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What are you doing during your 5-6 hours of riding? shouldn't that be just your long ride for an IM?
How much of that is spent at or just under 180 watts?
How much of that is spent over 180 watts?

Plenty of threads on here about how to increase FTP..

I'd make sure you have proper expectations for an IM race. Your only riding 5-6 hours a week for IM training when your IM bike leg is going to take you that long in one go. How many rides are you doing a week and thus how long is the longest ride you are doing? All I'd suggest is to continue following whatever plan you are following. You could make some improvements but imo you're undertrained for an IM bike leg if your only riding 5-6 hrs a week, I'd be curious what limitations are keeping you from that low of a riding priority.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Don't worry about you FTP; focus on your endurance (i.e. upping what % of your FTP you can ride the 180km at). At that training volume, you need to be really realistic about what kind of watts you can push on the bike (probably 110ish) and still be able to run.

A couple of questions:

-What is your longest ride? (one issue is if it is long enough that you can validate your nutrition strategy).

-How much do you weigh? (I have a friend who's gone to WC twice on 200W FTP....but she weighs nothing).

-Do you have the schedule ability to add longer rides in over the next four weeks?

-What are your volumes in the other sports? (If you're an experienced ultra runner logging 130mpw then you might be fine with that bike volume).

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

Sorry.

Roughly I have 3 to 4 hours of 130-140 heart rate.

Then I do 20mins high interval training

I try to do one hour above what I think I can achieve

I've only just got the power metre. So I am not sure

Apologies. Half Ironman.... Not Ironman 😂

can you hold 110 for 8 hours?

This is something I really!! Struggle with. Longest ride atm is 2 hours, I'll be doing 3 on Sunday, going up to 4 hours in 4 weeks time

110w OK 😢 it is what it is. I underestimated how long it would take to learn to ride

78kg weight. Nothing I do atm will help me lose weight. Quite chubby at 178cm

Fuellling is a problem.

Running up to 4 hours a week. Miles about 40k ish a week. No where near 110 haha

I'm scaling up to 14 hours a week as speak. My 8 week programme takes me from 8 hours training to 14

I work 50, sleep 50, mba 10, travel 12. Leaving me not much time haha.

Wife getting pregnant through a spanner Inn training more 8 weeks ago.... Excuses I know. I am trying

Lol 8 hours... Longest ride ever is 4 hours 😂😂😂

Fuelling... I don't understand.

Just been told a doing an ftp test at 4pm while only having 2 coffees and a pie at 12 is not good.

So what am I meant to eat?

I barely eat during the day. I never eat during exercise. I do have post meal work outs and this week started having up and go's for pre workout

70.3 is a whole different story. A four hour ride should get you ready; make sure to practice your race fueling/hydration.

Since it’s a 70.3, you can go a bit higher on the wattage (125ish). Resist the temptation to do 140-150 in the first hour (it will feel easy) and then end up paying for it on the run.

For the run, make sure you can run 10-13mi (16-21km) without feeling totally wiped out after.

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

Yeah, run I'm sweet. I did a 60km in 2 hour session and ran 10k in 60mins after. So I'm getting more and more confident on that.

I'm not a fast runner by any means. I reckon I'll do 2:05 for the run

I was kinda hoping for 3:10 on bike.

Happy to pivot again. From a 5 hour to a 6 hour to a 7 hour half time hahahaha

That's good pacing advice.

I really think you owe it to everyone to provide links to some of your previous threads requesting advice for cycling and preparing for this race so they can make an informed decision about how to spend their time.

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...0.3_Target_P6912249/

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...e_P6921718/#p6921718

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...for_Zone_2_P6933283/

The short version, from what I can remember, is that you did a Taupo 70.3 2018 in about 7.5hrs and started a thread saying you were going to do it in under 5hrs this year or die trying. Pretty much everyone on that thread urged you to be more realistic, and many questioned whether you were trolling or delusional.
You continued to insist there was a "trick" to easy gains that would be your ticket to astonishing improvement. You said a 6hr 70.3 wasn't worth doing and insisted you'd do sub 5hrs or die trying. Most of us told you this was silly macho nonsense that showed no respect for athletes much better than yourself and that it would not help you improve - you continued with the silliness.

You seem to be constantly looking for a shortcut to improved performance, like sitting in a sauna INSTEAD of training, and finding the "trick" to cycling. We told you the main trick is to do plenty of cycling but you weren't convinced and insisted there was another special trick out there which you would discover.

You also claimed lots of inconsistent paces and abilities which just made no sense. For example you said the maximum speed you were physically capable of reaching on the bike was 35km/h but that you could ride at 33km/h for hours, or something to that effect.

Most of this was back around April/May this year.
Now you're back saying that your FTP is 180 and you want to improve it before the race in 6 weeks. Your longest rides are currently 2hrs and you are going to double that in the next 4 weeks. That's leaving it rather late to add volume!

You don't seem to have taken any of the previous advice you've received on this forum. That's allowed, but do really think you're going to get a different answer this time?

I do hope you've abandoned the idea that you're willing to die trying. Just keep training, and add volume. Don't worry too much about your FTP at this point. It won't matter much if you add a few watts to that before the race if you haven't the endurance to use it. Get some longer rides in as a priority. And aim to do that now, not in 4 weeks.

Looks like you still enjoy wasting time rather than answering questions. Glad you get value in your life

And dude. For the last fooking time.

I spent 3 to 4 hours in the gym. I spend 20 mins in the sauna... After

My question was if this was adding to my fitness.

Looks like it does.... I just didn't see the point of bragging that I was right

Your questions have been answered repeatedly.
And I didn't say responding was a waste of time. I said people should have some background before deciding how to spend their time. I'm not aware of any answers that still require answering, and repeating previous answers seems like the greater waste of time. If you've mislaid previous answers, the links in my previous post will bring you back there. So really I'm answering your questions in the most time efficient way possible, for myself, and everyone else here. No?

Also, since I'm currently in work and being rather well paid for another half hour before heading home for a bank holiday long weekend, and this is keeping me amused, I don't consider this a waste of time or a loss of value. ;)

You know what annoys the shit out of me the most with these sort of comments.

When I asked for help. No one said... Oh BTW ensure your doing 4hour plus cycles x number of weeks out from the event.

I cross referred three Ironman 70.3 plans. The long rides were not over 2 hours before the final 8 weeks on 2 and 12 weeks on the other.

I did exactly what everyone said. I rode as much as I could and it did fucking nothing... Absolutely bullshit that just getting on ur cycle works.

Specific sessions and diet have worked a lot more. I moved from 28 to 30kph just from eating before I rode.... See... Simple shit u probably knew but I did not.

It's not about fucking shortcuts. Its about trying to figure out what you seasoned pros do!!!

Like. Is 6 hours still not enough? Why? Is it just base building or should I be HIIT training... Primal endurance book says only HIIT train every other week or similar

Do u eat before? After? How do u recover? At the moment, I can't walk the next day.

I do not understand what muscles and what type of muscles are required for cycling. I do not still understand how to get better and I am NOT better after 1k of riding.

I mean if its just how it is..... Sorry Mikey. The muscle density required for cycling taking years of base building. Then sweet as. But all u say is.... Cycle more. Be realistic. Fluffy.

Yes I wanted 4:59:59. Then I wanted 5:59:59. Now I'm just going to have fun, since it doesn't matter how fast I can run and swim and yes.... I have no interest in a plus 6hr 70.3...This fucking bike shit is bollox and I can't find anyone to tell me why.

And no. I'm still willing to die. I've passed out twice while training. Thrown up a few times. Not getting enough sleep and train too much. Constantly in fucking pain and find recovering annoying as fuck. I would sleep less if it would help but it won't. I literally can't train more as I can't recover and sessions can't be much longer as it's all finely balanced with everything else

Monday 2.75 hours
Tuesday 1 hour
Wednesday 2.5 hours
Thursday 1.5 hours
Friday 0
Sat 1-2 hours
Sun 2-4 hours

I can not do more than this

Also I took EVERY PEICE OF ADVICE ON. TRAINING. I even followed and evaluated Duncans training on strava and duplicated a heap of zone 2 training the last 4 months

You may have to explain where that bragging would come into play?
I've provided a link above to that Sauna thread. I'll let others decide for themselves.

Truely, I hope your race goes well, and I hope that you enjoy it. But I hope even more sincerely that you can come to terms with reality and appreciate that too. I suspect your approach is frustrating you and robbing you of a lot of enjoyment in this sport.

I only get enjoyment with getting close but not obtaining a goal.

A goal of 4:59:59 and getting 5:20 would have left me is a state of joy for months and made the last 5 months worth while

Ok, I see you are a wee bit frustrated!

I'm not trying to add to that. I have in that first thread tried to make useful suggestions as did others. If you're constantly in pain, passing out, and not getting enough sleep, then I reckon you're overdoing it, which is probably worse than under-training.

You're doing enough hours of training that I would expect you to be making big gains unless you were already in terrific shape. But that assumes the right use of that time.

I'm a passable runner and swimmer but not good enough to give you advice. I'm respectable on the bike. I told you before what I've done. You should not be passing out. You're training for endurance, not maximum sprint efforts. I've seem video of Chris Hoy falling off his trainer at the end of very short maximal power efforts but that's a different type of training for an utterly different discipline. You should be doing most of your bike training at a sustainable, relatively comfortable pace (comfortable breathing at least - after a couple of hours your legs may not be comfortable). If your FTP is 180W then I'd expect you should be able to do a 3 or 4 hour ride at 120-125W without being too distressed and without any particular pain afterwards. In addition to that long ride, I'd do at least another two sessions of say 60-80mins each where you spend a good chunk of that doing 160-180W in blocks at least 10mins long. The classic session is 2x20min intervals at close to FTP with a 4 to 10min recovery between the 2. Add in a warm up and cool down and that's a bit over an hour on the bike. However, if that's not achievable or is leaving you in severe pain. take a step back and do shorter intervals or slightly lower power and only increase these as you are able. You've got to cooperate with your body, not beat it into submission (save that for the later stages of the race)

You cannot go all out in every training session and on back to back days and expect to recover or improve. I wonder is your "do or die" attitude at odds with that reality?

Everything is a compromise. If you go all out today, you will need to recover tomorrow; and that's harder to coordinate when you are doing 3 sports. So the best time to make big cycling gains is not immediately before a race when you need to maintain all 3 sports. I suggest you do what you can for this one, and do try to enjoy it, then take a break and recover. Then consider setting aside swimming and running (or doing very little) for a while, maybe 2-3 months, and just concentrate on cycling. Don't overdo it. Do less hours and be disciplined. Do 3 to 5 sessions a week, and only 2 of them hard ones.

I’m a big believer in MAF

https://philmaffetone.com/method/

Aerobic fitness is the biggest piece of the pie. Improve your aerobic fitness and everything moves with it.

Read the link and give it a try. Maybe adjust the zone down by 10 bpm for cycling. After years running and cycling zones will be the same. But to start 10 bpm was good for me.

This will take a few months to get used to so it won’t likely help for this upcoming race, but huge gains will follow.

Training at MAF HR will cause an adaptation that will allow the heart to pump a much greater blood volume.

Enjoy the process!

If that's not bullshit you should stop training and consult. I've never seen anyone pass out in training in my whole life.

Sooooooo.....have you finally come to the conclusion that hacks and shortcuts don't exist in this arena?

You've gotten great advice here in the past despite your reticence to use it. Pick a training plan. Stop winging it. Stick to the plan. Some people do great with putting together their own training, but you seem to drown in information and need to focus on the actual training part. You need somebody to tell when when to NOT GO SO HARD and well as when to ramp up the intensity.

Glad to see your goals have become more realistic as well.

Well I think part of it is low volume and part of it is not enough intensity if that’s his time input.

In 2017 I overall averaged 4.4hrs a week cycling. 2018, 4.7 hours. 2019 on track to finally break 5hrs a week.

Honest 280w hour number and gunning for 320 for 20 by December. Doing around 340 for 5 min and close to 420 for 2 min to 3min.

All on 70kg and under 6 hrs a week. I don’t swim but on maybe 20hrs running a year am around 21min for a 5k.

Maybe I’m a freak or maybe I understand how to optimize my time.

I don’t think he’s optimizing his time and needs new plans in the future that do.

If short on time you have to become your own personal expert on optimization of everything you do to grow power.

Also, he should check his meter. When I started riding, I weighed about what he does and did that number off the couch untrained as a first test.