace prep?!!

Hope that helps?

Conor
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Re: 80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases [ConorMc101] [ In reply to ]
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OK, thanks. I'm sure there are quite a few opinions as to what you should be doing, but a few things leap out to me:

1) Your swims are very short. I'd spend at least 45 or so minutes doing hard swim intervals, sets of 50s, 100s, 200s, rather than just plodding along.
2) For running and biking, after 12 weeks of consistent training, you can begin to introduce some quality sessions. There are lots of ways to come at running or biking faster, but generally, you don't want more than 1-2 hard sessions a week, so you don't want more than 1 hard run and 1 hard bike tops.
3) A third run session will help a lot, as will additional bike sessions. All easy.
4) As you get closer to the event, I'd suggest a couple of swim+bike and bike+run brick workouts, so you can prepare for how the race will feel. Things like, 40k bike at race pace followed by 5k off the bike easy. Or 40k bike easy + 5k at race pace off the bike. Or race a sprint tri :).
5) I'd say cap your bike rides at 2 hours and spend the extra time running. Get to an hour of running per session as soon as you can.

Two weeks on and a rest week is a bit much, according to most, I'd say 3 building and 1 recovery is plenty. If everything is zone 2 there's really not that much to recover from especially now. Do you find you're getting / staying tired at this volume of training?

As for racing your olympic, I haven't tracked HR for an olympic swim, but try to keep it steady. Then the bike + the run are in HR zone 4 (something I can maintain for a couple of hours, so LOW zone 4).

-Eric
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Re: 80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases [ConorMc101] [ In reply to ]
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why don't you just follow the 80/20 oly plan from their book? better than trying to figure out what you should do on your own
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Re: 80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases [Old lungs] [ In reply to ]
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Old lungs wrote:
why don't you just follow the 80/20 oly plan from their book? better than trying to figure out what you should do on your own
i was coming here to say just that.

at the cheapest end of it, get the 80/20 endurance book and just follow their plans. if you're prescribing to the 80/20 philosophy all the work has been done for you.

after that, you could get a canned plan on their site and use it in training peaks, and once you really like the results you can just be a member (like i am) for 30/month and you essentially get semi custom planning loaded in TP for you.

80/20 Endurance Ambassador
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Re: 80/20 Training Newbie - Build & Peak Phases [damon.lebeouf] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for the feedback! I'd read a lot online re: 80/20 but didn't realize the book had tanigble plans in! will start with that this year and see how it goes!
Really appreciate the help!
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