What's your dumb trainer?
Some dumb trainers are very accurate when used for virtual power, most are dubious. The Kurt Kinetic fluid resistance unit on their Road Machine, for example, is very usable for power training. They're also bulletproof, so if you can get a cheap one second hand from someone going to a smart trainer, you'd be well equipped to use Zwift, Trainerroad or similar.

HR is in my opinion very useful when cross referenced with perceived effort and as long as you use it sensibly.

ETA: It's not necessary to have power data or HR data available during your race to benefit from it. It's in training that it's most useful IMO.

You don't need a power meter, you need to train. Ride a lot. Follow a plan. RPE or HR is fine for now. If you are only training 15-40mi a few times a week, you can't expect to race 56mi well.

Base miles will help you tremendously. Getting up to 200-250/wk in the fall/winter would have you in fantastic shape next season to let that 1:17 HM speed rip

My 2¢:

1. Get a dumb trainer with decent virtual if you do not already have one (e.g. Kurt Kinetic Road Machine)
2. Get a heart rate monitor
   
3. You can use the free KK app to drive your workouts, but TrainerRoad is probably better
   
4. Ride at least 4x per week and build a solid base
5. As you get your base and power stabilized, pay attention to your HR and how you feel at 75% to 80% FTP
6. When you race, race to that same feeling and heart rate

Edit: I did this exact approach to do my first HIM ride in 2:50 in just 3 months of bike training. I got to 2:35 speed over the year after that using TrainerRoad on the dumb trainer. The secret sauce is power to guide your indoor training, but it can be good virtual power. I never ride to power targets outside, because I usually just get-what-I-get based on conditions and other riders.

Get on TrainerRoad with virtual power.

To run a 1:17 half, you've got the fitness. It's pretty easy to translate that to the bike. Ride a lot. Sometimes go hard.

I suspect there is some other factor slowing you down on the bike. Aero brick? Gatorskins?

dumb trainer is cyclops fluid trainer 2

I thnk its mostly just not used to biking that results in that bike split, my longest ride before the race was just shy of 40 miles. I'm not surprised by the result here. May not be the most aero as well and am getting professionally fit for this upcoming training

This is perfect and something I wanted to make sure of before going down this route

^This.

Your equipment and position could be slowing you down by at least 15 minutes. If you rode a standard road bike with standard wheels, helmet, and clothing, that is slow compared to someone on a tri bike with time trial gear.

How does someone go from not riding a lot to that kind of mileage? How many rides a week/what are the ways to build mileage in cycling (I know in running you need to be more careful due to it being higher impact)

If you want to ride 200 miles per week, just break it up into four rides of 50 miles each. Not rocket surgery.

Standard Helmet
Standard Wheels
QR Caliente Tri Bike (didn't get it fit, I know, I know, this is a priority for me for this upcoming training cycle)
Had a decent tri suit

Wheels probably arent in budget for me this season so I will make do with current wheels. Probably will try and get an aero helmet but need to research the cost/different types available.I will be fit on my bike

If you understand the build up in running, you should be able to apply that similarly to cycling. There is definitely less injury risk, but I still wouldn't jump in from 100mi/wk to 200mi/wk straight away. Take a month or two to build up and then hold steady volumes over the fall/winter and you'll be smashing the bike course and coming into T2 much fresher

200-250 miles/week is a boatload of volume and could make you very fast, but it may be a lot more time than you could afford to dedicate to a single discipline. The first question to answer is how many hours per week do you have to train. So, if you target 12 hours/week total training, then you might spend a couple on swimming, 4-5 hours on running, and 5-6 hours on cycling. You cannot maintain 200 miles/week on 6 hours.

Yeah 200 miles seemed excessive when I was adding it up especially cause I live in a super hilly area that makes all rides a fair bit slower (by hilly I will be guaranteed to gain 1000 feet over any 20 mile route and have multiple cat3 and cat4 hills). I was probably going to train between 10-15 hours a week (with a few weeks around 17-18 at my max volume). 2-3 will be in the pool, 4-5 running and that puts cycling at 5-7. Will have one ride of 2-3 hours a week because I definitely felt that area was lacking in my race. I know the trainer can be more efficient for training and it will be a must for me in the winter as riding outsides becomes impossible for me in 20 degrees

This is the secret sauce to success. I usually do 3 trainer rides per week that range from 60 to 90 minutes, but then I always try to get a long weekend ride in the 2+ hour range. If I can get outside, I will ride 3 hours. If indoors, then 1:45 - 2:00. (Those long rides are hell on the trainer.)

The shorter trainer rides crush anything you can do outside in terms of quality. It is just really hard to do solid 5-8 minute intervals at or above FTP outdoors. And, depending on conditions, unless you have a decent grade, it can often be difficult to safely ride at 100% FTP.

How does it sound to split my riding into phases:
1. outside predominantly in late summer/early fall. All just easy rides and just trying to get in the 5-7 hours a week. Not concerned about pace, or power or anything, focusing on aero form and smooth pedal strokes. Maybe some cadence work. Have long rides outside ~3 hours long weekly
2. Half and half. move some of the weekly rides to indoor trainer and do interval workouts. Using HR and virtual power with TrainerRoad. Still have my long ride and maybe another easy outside ride. Going from end of phase 1 to late fall.
3. Trainer Dominant. Transitioning to basically every ride indoors except those few nice days, slight decrease in volume with 90-120 minute long rides instead of the 2.5-3 hour rides. More interval sessions.
4. Outside again. Begin adding in the outside work again in the spring when whether gets nice. Some more integrated workouts with running and swimming, gearing up for racing season basically, testing out going by effort on the bike and seeing how that translates to fresh legs on a run. winter was the real working season
5. Peaking workouts/race season

Power meter will make things easier for you to structure your training, not necessarily better. There is a bid distinction there. Training with power would mean doing intervals in certain power zones based on your FTP. You also have Heart Rate zones that you can train in that will give you the same exact training effect based on your threshold heart rate and you can perform the same exact intervals. Yes, HR will be a little less precise as you have to wait for your body to react to the interval but for those shorter intervals you can go off of RPE anyways. Dont get sucked into the idea that you have to have all the gear and equipment as most of the people in this sport and on this forum are in their 30s and 40s with a significant amount of income. There are plenty of people, pros included that race with very limited data and do so very successfully. My advice would be get a chest strap HR monitor and take this year and really get in tune with your body and fitness. Its amazing what you can learn about yourself training based on heart rate and soon enough you will be able to tell what your general HR based off RPE and can use that in the race if need be.

For your reference, as I find it very useful to baseline myself against people and its hard to set goals without any idea of where you can get to:
I am 26yo and 2 years ago in my first HIM i did a 3:11 bike off of around 20 mpw with no data. Last year I did a 2:30 after getting a power meter about two months before the race so limited structured training with it and a 1:50 HM (so you are currently much more aerobically fit than I am). I was doing around 2x60 minute workouts on the bike per week and a long ride of 40-70 miles. I wish I had more mileage but did not have time. I plan on getting close to a 2:20 this year after an early season Ironman and will probably be around the same mileage as my time is very limited.

This is good advice. good to know all the bells and whistles are just that and not a must have to be good in this sport. Im willing to spend money on race registrations but its hard to get myself to spend 1k on new wheels or 400 on a power meter.

What did you mean exactly when you said to "really get in tune with your body and fitness". Is that just understanding my HR zones and how they relate to perceived effort level?

I absolutely love riding outside. To me, there is no greater joy. But, the trade-off is that indoor riding is where you will likely gain your greatest benefits, unless you happen to live in a perfect riding area like So Cal, Boulder, Greenville, etc. I have to ride inside at least 3 of 4 days per week because of safety and opportunity.

Your Phase 1 will build a solid base of ability to ride for a long time, but it will not build that power that lets you go faster in a HIM. The only phase above that will make you truly faster in an HIM is Phase 3. If you want to start building now, and outside, you will need to have some pretty tough intervals on those outside rides. So, the trade is joy of riding versus the indoor lab work of getting faster in a sterile environment. The trade-off is not that harsh, but for most, it is.

Yea thats exactly what I mean. With time youll get used to what certain HR zones feel like and how long you can sustain that effort for. You are probably close being a 1:17 HMer, just need to apply that to the bike.

Raced 70.3 Choo in 2018, the full in 2014, 2018 and will in 2019.
Know that course well.

Training for better times on THAT course is going to be different than others.
Rolling hills means you want to be efficient on the climb, without gassing out, and crest with momentum to be fast on the downhill, but not have to crank hard to get back to speed for the down.
Some flats as well where you will need to manage your effort.

Here's my suggestion.
Minimize the run to maintain. 3 runs. 1 long. 1 threshold. 1 tempo.
3 swims a week, or whatever you did before since you didn't mention wanting to change anything with it.

For the bike.
1 long rides 2-4 hours each week.
1 ride working sweet spot intervals. Start with 3 to 4 sets of 3 to 4 minutes in HR range 3-4. Tough, but sustainable. Work your way up to something like 4 sets of 10 minutes at peak 3 weeks out and back down close to race day.
1 ride per week working strength. Hill repeats of 3x20 sec at first, working to 10x1 min at peak.
2 rides of 60 min to 90 min sprinkled in recovery days.
YES, 5 rides per week.
Consistency over time. Ride more to get faster, be be smart about the rides you add. Just riding miles won't necessarily make you faster.

Funny... that's my topic for my weekly tip next week in my FB group... https://www.facebook.com/...ps/triathlonjourney/

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Ryan
http://www.SetThePaceTriathlon.com
http://www.TriathlonTrainingDaddy.com
I got plans - https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...dotcom#trainingplans

I feel like my run will severely suffer from only 3 runs a week. I'm also confused on your terminology of threshold and tempo pacing in this sense. Those are just interchangeable terms of the pace you could sustain for an hour or the pace at which you body is producing lactate at same rate as your body uses it. The minimal running I want to do is 40 MPW (but ideally be hitting 50) with a long run of 10-15 miles, and 1-2 workouts and 1-2 easy runs with at least 4 runs total

is it feasible to do 4 runs, 4 rides and 3 swims a week and just cut one of the recovery rides from your suggesting and replacing it with a run?

Also I have a lot of rollers in my area, one of which has a section that has 7 consecutive hills of distance from 0.3 to 0.9 mile and 100-150 feet of elevation gain

It all depends on your focus.
I was at 30-40mpw for running and made significant gains. Now I'm 20-30 to maintain. I'm actually getting faster with supplementing intense cycling and swimming to get the cardio fitness in.
So, you may see a hit in stand alone running, but you will see the gains on the bike split. And, you should not see significant drop on your run split in a 70.3 due to improved efficiency on the bike.
Faster with less work = more for the run on race day.

For me, threshold is the top end of speed work. Like, want to puke in a bucket at the end work.
Tempo/race effort/race speed is your target race effort. I like to suggest zone 3 heart rate for running (and cycling if you are using HR). It's the grey area that you could hold long term, but not easy conversation pace.

These SHOULD also change as you get more fit, so I always have my athletes retest fitness periodically so you keep making gains.

I rarely see an athlete get faster on the bike by running more... so those that have come to me wanting to get faster on the bike, I prescribe more time on the bike.

And, this is all my opinion from my experience. I'm sure plenty of people have different takes and might disagree with mine, but my athletes are my proof. Well, those that follow my plan I lay out for them. ;)

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Ryan
http://www.SetThePaceTriathlon.com
http://www.TriathlonTrainingDaddy.com
I got plans - https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...dotcom#trainingplans

I am also coming from a running background and have road races I will be doing in the fall and a half marathon about 5 weeks out of the 70.3



Ok, so your "threshold" is probably what most runners refer to as v02 max intervals (paced between 3k to 5k race pace generally, intervals of 800 to 1600m with ~1/2-1/1 timed rest for a total volume of 6-10k). I am super familiar with running training and your tempo pace also sounds slower than what a traditional tempo would be as general tempo pace is the pace you can sustain for an hour, or faster than half marathon pace and slower than 10k pace for most of the population. I just got confused when you explained it as threshold and tempo paces because those mean the same thing as its the "threshold" of producing/using lactate

I will agree that getting faster on the bike means more biking, and that is something I intend to do, just not to the level you initially suggested because I have more focus on running