At this pint you could probably go with the two workout plan that taren talks about. A longer session with some cadence work mixed in and a short, hard session.

Next training cycle, pick a legit plan and follow it. That way as your training progresses you know what to tweak and what you respond best too.

I think your doc may be a bit out of touch if he’s telling you to HTFU when you’re passing out from some moderately hard workouts. I do fasted bricks a good bit. Up to 2.5-3 hours and have never even felt remotely close to passing out. Something like isn’t jiving and it could be potentially dangerous.

Telling people to HTFU when they pass out is how high school kids die during summer workouts for football. Old school thinking based on old school science. The new school is to train smart.

Ok, here's what I see:

You've been sick and injured which put you out of training for 4 weeks and 6 weeks respectively. That nullifies whatever fitness gains you might have made prior to each of those incidents. Further, having both of those events this year means that you've likely made ZERO gains, and probably have slid backwards compared to last year. performance and fitness gains require consistent training, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. A lost day here or there...or even a week for vacation won't matter. But, a month and a month-and-a-half....you are starting over. Especially, when you don't have a long history (eg, "base") to rely on.

Second, you've only been training at pretty low volume until recently. Even your recent volume is still pretty minimal, in the cold light of day at

• 6k swimming,
• 5 hr bike,
• 3 hr run.

Furhter the structure of your run and bike workouts is wholly ineffective. You're really doing NOTHING on the bike. You have 3 unstructured bike workouts with no real intensity. Its just 5 hours of riding. Better than nothing, but not by much. Also, its only 3 rides with two of them on consecutive days. That leaves you not riding at all for 3 days in a row. it would be better to space those out move evenly. Eg, Tue, Thu, Sun.

Its really a very similar story with your running, except that 10x1km "uncomfortable" run is just trash. If you feel that bad today after that run yesterday, you are just digging yourself into a hole that you can't climb out of. Stop that. You shouldn't EVER feel that way on a normal weekly schedule.

Rule number 1: Never do a workout today that keeps you from doing one tomorrow.

I realize today is your off day, but you won't be properly recovered tomorrow, if you feel as you describe today. So, you're wasting your efforts. Tired today, sure....lightly sore, sometimes (not all the time). Burning legs, can't move? Never (except after a big race!!!).

1. All your runs should be easy. No more intervals. They don't help, and they are causing you problems. Replace the 10x1k with a 60minute easy run.
2. Can you move your Monday bike to Tuesday? Instead of 120m at "race pace", do 10m warmup, 2x20m @ 160 watts (3-5m rest), 10m cool down. That's just over an hour, as you adjust you can stretch the 2x20 out to 3x15/2x30/etc. Also, keep the 30m run as a brick after. Same 2 hours of work, just divided different.
3. Add a Monday run start at 30m, and build up to 60m...and don't skip it.
4. Move the Wed bike to Thursday, structured as 10m warmup, 45-60 minutes tempo, 20-30m zone2. Follow with a 30m easy run as a brick after.
5. Move the 10x1k run to Wednesday, but do as a 60m easy run.
6. Move the 4k swim to Wed or Friday (friday is better).
7. Consider the long bike structure I described above with some tempo and some SST.

The result would be:

Mon: 2k-swim, 60m-easy run
Tue: 2x20 bike / 30m easy run brick
Wed: 4k swim (alt), 60m easy run
Thu: 90m tempo ride / 30m easy run brick
Fri: 4k swim (preferred)
Sat: long run
Sun: Long bike

With this structure you might find that your legs don't really need Friday off. In which case you could easily add a 60m recovery ride, or a 30m recovery run, if you have the time. Lots of other ways to solve the problem. I don't really know what all your scheduling options are. But, I was trying to give an example of spacing things out a little better so you are never away from one sport for very long, without trying to change your overall volume.

I would kill the sauna, if you are time crunched. Unless you are training for a HOT race, its not really doing anything for you. Either spend that time training SBR or get back to regular life.

As I said above, never bury yourself. When in doubt go a little easier...not harder. Long term gains are made by long term consistency, not by being a hero on Tuesday.

ETA: I'm not really a fan of bricks, and rarely do them myself. I'm only suggesting them above as a more time-efficient way to get some more easy run volume. Personally, I have the scheduling flexability to be able to do them separately.

This gives me a lot to think about thanks. 6 months ago when I asked here, I was just told to ride more. That riding more would do all I needed, then add stuff later on.

I only go in the sauna as my fun and keep the warm down going. Have read it helps increase fitness. It's 9pm by this time tbh I can't do anymore

Yeah tbh legs hurt every day.

The sauna is a waste of time.

Well, it won't hurt. So if you enjoy it fine. But, no it won't make you any fitter.


Fix that. It shouldnt be that way. So, if it is... Figure out what you did and fix it.

1. Proper intensity in an appropriate dose for your current training state.
2. Proper recovery from previous sessions.
3. Proper nutrition.
4. Sufficient sleep.

My guess is that you are breaking most of those rules.

Might be worthwhile posting a picture or video of your bike fit. If you’re way off base with the fit the sore legs and wonky numbers might make more sense.

What about race nutrition? Is the plan to have dates during the race or something else? If it's something else then maybe do a bit of training with that. When I'm 6 weeks from a race I try and prepare for that race. Of course that means getting the training done but it also means practicing everything to avoid making a mistake on the race day. At this stage the big gains are avoiding the big loses.

Are you entirely comfortable with every bit of race kit you'll use? Do you know what nutrition is handed out on the course and do you like it? Are you going to be one of those people who get to the last week and suddenly have to replace their running shoes? Do you know the course details? Have you visualised yourself taking part?

Likewise, I may of read you wrong, but you don't want to train a lot and then invent up a power number that a version of you could maintain if the training had gone magically. What you want to do is during your training learn enough about yourself so that you go into the race with a realistic plan that will work. As someone else said, it should feel easy to start with.

TLDR not seeing a lot here about race preparation.

I hear you. But there is a lot of research pouring our on impacts of excecise and sauna treatments.

I. E here is one conclusion on heart health

"Our findings suggested that a combination of repeated sauna
therapy and exercise training is a safe and effective method to
improve cardiac function and physical activity in patients with
CHF."

If you search on Google scholar sauna treatment and vo2 max. It's an interesting read. Maybe nothing but I also like it, so might as well keep doing it.

I don't think I'm getting enough sleep and maybe I'm working harder than I think.. Hmm.

That's a good point. I'll try and post a video on bike fit tomorrow

Sorry, I don't normally eat during a race. I guess I didn't learn my lesson last year. I find I can last up to 4 hours without eating and 2 without water.

I want to do a sprint tri in 2 weeks and I think your right. I should practice the nutrition on the Sunday long ride

Yeah, I wouldn't mind moving from a one piece to a 2 piece. Last year, trying to piss was annoying

They hand out red bull and some sort of bar. There was bottles of some water and electro yes. I should go find out what it is. I'm not fussy and my tummy has no problems

No, I bought new hokas last month 😊

Yes, the course hasn't changed much from last year. I'm fully ready to complete it without a beer in hand this time

Umm not sure where u got that from? I train 8-10 hours and scaling up to 14. That's more than a lot of people I know. Power number is from zwift...

Maybe I didn't write that well, I'm not talking anything specific or personal here. Whatever your power numbers are, what I'm saying is partly use training between now and the race to find and practice a realistic target race power. It's something we should all do. Any of us can be as fit as anything but if we don't pace the bike properly the race will go south. All I'm saying is put in the prep to know what that pace is - that is one of the biggest gains you can make. I don't want you to come back with a race report and say you overcooked the bike.

I think that's very fair advice. I wonder what time I would of got last year if I had nutrition for the event

Somthing else worth mentioning here thst I dont see is that FTP on a trainer and on the road can be different, I see roughly 15w difference, around 210 indoors, 225 outdoors.

Also dont trust the power meter totaly, I know my PM is pretty accurate, as it reads the sameish as others I have used, that have been checked, a freind is doing TT times MUCH quicker than me on significantly less watts, and i know he's not that much more aero.... need to get him to try my PM at some point....

another thing, base calories can be lower than you expect, especially if you sit in an office all day, i fall into this catogory and I can maintain weight when not training on about 1300-1400 calories, also dont trust the "estimated " calorie usage of apps, if its not PM based it can be vastly off, also on that train, if you are doing 150w an hour for 3 hrs, then you dont want to be following the fueling plan of somone doing 250w for 3 hrs,

I cant do gels, hate them make me queasy, prefer somthing more solid flapjack oat bars, nuts etc. i did experiment with veg smoothies on the bike which worked well, but i used a beetroot juice base, and gave up on them after missing my mouth and ending up looking like an extra from a vampire film... LOL

Re the meat, sothing like 30% of calories from meat is still considered high protein, from the blacking out I would get blood sugars checked out.

You might do better to concentrate on things that you can change in the coming weeks pretty quickly. Work on getting a good type position in the aero bars maintaining speed going around turns getting the bike back up to speed after things like terms and the tops of hills and then quickly get back in the aero bars. Work on writing effectively in the wind. make sure you are using your gears correctly. when you ride your bike try to be mindful about what you are doing rather than using it as a way to relax and escape from life.

The sauna routine can increase blood plasma volume but does not work by itself to increase endurance.

An athlete has to put in the work to build the endurance and strength to use that increase in blood plasma volume.

I'm not saying you haven't put in the work, just wanted to make the above info clear.

Yes, there's an effect. But, it takes two weeks at about an hour a day to maximize it. As Jaret said, it's all about increasing plasma volume. I live in Texas. When I move inside on some random day, my hr is stupid low at the same pace.

Yes, you can use that effect to an advantage. But, that's icing....you need a cake to put icing on. You don't have a cake, yet. When you have a year doing something like the schedule above, every damn day... You will have the beginnings of a cake.

There's no harm in it, so if you enjoy it and it's not taking time away from other things...no worries. But, I wouldn't trade real training time to sit in the sauna.

I caveat all that with, "unless you are training for a HOT race, while living somewhere cool." that's a different conversation.

Yeah I'm deffo around the same with the calories. 1.5k a day and ill maintain weight quite nicely. I sit around 15% body fat and it refuses to go down

I lose weight by fasting (40 hours to 11 days). I can't do that now thou.

I hate gels cos of the sticky. I'm about to go for a ride and I'm going to trial banana

Looking at time estimators. I'm quite happy with 180 to 200 ftp tbh. Going to see if I can hold 150 for longer periods of time

Yes I agree here. You can't use sauna and no exercise. But together!

Deffo icing and I deffo like it for winding down after a hard session.

I doubt I'll ever compete out of nz. Its hot here in summer and I'm from UK, but I just sweat buckets

So what's your routine? Looks like you work in the office 2 days a week (hence 12h travel) and from home 3 days a week then?

---

29 years and counting

Hey, I travel down 200km on Monday morning, back Tuesday night.

Stay home wednesday

Travel down Thursday morning and back Friday night

It's OK but it does mean Monday morn, Tuesday night, Thursday morning and Friday night are off limits. Weekends I need to get up early or my wife says no to hours of training

Well 120watts is fooking boring

That’s a two hr workout. Your race will be over 3x that.

Kona is littered with pros who thought their early bike pace was easy, only to end up as shambolic messes during the run (Macca, Mark Allen, Brownlee). Even for these world champions and oly medalists pacing for a long event didn’t come naturally.

---

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Yeah ended up with a 2.5 hour workout. I don't mean it's easy. Just boring. Super. Super. Boring.

Watching zwift for the first time.... Not as entertaining as I thought haha

At 120w I'd be 3hr 45mins. Wow, so slow. But if I can run a 2 hour half after.... I guess it's not "that" bad.

Tbh, this is looking like the same time as last year. Last year, I didn't train 😅😅😅

Love it.

7 weeks of training and bad fueling for a bonk of 7.5 hours and 8 months of dedicated training for maybe 7 hours 😂😂😂😂😅😢😅🤣😂🤣