It wasn't due to a lack of longer workouts. It was due to a lack of workouts.

---

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

 

It wasn't due to a lack of longer workouts. It was due to a lack of workouts


I was afraid of this particular answer - as it is likely very true. Question is if I can make more out of the time I have.

That's the million dollar question for someone with not a lot of time to commit to training.

https://www.slowtwitch.com/...an_Ironman_6242.html

Check out what Lars did in this article as well as the links to Sami's training. Granted, they are both genetic freaks but they have pretty awesome results. Lars did it just to do it and Sami does it because he's too busy making a billion dollars at work. :-)

---

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Your fade in St. George is because you are not working out for triathlon. You are barely exercising on a rec exerciser program. It's like a song why you can't bench press 200 lbs when your cumulative weight lifting is less than 200 lbs all week.

You tried to do all of your week of exercise in a single day in Saint George. It's like all those people who barely run 25 miles per week and wonder why they fade in an Ironman run or marathon run. If you try to do in one day what you barely do in a week, then you get the race result that you're training supported.

Minimally go hard every workout on your 6 hrs per week. Or better yet get on the 12-15 hrs per week program. You have 168 hrs per week like the rest of us have for training. If you tell me you need 162 hrs per week to do rest of life and only have 6 hrs per week to train then you are either disorganized or training is a low priority. The latter is fine, the former is your choice.

I would see if you can make it a priority to make 12 hrs per week to train and then get organized enough to pull it off. If not why even bother half IM. Stick to sprint tris and 10Ks.

Dude that was funny! I remember a similar response you gave me about how much I should ride my bike. Pure gold.

You can always make time - we all have 24 hours every day, and it comes down to choices we all make. I finished up a 4+ hour trainer ride before 7 am this morning because I have an IM coming up at the end of June and couldn't fit it in any other time - this is normal for me every weekend to have time with the family after the kids are up. The only TV I ever watch is while on the trainer or treadmill - many folks watch hours of TV each day - that could be training time if you value training time and seeing results in your races.

---

Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

The key word in your response I edited into gigantic font. It's the difference in mentality between people who make things happen and people that HOPE. Hopers say, "I can't FIND time"....to which I respond, "i can't FIND money either. Usually if I want money I have to go MAKE it'.


Your actions back up your "MAKE" mindset. Congrats

Lol

You don’t need 12 hours / week to train for a 70.3

This entire podcast is worth a listen but as a 6-ish hour per week athlete, you might find the discussion @ 30:00 particularly useful: https://scientifictriathlon.com/tts177/

Well you don't NEED 12 hrs of training, or 21 or 9 or 6 or 3. You can also do a half IM off no training at all provided you know how to swim, ride a bike and walk, so its just degrees of expectation management vs training that goes in.

To finish a 70.3? To compete in your AG? To win overall?
Your statement by itself is totally worthless.

The OP didn’t ask how to win AG. Just not how to fade on the run. And he said he doesn’t have more time to train, so suggesting doubling the time training doesn’t seem helpful

And would be your suggestion, then?

If one is training 15-20/h per week and not performing relatively well on a 70.3, sure, something needs to change. But when you train 6h/wk there's no other answer besides putting in more hours providing one wants to get faster.

I’m not arguing more volume wouldn’t help

If I was OP and had the same constraints, I would not be racing HIM. I personally don’t want to “finish a 70.3” and know the amount of training required to do my best.

But the question was how to optimize the available time. I would try to work my way up to comfortably ride the 56 miles and run 13 in a single session, at harder than race pace. So that probably requires fitting in an extra 1-2 hours on one of the long days.

The key to not fading is going at a more realistic pace, on run and / or bike. That will keep from fading at the end. Going faster will require more stimulus - which would either be more time and / or more intensity. Likely both

Maybe do olympic distance until you have more time to train?

Hi Uli

I think with a little tweaking you can get there.
Wk 1 would it be possible to make the Sat total time 150 min with 60 at threshold?
If not you can still make it work.
Wk 2 Thursday replace with a brick 45 min on turbo and 30 min run.
Sunday add a 20 min run at the end of the bike.
Also some weeks the wk2 Sunday workout could be a brick 120/60

Good luck

Hey Paul,

all very good points you raise. Sure 12h of training would be much better than 6. But that is about the time that I am currently willing to invest and I would like to spend my time wisely as possible.
I am still relatively new to the sport (3 years in), so I am still getting to know my body and how it reacts to training stress. One thing that I can tell for sure is that going all out every session does not work for me. I am not injury prone and can hold intensity quite well but when I only did high intensity stuff I did not improve. I have cut back in intensitiy and saw significant improvements without increasing volume (and even on my low volume).

In St. George I came in at 5h5, with a swim of 40 min a 2h26 bike and a 1.48 run, which I thought was quite a good "race" for me against myself. If I had not spent almost 10 min in transition because I got lost twice I might have even finished sub 5. For me, it felt like a race and not only like finishing.

I don't get this argument about if you don't put in x h per week just race sprint tris. The experience of a half IM does not even remotely compare to a sprint tri. Will I race to my potential - no. Will anyone else care - no. Do I care about what I like and what I would like to make out of the training time that I have available - yes.

I know I am a bit self centered... ;-)
Uli

Hi Trimack,
thanks for your feedback. Very helpful. I have not thought about brick workouts at all. Your suggestions sound good. I think I could squeeze in that extra time and have some bike/run sessions.

Uli

Training time is fine. Don't waste that much time doing a lot of threshold work, limit threshold workouts to 1 per week. Better off with tempo work to build a higher "open" race pace in each discipline. I.E. instead of 80 mins of threshold to alternate the long ride (too much at your volume anyway) do 90 mins of tempo plus 15 mins w/u and c/d. Same for running, and don't worry about the VO2 max stuff on either sport a whole lot. 1 hour of VO2 is way too much, but you could blend them into, say, the end of a tempo ride or run with less that 10 minutes total interval time, once per week.

Also, not fading in the run is a matter of pacing during the bike 90% of the time, so setting a conservative bike strategy based on your ability is the way to go (for example, 2-5 minutes slower on the bike can save 5-10 minutes on the run)

On your idea of switching intensity vs. volume every week, I do use something similar for my run training, to a lesser degree my riding. I typically alternate my long run with every other week, once its built up to virtual race distance. For example (for my IM training):

week 1: 20 miles (or 2.5 hours) z2
week 2: 12 miles (or 85 minutes) z3 finish last 20 z4
week 3: 20 miles (or 2.5 hours) z2
week 4: 12 miles z2 (easy week)

You could adapt this program by keeping your alternate week comparably longer say 1 hour at solid z3 with last 10 z4 (after quick w/u). For riding try to keep your min long ride volume to 90 mins to 2 hours regardless of your intensity choice.

Lastly, you should fill 2 of your 3 days "off" on the long week with 15-20 minutes z2 running to add to your frequency. This will have a huge impact on your running durability.

---

Matt Leu, M.S. Kinesiology
San Pedro Fit Works, Los Angeles, CA
Endurance Athlete and Coach
Consistency/time=results