Can I go 5:00 in a 1/2 IM - Entertain us with your thoughts

Triathlon Forum
1

Here’s the deal -

I’m 21, 5’6’’ 140 lbs. My athletic background is relatively insignificant.

I’ve been training for a year with a lot of emphasis on biking.

My average week for this summer in my lead up to the Spirit of Racine in July is as follows

10,000 yds in the pool
210 miles on the bike
20 or so miles running

for about 20 miles a week

Swimming I tend to do 1:50 for every 100 yds in the pool

Biking I always bike at a low HR (120 or so) and tend to average 15-17mph hour on my long rides (which are 5 to 7 hours).

I used to be a fast-ish runner (easy sub 20min 5k) but have had to cut back volume due to a recurring injury. Now I do my weekly long run of 11 miles in about 90 minutes.

How fast can I go guys and gals?

Give me your best shot -

2

To go 5 hours, you need to be able to either:

  1. Be faster on the bike.

Or

  1. Drink kittycat under the table.

http://tinypic.com/6575ug

3

dunno how fast you can go, but you’re screwing yourself w/ this kinda bike training.

4

OK I’m interested - How am I screwing myself?

5

You need some higher intensity biking. Biking is low impact and lends itself to hard workouts with easy recovery workouts inbetween.

Styrrell

6

sorry bout the curt reply, I’m trying to get some work done… not very successfully!

Here’s the less gruff version:
there’s those folks like you who have heard ‘got to train at low intensity to foster fat burning metabolism at all times’. They train at low to very low intensities (often significantly below planned race pace), and consequently can’t increase their race pace as desired. There’s more to it, but that’s it in a nutshell.

don’t get me wrong - you train a lot of hours, so I’m sure your base fitness is good (also evidenced by your low HR although I don’t know your max HR). But in order to increase your race pace, you have to raise your training pace.

IOW: 15 mph gets 56 miles done in 3:44 hrs. 17 mph = 3:18. Combine that with the fact that you may need a little bit of time to get settled after T1, and you have problems right off the bat reaching your 5:00 goal time.

I know there’s guys like Gordo who preach a lot of the ‘go long’ stuff, but if you look at what he actually does (well, did, I guess), I believe that there’s some good amount of high-intensity work in his advice.

So my advice to you would be that even if you plan on sticking with 1/2 IM distances, to methodically pick up some higher-intensity sessions. If you check recent IM results, I believe you’ll see that recent converts from shorter distances such as Olympic Distance tend to do well.

If I had to put it into one sentence: train a lot, train consistently, and across and slightly beyond a range of situations which may apply during your goal race. Anyone who asks me for training advice gets this line. Few manage to do it for one reason or another, including myself…

Anyhow, based on your description of yourself, you’re currently not doing that, and that hurts you b/c you spend a lot of time on the bike during the 1/2 IM.

Sorry for the rambling post!

Josef

7

To add to what JoB said you have way too much bike volume for a HIM. To add in the intensity/tempo etc. work that he suggests, you would need to cut back on some volume to avoid overtraining. During the week you should be doing shorter intensity rides and bricks or transition workouts, then one long endurance ride in zone 2 (ie: aerobic) on the weekend. Like JoB said if all you do is long steady rides you will become very good at this and not much else. You don’t need to go redline but you need some quality intervals above your AeT to develop more speed. With the example of the 3:18 bike split at 17 MPH plus a little under a 40 minute swim at 1:50 in the pool and you are going to need an unbelievable run (as in not possible) to go 5:00.

8

Biking I always bike at a low HR (120 or so) and tend to average 15-17mph hour on my long rides (which are 5 to 7 hours).

Well, for one thing, you are wasting your time on your bike training. If you don’t ride hard, you’ll never get faster.

Don’t believe the hype about “long easy bike” workouts – they only prepare you to ride long and easy. If you want to ride long and fast and easy, then you better get out there and start breathing hard. You can always back off on race day to pace properly, but training needs to be tough.

9

No way can you go 5.

try 5:30

I’m with with the other posters… you have to bike a lot harder.

10

I have no idea of how fast you can go but…

  1. My long runs are rarely faster than 9 min miles

  2. My long rides are frequently in the 16-17 mph range.

  3. I swim a bit faster - I can cruise 100 yard in 1:25 or so.

Fastest half IM to date 4:50 with splits roughly of sub 30 - 2:40 - 1:36 at a fast/flat course (SOMA). I could have gone at least 5-10 min faster if I wasn’t riding certain tires…so maybe a 4:40! So its certainly possible that you can go sub 5.

I do agree with the other posters that you should mix it up a bit more - do some LT work, maybe some big gear work…

All my training is done at 7-8000 feet which slows me down a bit on the swim/run while training.

Dave

11

Thanks for all the help guys.

With such a consensus on the bike intensity I’ll certainly throw some shorter and harder stuff in and see what happens.

The reason I ride this way is really habit. After I picked up biking and triathlon a year ago I joined my collegiate cycling team. Long and easy is how we did most of our training, then we rode BALLS fast and BALLS short.

I’ll let you guys know how it goes

thanks again,

tk