Ride your bike lots. Run lots. Swim lots.

Repeat the FTP test later and see what progress you’ve made.

You may want to scale back your expectations about being a threat to the veterans. You might be good enough but you might not.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

How much riding are you currently doing? What's your average riding speed on longer (1hr+) rides and on what kind of bike (road, tt)?

To confirm, your FTP is ~130 watts, correct? Was this measured from a power meter on your bike or does the Peloton give you power readings?

If you're motivated by numbers, I'd figure out if your numbers are correct. There's a lot of good programs out there to build FTP (not sure of any Peloton specific ones), but it'd be useful to have a baseline of what your current weekly biking looks like.

You’re overthinking this.

Just sign up for a race that sounds fun and actually do it. Who cares what your FTP is? Show up at the starting line and so long as you’re not putting your life at risk for some serious health reason you fail to mention, just do the damn race. You’re never go to be a threat to the “veterans” if you can’t even work up the courage to toe the starting line.

Just get out there and have some fun. As far as I’m concerned, if you can swim 750 yards in open water, you can finish a Sprint distance triathlon.

^This.

Just reading through this again.

You’re “working on appropriate metrics” for the swim and run? That tells me that you aren’t actually a swimmer or runner. You clearly aren’t a cyclist. You’re data driven (you say) but the only data you present are some numbers from some mostly unrelated exercises. (Your 1rm max doesn’t mean squat - pun intended) You have yet to actually do a race. But you want to challenge the veterans of the sport? In one of the most competitive AG’s?

I wish you luck...

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Definitely over thinking it. Enter a race. Start the race. Have fun. Finish. Review.

You appear to be scared about performance not matching some internal level of sufficiency, but nobody else at the race knows or cares. Just sign up and race and see what happens, and don’t stress it if people who have done more races than you handle the day better. That is all normal.

If you keep skipping races until you reach a point in time when you are at some godlike, unassailable level of fitness, you will literally never finish a race.

Good luck and have fun!

Your post reads as though you already know the answers to most of your questions but you don't like those answers so you're looking for different ones.

It is utterly irrelevant whether your AG is competitive or not. You are not yet a competitior so who cares. If your power figure on the bike is correct, you're not about to win just yet, but that's no reason not to race. On the other hand if it's wrong, you just might, you won't know until you race. In fact you don't even have to consider yourself to be racing. Call it a data gathering exercise if you prefer. Just enter an event, don't make a big deal about it, and do the thing. Until then, you're mostly fooling yourself.

As others asked, what cycling have you been doing, what did you use to measure your power, and what sort of FTP test did you do? Was this a 20min test following the usual protocol with a warm-up, hard effort and then the 20min test interval?

Are you used to riding indoors and do you have sufficient cooling? If not, I'd put little stock in this FTP test. I think training indoors can feel very different (especially if you don't have a fan), and may not reflect your normal outdoor performance if you're not used to it.

I am in a number of ways your opposite figure in tri. Except we have in common that we geek out on metrics and numbers. I like them too, and I am watching them change in interesting ways that aren't always where I want them to go. Also, I'm 42, and female, have two kids, a husband, a small business, and also a Peloton bike. (And a real bike and my hubs' old Kinetic trainer.) --Am also a (non-competitive) powerlifter- except I outweigh you by 22lbs and my PBF is about 20. Not bad for a not-30-year-old mom who was at 26% pre-kids.

Blah blah blah anywho my 1RM for a barbell DL being 245, and my 1 RM for back squat being 220 only gave me one thing for triathlon: knowing that I could be uncomfortable, and knowing that I could tap in to a challenge. Giving birth SORT OF did that, I guess (all 300 ST forum readers reading this simultaneously roll eyes because what a f-ing cliche)....

Continuing: It seems you may have chosen triathlon with a limited background in swimming and cycling- dude, ME TOO. Like I knew how to swim so as not to drown but I used to (blindly) joke about how obstacles 50 feet away were just waiting for me to run in to them on a bike. So I TOOK LESSONS. I watched videos, I read books, I practiced. From January to April I was in the pool five days a week. I took open water lessons and clinics. I took one-to-one coaching for bike handling skills because all these veterans look like riding one-handed while eating or drinking is the easiest thing in the universe and for me it looked, frankly, impossible, and then finally I did it.

In the meantime, doing all of this, my already good endurance base got better, my lactate threshold BPM keeps edging up but also it's F-ING hot in NYC and my HR is like a rollercoaster so sometimes I'm like WTF is anything I do ever going to keep my HR lower on the damn run?? Time to get technical. Shorter harder intervals with recoveries both partial and complete. More speedwork in the pool where mentally it's a bigger challenge because of that whole breathing thing. Get technical about your actual workouts- in the pool focus on one technique consideration per length or lap. On the bike (road, eventually again) go practice following a straight line exactly or turning on a tight curve. Have a friend stand there and hand you something as you ride by, then turn around and hand it back. Don't hit your friend. Be the most educated haven't-yet-raced triathlete that you can.

And then: GO RACE, for f's sake. Just go do a race. Do a sprint. Plan for it meticulously, and then just DO IT. Not Nike style but at the least stop wasting your $$ :) Post-race, analyze what was easier than you thought and what was harder. What was a big deal that you didn't think of and what meant almost nothing that you thought was going to be a huge issue.

Go. Tri. Complete. Then race. C'mon back and report.

Ah I went back to your first post ever- you have an edge- you are not new to swimming! That's a big edge! And you have kids, so you know how to suffer (I'm mostly kidding.) you just don't realize that counts. It counts. It counts if your kid(s) have/has wandered in to your room at 5am ready to P A R T Y...Welcome to your rise and shine, triathlete. Now again, go race, make it a sprint, make it fun, be as geeky as you want about preparing for it and then actually do it.

Could give you lots of advice on the proper way to measure and the proper way to improve your metrics. This place has tons.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing a baseline measurement now and coming back in 6 months to see how you’ve improved. But I wouldn’t worry about the results now.

What you need to focus on is racing. Like others have said, get a race under your belt. Figure out why you haven’t been racing—you’ve written there have been good and bad excuses—and then get over it. And just swim bike and run until you race.

You will almost def not be competitive in your first race. That’s true of 90% of the people out there. Just do it, have fun, finish, then with a clearer head post-race you can worry about this other stuff.

you will never ever ever ever do well in this sport with your attitude and delusions of grandeur.


no, you're not

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I used to run with this guy on 7 mile training runs. He was cut. The kind of body type that made me put my shirt back on when he took his off. The difference was during a 10k I'd usually beat him by 3 mins. In an Olympic triathlon, usually 10+ minutes and we were already finishing towards the pointy end. Triathlon isn't a sport for pretty body types. One of my favorite quotes that I lifted from someone on here said something along the lines of, "fear the guy who doesn't look like he can bench 100 lbs. That's the guy who's going to push 4 W/kg on the bike then run 6 min/miles off of it"

But in short to get faster, like others said, ride the heck out of your bike and run. Even a sprint is an endurance event because you will be working out for over an hour. To be competitive at a sprint you have to be able to get close to a redline for an hour. Think about the endurance base you need to hit that.

Morning, team -

So, after rereading my post and the majority of the responses (granted, I threw a few out of my consideration as 'completely off' or 'unnecessary' - but I'm sure some people feel that way about what I posted) I wanted to step back and try to come at this a different way. I understand my initial post may have sounded arrogant or as though I'm a newbie acting like I know just enough to get me hurt. Not what I meant to do, at all. So, if you'll tolerate it, let me try again.

My background; I'm 35 with an athletic background in almost everything except multisport/endurance endeavors. I ran cross country in high school (dinosaurs were around. It was a while back) and a lot in the military. I've been swimming since age 4. I've taught levels 2-7 in ARC swim instruction, lifesaver courses, been an open water lifeguard instructor, and for about 4 years I was a freediver back home (gulf coast of Fl). I just never swam competitively. Cycling, I'm newest to. I've been on a road bike about...9 times.

Now, when I said that I want to 'challenge the veterans,' I realize looking back that the comment could be taken in the wrong light. I.e. - it made me look kind of like a turd. My bad. What I meant to say was, I derive a lot of my motivation to get up and train from the idea that I can compete. The nature of my competitive mindset changes, obviously, because I know from the jump that I probably wont challenge many people at all - but I need that initial carrot. The avenue I'm trying to explore, here, is what kind of improvement-metric I can reasonably set in order to maintain motivation by way of 'moving the needle.'

I definitely want to be on a structured program. For those of you that have the capability to go no-program, RPE style training - I tip my hat. I can't do that. If you can, I consider you to be dialed in, in tune with your body, and I'm jealous. I just need the numbers, is all.

I definitely don't want to 'overthink' anything. After all, you can get buried in data to the point where you aren't actually training very much - been there with olympic lifting. I presented the idea of power-to-weight as a starting place because I figure it's a 'hard number' that means I can improve upon it - a way to measure and tweak whatever plan I use to capture improvement.

Does this make more sense?

Thank you for all the feedback. Honestly.

As everyone said, you simply need more hard time in the saddle. IME, you need to get 4 hard rides per week to build on the bike. You have a great device in the Peloton. Just ride the pro workouts (CVDV & GH) and you will get strong. Very strong, actually. The best metric there is your average power after a common tough workout. You will see that come up rapidly if you are getting 4 rides and 4-6 hours per week.

"What I'm looking for - any kind of repeatable training methodology that is complimentary to multisport training that will help me out. Does anyone adhere to a program directed at this goal?"


If you are already a fast swimmer then you have a massive head start on most of us. The rest of it can be picked up later in life but swimming is something best learned as a kid. If you already run then that's also ideal. Cycling can be learned, but there is no short cut past the many many hours it takes.


Have a look at Trainerroad.com. It's structured, idiot-proof training that will drag you into the realms of people who can actually ride a bike. You won't get fast from just riding around aimlessly outside 3 or 4 times a week. You will get fast from 3 or 4 sessions of focussed, measured hard training each week though.


If your current FTP is 130W then you'll soon be amazed at the progress you can make. Seriously 130W is less than 1 leg's worth.


I wouldn't necessarily bother worrying about a race. You're going to learn something for sure, but only what you should know already -that you're nowhere near ready to try to race against people that have trained and you haven't.


Enjoy the journey. It's a lot of fun. Getting faster is fun.

How hard are the Peloton pro workouts?

I'd never advocate a new rider to jump right into the equivalent of a time-crunched-cyclist pain plan that's really dependent on high intensity. Even with a fitness background in something else. Just not right out of the gate.

IMO, he should just ride twice a week on a schedule to increase saddle time steadily for a couple months. Maybe the third day of the week do something like the Peloton pro workouts or a GCN show workout (can a Peloton operate in manual control??).

All workouts in let's call it the "competitive realm" versus the "finisher or fitness" realm tend to require both a base level of competency in the specific sport AND have built up a decent tolerance for suffering in that specific sport.

If I told a B-group rider to actually do 3x8's or worse yet sets of 3x3's at the same % most people do them at.......they're not finishing the first set. They're not used to suffering on the bike like that.

Now, after a couple months of generating some kind of starting point on the bike certainly jump into the harder stuff.

Makes more sense.

A bit of perspective here - if you have a lifeguarding / freediving background, that's awesome and will be a benefit to you. That said, it is definitely NOT the same as having a competitive swim background. Totally different skillsets. You may not be as fast as you think you'll be initially, but your comfort in the water should give you rapid improvements.

Looking at your posting history, you have young kids? That's going to be a challenge.

My suggestion would be that before you jump into structured training, you need to do some prep work. Just go for a swim. Go for an easy bike ride. Go for an easy run. Do that for a few weeks, then evaluate yourself.

For the swim, do a CSS test. Have a look at swimsmooth.com for how to calculate that, but it's basically the difference between an all-out 200m time trial and an all-out 400m time trial. or yards, if that's what your pool is. That is a good benchmark for setting training targets and also measuring progress.

FTP does the same for cycling. Similar concept, lots of ways to estimate it, but the key is to be consistent in how its measured.

I'll let the run guys fill you in on running. But the base workout for running is run easy, often. That will pay dividends.

Here's the thing though. Test occasionally, but don't over-test and don't get too hung up on minutae. Every 6-8 weeks to retest is more than adequate, and as you gain experience you'll find that you need to do formal tests less and less frequently.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

The pro rides are very good. The spin instructor rides are not as good and fun for low-impact days.

I have two friends who got to mid-200s FTP (> 3 W/kg) on Peloton rides 3 to 4 times per week. Both of these were brand new riders who got their Pelotons and just jumped in with great success. And, I know of a few others second-hand who have made great progress on their Peloton bikes. The Peloton is an engaging platform with quality workouts that encourage people to keep at it.

Just train consistently for a couple of months and do your first race. You will suck, you'll do every mistake possible but hopefully you will enjoy it and you'll be motivated to train for the next one. Repeat N times. If you have any kind of talent you'll start to challenge the podium in local races after about 1 1/2 - 2 years of training consistently. Good luck!

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What's your CdA?

Just to clarify, did you calculate watts per kilogram? Or watts per pound? If W/kg then your FTP is 130. I honestly have a hard time believing that a guy who is in decent shape at your size has an FTP that low. Most males your size, even in reduced training states, would consider that nearly recovery.

Now if you calculated that as watts/lb, then your FTP comes out to 286 which is perfectly respectable.

dude, just be consistent and stop worrying about your overall. You haven't even raced before. Don't spend any money, if you have a garmin just get on Connect and look at the couple of training plans they have for triathlon. There are about 5 and then just pick one that is actually relevant to you (you should be honest with yourself about your ability and training load capability). Are they the best plans? just depends on your experience. It will be more than good enough for you to get structure and to start tracking your workouts. I don't know what other metrics you want to get when you don't do any workouts. Track your HR, track your perceived effort, track your pacing/distance, track your power since you have a peloton, track the number of workouts you actually complete successfully vs puss out on, do a race and get your coveted metric against others, redo it all next season and see how you progress.

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Good points. He'll likely think his legs are going to fall off the first time he tried VO2 Max intervals.

I was thinking a bit of Sweetspot to get things moving... You get a lot out of that, physically and mentally, without it hurting you.

Agree with others that you need time on the bike. Seeing that you crashed on your 9th ride outside you need to get outside and learn the nuances of riding a bike. Ask an experienced friend to ride with you for pointers.

Guys (and gals) -

Thanks so much for this. I mean, the tolerance and the info. I feel like my original question could have been more; 'what numbers can a newbie that is data-driven/motivated focus on when your numbers suck from the jump?' Thanks for the lesson in sculpting the inquiry to the audience.

That said, I'm going to work on some more baseline data (it'd be great if my apple watch wasn't broken - that'd ... that'd be super). I appreciate the attitudes and suggestions thus far. I think I'm about 13 weeks out of the race I'm wanting to go into and I've been pre-training...well, let me say that better - there was an earlier race I wanted to do, but it turns out it was on my wife/daughter's birthday weekend, and that turned out to be a hard no. Go figure. So, I've been training between 4-5x/week for the last three weeks and I figure i've got one more week before a real 'plan' becomes necessary.

Looking into the resources and suggestions given. Thanks again.

Side note; the bike crash from this weekend left me with a possibly sprained wrist. So, that's fun..