Thanks to COVID my usual summer goals have been upended. It appears my summer goal race will end up being a local Olympic race I've done many times, always as a training / warm up race for an Ironman. I've never specifically trained for an Olympic.
I'm coming into the training cycle with pretty strong fitness (by my standards). Just successfully concluded the 100/100 and rode about 5,000 miles in the past year. Long history of low intensity endurance training. My swim is good, bike is fine and run is slow.
I looked at several off-the-shelf Olympic-distance training plans. Frankly they all start from a base that is well below my current fitness. So I'm starting to design my own. The problem is I'm not sure what it should look like. Wondering if folks have thoughts on:
1) How much overall training per week? Over the past year I averaged about 9 hours and, courtesy of no racing, really didn't stray too far from that. Min and Max of probably 6 and 12.
2) How much intensity? Should I be doing lots of speed work on the run?
3) Any other plan-building strategies I should be aware of regarding this distance?
I plan to create about a 16 week plan with some periodization. Any thoughts or ideas greatly appreciated. It's an interesting new challenge for me to have such a focus on speed instead of endurance.
Thanks!
I'm coming into the training cycle with pretty strong fitness (by my standards). Just successfully concluded the 100/100 and rode about 5,000 miles in the past year. Long history of low intensity endurance training. My swim is good, bike is fine and run is slow.
I looked at several off-the-shelf Olympic-distance training plans. Frankly they all start from a base that is well below my current fitness. So I'm starting to design my own. The problem is I'm not sure what it should look like. Wondering if folks have thoughts on:
1) How much overall training per week? Over the past year I averaged about 9 hours and, courtesy of no racing, really didn't stray too far from that. Min and Max of probably 6 and 12.
2) How much intensity? Should I be doing lots of speed work on the run?
3) Any other plan-building strategies I should be aware of regarding this distance?
I plan to create about a 16 week plan with some periodization. Any thoughts or ideas greatly appreciated. It's an interesting new challenge for me to have such a focus on speed instead of endurance.
Thanks!