Are there advantages in doing sprint distance while training for IM?

Triathlon Forum
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Hi, I have some training related questions for the experienced triathlon crowd on ST. I could not find any good articles on the subject and I think ST is the best place for some expertise.

I’m from a small country with a triathlon community of about 60-80 of which approx 40% is training for HIM or IM. Since 3-4 years ago IM fever started around here and athletes got superbikes and started training long distances allot. A rough guess would be that 60% of the athletes between 25 and 45 do at least one HIM or one IM a year.

I am also on the board of the local triathlon association. Our organisation organises all the multisport races on the island. But we are seeing a downward trend in attendance to our races in the fastest age groups. We organize 1 olympic triathlon a year and 10-12 sprint distance triathlon, duathlon, aquathlons, offroad and on road. In the last two years we have seen attendance to our races drop and because its a small island, we can see why. Big groups of triathletes ride by on their long sunday rides while we are organizing our events, which all take place on Sundays. The decrease in attendance is noticeable and makes the races less interesting, seeing that the best athletes are doing metric centuries every Sunday.

As a IM finisher myself I am familiar with the amount of training needed to prepare for IM. In my case, I still attended most of the sprint events and offcourse the olympic. I did not always give it my all, but I won quite a few of them, for my agegroup. I like racing, more than winning. After finishing the events, I would climb back on the bike and ride 60-80k more, for my IM training. So I combined the two. But that was me.

The “problem” now is that the athletes training for IM are not combining anything. They are sticking to their schedules, and none of the downloadable schedules include doing a sprint tri/dua/aqua and then continueing with your once a week long bike ride. Or skipping the ride for a sprint distance. For the triathlon organization this means less athletes, less hype resulting is less fans, less exposure, less media and exitement about the events. The organisation is subsidized by the local olympic committee so getting more attendance is not really about income but more about keeping the local triathlon community active, which is our goal. As an organization we organise events, stimulate and motivate new and existing athletes and promote a healthy lifestyle, as well as keeping the multisport culture alive in the country.

Ok now some questions:

(We can assume that the rest of the weekly schedule remains the same and only the usual long sunday ride which most people seem to have, is combined with a sprint distance event. Combined or replaced.)

**1. Is doing sprint distance triathlons during IM/HIM training good or bad to do? **
2. Are there any benefits to combining the two: Doing a sprint event, then continueing on the bike?
**3. Are there benefits in skipping the long sunday ride once in a while and replacing it with a sprint distance event? **
4. In which phase of IM/HIM training (beginning, middle, end) can combining or replacing have advantages, or disadvantages.

Any other comments about this are very welcome. Thanks in advance. //Daniel.

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First, if your IM fit, a sprint race is actually a normal training day. Actually you probably need to toss in an extra run or short bike even. They also fit nicely at the end of a recovery week and can be somewhat of a substitute for a FTP test and run pace test. Expecially if you’ve done that race before and have a baseline. You can recover in 1 day from a sprint assuming no specific injuries and work it right into normal training. An Olympic might require a couple days to get your legs back.

I see no real downsides, unless you racing 2-3 a month. 1) they are fun 2) you practice pacing, transitions and racing 3) They are fun

You do need to adjust your expectations a little. Since they will be “C” or “B” races, you won’t be as sharp and you won;t have the specific training…depending on time of year.

If you only doing a single IM or 2 spaced closely together, another strategy is to do sprint races the 1st 1/2 of the season and focus on short distance. This acts well in terms of a broader periodization in your training with sprints being less specific. Then the 2nd 1/2 of the season, shift your training to long course. You power on the bike and run pace scale very well with distance. SO if you get faster at short distance, if you put in the miles you will be faster at long distance, if you execute well.

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Ok now some questions:

(We can assume that the rest of the weekly schedule remains the same and only the usual long sunday ride which most people seem to have, is combined with a sprint distance event. Combined or replaced.)

1. Is doing sprint distance triathlons during IM/HIM training good or bad to do? If you enjoy them - absolutely its a good thing to do.
2. Are there any benefits to combining the two: Doing a sprint event, then continueing on the bike? Probably not if you raced hard enough.
3. Are there benefits in skipping the long sunday ride once in a while and replacing it with a sprint distance event? If you enjoy racing - absolutely.
4. In which phase of IM/HIM training (beginning, middle, end) can combining or replacing have advantages, or disadvantages. All could have advantages or disadvantages.

Any other comments about this are very welcome. Thanks in advance. //Daniel.

Its a GAME - if you like to race you should race. If you don’t - then you shouldn’t.

Only 5 or 10 people realistically have a chance at winning the IM, so the rest are participating, so why not expand and enjoy the sport - otherwise you are just exercising (which is not a bad thing)

But then I’m a short course guy that occasionally does a 70.3 and this is a hobby for me.

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Impossible to give real good answers based on soo limited info, here is what I would do.

  • Normally I would try to replace hard treshold/interval or brick sessions with sprint triathlons.

**1. Is doing sprint distance triathlons during IM/HIM training good or bad to do? **
Good - speed and intensity is always important + transition training etc.
2. Are there any benefits to combining the two: Doing a sprint event, then continueing on the bike?
Combine if that’s the only chance to get a decent total bike volume.
**3. Are there benefits in skipping the long sunday ride once in a while and replacing it with a sprint distance event? **
Yes - long Sunday rides are over-rated. Waste of time to do every Sunday, better with higher intensity.
4. In which phase of IM/HIM training (beginning, middle, end) can combining or replacing have advantages, or disadvantages.
All

5

**1. Is doing sprint distance triathlons during IM/HIM training good or bad to do? **
Depends. If you like racing a sprint distance, then it’s good. If you don’t like racing sprint distance, then it’s not good, but not necessarily bad.

  1. Are there any benefits to combining the two: Doing a sprint event, then continueing on the bike?
    Yes.

**3. Are there benefits in skipping the long sunday ride once in a while and replacing it with a sprint distance event? **
Sure. More time with your family might be a benefit. Extra time to do chores. It might depend on how far you have to travel to get to the race.

  1. In which phase of IM/HIM training (beginning, middle, end) can combining or replacing have advantages, or disadvantages.
    It’s a race. And, you’re talking about 1 day. In the grand scheme of things, one day of training doesn’t have a significant impact on the whole package. Don’t over think this. If you like to race, then race.
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Triathlon is a sport. Sprint, Olympic, 70.3, 140.6 are simply different distances of the same sport. There are some minor difference in preparation for the three events. Yet the training is mostly the same- swim, bike, and run as much as possible, mostly easy, sometimes hard.

If you are prepared to reach 90% of your 140.6 potential- you are prepared to reach 95% of your sprint potential. Why not do the sprint?

Sprints make good tempo runs and rides. They are an important social event for the local tri community.
Most importantly they are fun.

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A benefit of racing more often with some short events is practicing transitions and race prep more often. Practicing with race equipment more often etc.

You learn more about things like, how sustainable your position is after swimming, how to dismount quickly, how deep of a front wheel you can handle, how delicate of a tire are you comfortable with, how to eat under pressure, will your water bottle setup spit bottles out of the holder, on and on.

nice to sort those things out in a few sprint races rather than on your big ironman day

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The very short answer is - Yes.

In general the modern triathlete does not race enough.

Too much focus on the micro details of training - you learn WAY more from actually racing!

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I raced nothing but Olympic stuff before my IM.

.

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I love racing, so I race as much as I can. I only start to skip stuff when it is close to an important race (before or after).

If I am going to race an all out 10k, I might race the week after, but I won’t expect to be 100%, anything goes before hand. I will be totally 100% after about 8 days.

If I am going to race a 13.1, I will try to take it pretty easy heading in, I might race the week before but if it’s 10k or more, I would probably hold back or expect to underperform the 13.1. I probably won’t race anything for a couple weeks after.

For IM, I won’t race anything other than 5k or 10k within the month heading in. Even those distances, I am careful with the effort. I did the PACE 10k 6 days before Kona, but I kept it around 1 minute below Kona run pace and I don’t feel it hindered me (over minute per mile slower than 10k PR pace).

This year I am doing a 70.3 about 4 weeks prior to my big A race 140.6. I haven’t decided how to go at it, but I have reservations about crushing it (not concerned that I won’t be recovered for IM, but that I will be crap in training in a pretty critical time).

That’s not for several months, so we will see how it is going at the time.

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  1. Is doing sprint distance triathlons during IM/HIM training good or bad to do?
    –Good. Racing is rarely bad especially at this distance.

  2. Are there any benefits to combining the two: Doing a sprint event, then continueing on the bike?
    –Fine to do.

  3. Are there benefits in skipping the long sunday ride once in a while and replacing it with a sprint distance event?
    –Why not move the long ride to Saturday on these weekends? I’ve coached many an IM athlete through 6 hour Saturday’s and successful sunday sprints. It’s not hard, a half way competent coach should be able to figure this out. If the athlete has trouble doing this they may want to look for a halfway competent coach instead of a non competent coach or they may want to reconsider doing IM bc it’s going to be a long day (probably. I’d take that bet with no hesitation anyway)

  4. In which phase of IM/HIM training (beginning, middle, end) can combining or replacing have advantages, or disadvantages.
    –All phases. Even the weekend before, but probably not the weekend after IM.

In my experience IM focused athletes do themselves a disfavor by ignoring going fast for extending endurance. This is a fools errand. The faster you are over 40k/10k the greater the odds that you will be faster over the IM.

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**This is a fools errand. The faster you are over 40k/10k the greater the odds that you will be faster over the IM. **

Boom!

The foundations of how fast and fit you are, for a 15 - 30 minute effort, are the same as for a multi-hour effort!

That’s why working on 5K run performance, maybe the BEST thing you will ever do for your running - for standalone running performance and for triathlon!

But just get back out there and keep slogging along in that LSD rut. Best wishes! :slight_smile:

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FWIW, the sport is new in my country also but i frequently see tribikes on cars at 10ks and OW swims and ASSume those kids have either gone out before or are going out after the race. We will frequently chase a 5-10K race with a swim (sea, so we get cleaned too :)).

i see lots of people doing the sprints in teh early of the year and longer distance once the heat of summer is over - pretty much the way our season plays out. i see LOTS of people with IM gear at the popular sprints.

so i’d say combining the distances is common here.

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The very short answer is - Yes.

In general the modern triathlete does not race enough.

Too much focus on the micro details of training - you learn WAY more from actually racing!

The original “FTP sessions” were 15 K TT on Tuesday, 5K club run on Thursday, then 95% FTP session on Sunday Olympic race fill in between with a bunch of easy miles…rinse repeat for a few months. Then shut down the racing for 4-6 weeks and then focus on the late summer, fall IM build. How come that worked so well Fleck?

Dev

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**The original “FTP sessions” were 15 K TT on Tuesday, 5K club run on Thursday, then 95% FTP session on Sunday Olympic race fill in between with a bunch of easy miles…rinse repeat for a few months. Then shut down the racing for 4-6 weeks and then focus on the late summer, fall IM build. How come that worked so well Fleck? **

Dev,

My fastest IM bike splits and overall IM races, came when my 10-mile bike ITT performance was at it’s best! :slight_smile:

Funny how that worked out!

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**The original “FTP sessions” were 15 K TT on Tuesday, 5K club run on Thursday, then 95% FTP session on Sunday Olympic race fill in between with a bunch of easy miles…rinse repeat for a few months. Then shut down the racing for 4-6 weeks and then focus on the late summer, fall IM build. How come that worked so well Fleck? **

Dev,

My fastest IM bike splits and overall IM races, came when my 10-mile bike ITT performance was at it’s best! :slight_smile:

Funny how that worked out!

What I was getting at is that we were doing these high intensity FTP type session at club workouts, be the local TT or track workouts. Now coaches have their athletes on a micromanaged program where they can’t stray outside the box and go do these group “training races” that often anymore…but the reality is the guys are doing the training races on their powermeters or on the treadmill, but they lose out on the “racing” aspect of the training race that comes with effectively doing that intensity work in a lose race setting…as we know, those club TT’s and races would still turn into the Tuesday night world championships and what you practiced there you took to your A Ironman event at the end of August to the Okanagan valley or to the island in October. We were already doing the same “gig” except it was not as tightly defined, because we did not have GPS or Powermeters to measure every minute variation and then upload all that shit to trainingpeaks for analysis paralysis.

If you don’t mind I’ll point to the 35th overall racer from Ironman Canada 1997 in 9:31 which arguably was a slow time for this guy after he just became a parent and was doing this race on the minimalist plan:

http://www.sportstats.ca/displayResults.xhtml?racecode=36218&bib=521

By the way, it looks like this athlete came into T2 with around the time of Lori Bowden and Lisa Bentley and then all three had a drag race for a while…seems like a track meet broke out around Skaha lake?

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I’ve been surprised how little my FTP has eroded despite biking 30-50% less than I did all last year. But my focus has been either intervals over FTP or riding at z2. Very little zone 3 or 4. I’ve ditched the 2x20 and long tempo stuff, with exception to riding tempo for my long weekly ride just due to not wanting to disappear from my family for 3-5 hours on Sunday. I did that plenty all last Spring and Summer.

Don’t discount the value of sprint races or doing 1-2 very focused harder bike sessions with most everything over threshold, then filling ins Z2 pace the rest of the week. Its’ popular to do a lot of threshold repeats and Z3 repeats, but I now think it’s best to save that for later in a long course build. Really learn to generate some power and hit the weight room. Then later adapt yourself to use that power all the while mixing in plenty of aerobic work to build the overall engine.

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**This is a fools errand. The faster you are over 40k/10k the greater the odds that you will be faster over the IM. **

Boom!

The foundations of how fast and fit you are, for a 15 - 30 minute effort, are the same as for a multi-hour effort!

That’s why working on 5K run performance, maybe the BEST thing you will ever do for your running - for standalone running performance and for triathlon!

But just get back out there and keep slogging along in that LSD rut. Best wishes! :slight_smile:

you let to cat out of the bag. I was hoping this could be our little secret.

Humm… wonder where the OP got his tagline??? :slight_smile: brilliant! Kinda says it all.

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I underestimated the value of FTP and VO2 intervals last year. I put in more mileage, was more consistent but still had less power in short and long races despite more training stress.

I like sprint races so I can evaluate my fitness without killing myself and have fun doing it.

jaretj

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advantage: practicing fast transitions. I find it highly questionable when people have long transitions for IM … should be 2 min or less assuming ideal conditions, but I see 5,10,15 – wtf? Are you having a picnic?