Like most of the folks here I’m a regular working stiff/weekend warrior. I don’t live or train in a triathlon vacuum and I do my best to fit in training around the demands of work and family. As I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge to work yesterday morning I noticed that there were a helluva lot of people out on tri bikes…and it got me a thinking…either none of these people have jobs or they aren’t utilizing their available training time to its maximum.
So here’s the question. If I have an hour in the morning, or an hour at lunch to get in some work why would I even bother getting on the bike? By the time I suit up and inflate my tires I only have about 40 minutes to ride if I have to shower afterwards. I think the same hour would be much better served going on a 6 mile tempo run.
Right now I’m only riding once a week on Saturday mornings where I can get in a 4 hour ride and actually get some benefit from it. Every other day (work and family permitting) I’m doubling up run/run or run/swim.
Running fitness translates better to both the bike and the swim in that its the best to reduce your lactate threshold, its a better HR workout, it burns fat faster, and it requires a lot less time to do…shoes on out the door. I think a hard 6 mile run every morning will, in the long run, make me faster on the bike than a hard 40 minute ride.
Am I way off base in my thinking, do I need more time on the bike?
Well, I have to admit that I DO live in a triathlon vacuum here in Boulder, but I work with many people like yourself who do not. My answer to you would be that you need to get on the bike more. Don’t be afraid of frequency without volume. Many people think that if they can’t fit in an hour or two on the bike then there is not any point in riding that day. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. If all you have is time to ride for 20 minutes, that is better than nothing.
Maybe you could leave your bike on your fluid trainer and get in a quick 30 minute ride before or after work. It isn’t going to give you the same benefit as your 4-hour Saturday ride, but it will benefit you in other ways. You could use these shorter rides for doing drills (one leg, fast spinning, big gear work) as well as doing some intervals. Dependant on what your goals are in the sport and where your fitness is now, one ride a week just isn’t enough. If you are racing half Ironman or longer than you do need a long ride like you are doing right now, but your body gets good at things that it does a lot. Quite simply, the more you ride the stronger and more efficient you will get. This is obviously over simplifying the issue, because your current fitness, weaknesses, and the distance you are racing would all have a huge effect on what you should be doing with your time available for cycling.
How many hours do you have a week to train? How much running are you doing right now? Are you a strong cyclist? Are you a strong runner? Are you happy with your results so far with this amount of cycling?
I’m not a coach, but I would imagine that you would see some benefit by replacing a run or swim with a short interval ride at least once during the week… even if it’s on the trainer.
I’m not a Coach, but, I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night…
Last season during the winter I did pretty much nothing BUT short 20-45 min rides (mostly on the trainer - I have a dedicated old mtb on it w/a slick) as my bike training. Long ride on trainer was just over 60 mins, long outside ride was 90 mins. Usually did intervals of some sort, to get max bang for the buck from this limited time, but, some were just recovery spins too, which is also not a bad thing. You can do spin-ups or 1-leg drills those days to make it less boring. Variety is the spice of life, and is more effective training too.
Did my first Oly of the season in mid-July, and after finishing I noticed my road bike ODO still had less than 200 miles on it for the year, including the bike leg. And I finished the bike split in the top 8%, so, all those short rides musta worked.
Outside - I bang out a quick 12 mile TT on the bike, takes me like 33-34 mins, and then transition into a quick 2-4M run if desired, which adds another 15-30 mins or thereabouts, , so you can do a very Tri-sepcific workout in roughly an hour, or just over 30 mins if ya skip the run/brick part. Or make it a 16M TT and go for 40-someodd mins, whatever works for you and your schedule.
If ya wanna get better at anything, you need to do it more often. One long ride a week is great (I’m jealous, I haven’t ridden for 4 hours in years now), but, doing intervals or tempo or spins or whatever also will make you that much better.
I’m still not convinced. The primary purpose of training is to get fit and running will get you fit a lot faster than cycling, especially if half your cycling time is dead time i.e. putting on gear, pumping tires, pre-ride check etc etc etc.
For people who want to get as fit as possible as fast as possible with perhaps a goal race in mind, I still think that those short rides are a waste of time and you’d be much better off running.
All things being equal, the fittest guy is going to win the race every time.
Disclaimer: I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time and I’d love a good tri coach to show me that I’m wrong.
Hey Matt, I am not a coach either so take my .02 for what it is worth.
50% or so of the tri is on the bike and the bike is the foundation for your run. You can be a great runner, but if your bike fitness sucks then your run will suffer. This gets exaggerated the longer the tri. If you are fit, you can bluff your way through a sprint. As I recall from prior posts you are a strong runner and probably have a tendency to want to run more - time factor exlcluded. I believe the run takes away from one’s biking strength. Now if you don’t have a goal race and are just trying to stay fit - you cannot argue with the fact that running strips the fat off. 1 day a week on the bike though is not maximizing your split. Not sure if I am missing the fitness part of your question, but you want to be fast too - right?
For short cycling workouts that do give you benefit - try a SFR session (slow frequency reps) or Big Gears. Warm up - high cadence then do seated big gear reps up a slight incline (say 4%). Maybe start with a few 2 minute intervals with 2 minute spins in between and work your way up - cool down with high cadence. If you can swing 1:15 then you have a quick, awesome workout and if you do these consistently - I guarrantee your power will increase. Maybe swap this with a run, then instead of 4 hours on Saturday, take the missed run and make your Sat workout a brick - gives you benefit for tri and fitness. With 1:15 to 1:30, you can also get an interval workout in - say 3*8 min medium endurance with the last 3 min at threshold. Lots of variations you can do with the intervals - just periodize the intensity and duration for where you are at. The trainer, as others said is also a good way to get in a quick quality workout. CT is great if you have one.
Hard to know without the rest of the schedule, but you can get creative with some of your workouts/schedule to optimize for fitness/tri.
yes, running will get your fitter… for running! not cycling. i have a 6 month old on the weekends (alone) so i spend all day in my bike shorts. as soon as she goes down for a nap, i jump on the trainer. it could be 30’ or an hr. who knows, who cares. you do what you can.
Matt, Sure, you burn more calories per time when running, but you don’t necessarily gain more bike fitness through running. I don’t live in a triathlon vacuum like Geoffrey, but I am a USAT certified coach and I totally agree with his take. Short rides, especially if they focus on cycling efficiency and pedal stroke will definitely benefit your bike leg more than running will. -Amelia
If you look at any training plans on the net or pay/subscribe to one or hire a coach, you will find that they all have the majority of training time spent on the bike. Nobody will argue the importance of running fitness or it’s contribution to your overall fitness, but by just running you never develop good cycling form, power, muscle memory, etc. Working your lactic threshold on the run will work to teach your body to work out the lactic acid in your legs on the run, but will not necessarily carry over to the bike. Your lactic threshold will be different on the run than it is on the bike. To have good/great bike splits you need to bike, just as you need to run to have good run splits. It is the longest part of the race and the stronger you are at it the less you will hurt on the run.
I get up at 5:30am to bike. If I had to I’d get up at 4:00am. It’s that important. And yes, I believe if 40 minutes is all you can do you will still develop into a better triathlete/cyclist because of it. Think about it…in a sprint triathlon 40 minutes is less time than you will race on the bike anyway.
So here’s the question. If I have an hour in the morning, or an hour at lunch to get in some work why would I even bother getting on the bike? By the time I suit up and inflate my tires I only have about 40 minutes to ride if I have to shower afterwards. I think the same hour would be much better served going on a 6 mile tempo run.
Right now I’m only riding once a week on Saturday mornings where I can get in a 4 hour ride and actually get some benefit from it. Every other day (work and family permitting) I’m doubling up run/run or run/swim.
Running fitness translates better to both the bike and the swim in that its the best to reduce your lactate threshold, its a better HR workout, it burns fat faster, and it requires a lot less time to do…shoes on out the door. I think a hard 6 mile run every morning will, in the long run, make me faster on the bike than a hard 40 minute ride.
Am I way off base in my thinking, do I need more time on the bike?
One word to keep in mind… Specificity.
Something else to think about… The shorter your training session, the harder it should be in terms of intensity.
Time restrictions are what they are. You may want to consider a spinning bike or indoor trainer for your 40 minute cycling sessions. Much easier to get your required intensity in a limited time period that way.
The shorter your training session, the harder it should be in terms of intensity.
I’m not sure I agree with this. It all depends on where you are in your training cycle. I wouldn’t suggest that even a 40 minute spin session be inordinately intense if you’re still in base phase training.
IMO, you need to bike. I think that in short races the podium does usually go to runners, but not because of overall fitness. I would venture that strong runners can really be MUCH stronger, comparitivly than strong cyclists. Why?
Running is very high stress and requires a lot of base before speedwork can be done. But cycling, though still requiring base, isn’t as high impact so higher volumes and speeds can be attempted without so much risk of injury. So, what does all this mean for you?
I would tell you to get on the bike and with some decent base training, hit it hard. If all you have is 40 minutes, then ride so that you couldn’t make it 41. Make it a challenge. Push yourself harder and harder. If you tried to do this on the run, you would get injured. But the bike is more forgiving. Then put in a lot of volume on the weekends on the bike, and you should be in good shape.
Could you possibly get up a few hours early one day a week and have a big ride before work?
The shorter your training session, the harder it should be in terms of intensity.
I’m not sure I agree with this. It all depends on where you are in your training cycle. I wouldn’t suggest that even a 40 minute spin session be inordinately intense if you’re still in base phase training.
I assumed it goes without saying that recovery must be adequate. That said…
What does a 40 minute ‘base building’ ride accomplish?
Hey Matt - slightly OT but we live in the same area and I recall your RR for tri-for-fun last year. What races are you planning on this season? Perhaps we’ll cross paths.
Back ontopic…I find that cycling fitness translates better to running than running does to cycling. As far as scheduling goes I know its tough (my wife and I both work fulltime and we have 2 very small children) so I also usually only fit in one ride during the week and it is short but INTENSE (45minutes or so). It does take more prep than running but you can work around that a bit - get out clothes and do bike maintenance night before so that when you need to get in that workout all you have to do is slap on shoes and a helmet which doesn’t take any longer than throwing on your running shoes. I would strongly recommend getting that one ride in during the midweek.
You’ve already heard this a million times: Train your weakness, not your strength. Running will get you in great shape, but it won’t train your legs to ride or your arms to swim. The more races you do, the more you’ll find this to be true. Think how many years it took you to become a good runner. It will take just as long to become a good cyclist. So say the experts.
