What is the general recommendation for getting faster on the bike? I think its ride more, ride longer and more sweet spot workouts. I assume this is at least partially increasing your power (over time).
5’11" - 75 KG/165 lbs
Just did my first full (Chatt) and had an NP of 202 and averaged 22.1 mph (speed would have been higher if I had not stopped to pee). However in a half earlier this year I really wanted to hold a higher power and wasn’t able to. I was disappointed cause I thought my power and speed would have been better than previous years given the work I put in during the off-season/training. Maybe that was a result of fatigue. I was struggling to hold zone 3/4 power in some of my workouts after that race for intervals that ranged from 8-16 minutes.
As I head into the winter off season, just trying to figure out what TR plan/workouts I should follow/focus on with that leading into actual training in the spring.
if you are a trainer road user, another good place for such advice is the trainer road forum.
the other thing to remember is that it takes a lot more power for a small increase in speed after about 30 kph (about 19 mph). The increase in aerodynamic drag starts to really bite. To get a feel for that change plug some numbers into an online aero calculator and it will open your eyes. Silca has one and I plugged some numbers in and to go from say 22 - 25 mph it went from 202 watts to 290 watts… so it gets harder and harder the faster you go and why people pay so much attention to aerodynamics.
Swim was cancelled. Breakfast was 3-3.5 hours before. I dont remember the exact carb amount, but I ate overnight oats (.75 cup) and two pieces of bread with honey and sunbutter (40-50 g carbs). Drank a 30 g carb bottle between breakfast and ride start.
On the bike I was schedukled to take 480 g of carbs, but I didnt finish some of that as it was liquid and weather was cool.
Power faded a little over the 5 hours, but not significantly. I went too hard the first hour (NP 221). Then 196, 198, 192, 193 each successive hour. I did not feel like I faded, but the last few miles of the ride were the most challenging in terms of incline which I had not expected.
I felt really good coming off the bike and said as much to my crew. Ran a good first half of the marathon (1:37). Significantly faded on the 2nd half of run, probably because I went too hard the first half
For triathlon your endurance matters much more than the size of your ftp. TR imo doesn’t do a great job in that department. Far too many smatterings of over threshold work.
You can get a long way with volume and very extensive sweet spot and threshold. For us working mortals though the recovery is so important. I can maybe get 1 good progression on the bike in a week when the TTE gets out there.
For example.
2x60min 90% workout I did on September 11 was the only “new” stimulus for me that week. The next bike workout sep 14 was 2hrs tempo just to get some kjs in before running
Riding more will work to a point. However, sweet spot will work to increase TTE, it doesn’t really do anything to increase raw power. Periodizing your workouts such that you spend one or two blocks a year where you work on VO2, then spend the rest of the time working on extending that power will be your best bet.
I would first congratulate myself on a 5:04 bike ride.
Learning to pee while riding is an acquired skill (Seriously). That will get you down to 5 flat.
When asking yourself about more speed and power, the adjacent question must be… “Will I be able to run efficiently for 26.2mi if pound out a more powerful ride?” If you attach a 1hr. swim, and a 3:30 run… You’re looking at a highly competitive finish. What will give you more satisfaction; talking about your power meter, or a 9:45 Ironman?
If you find that you really need the power… Compete on Zwift. And plan a week in Feb. to Mt. Lemmon.
What does your current training on a weekly basis look like? And I know you said the swim was cancelled, but for your other races, don’t underestimate how much the swim takes out of you for the bike. If you aren’t training the swim properly, a 350w ftp won’t really help you.
Are you in aero the entire ride? Is your equipment optimized? You weigh only 10 lbs. more than me but I’m able to ride the same bike split with ~190 watts and I wonder if there are some easy aero gains you can make?
For Ironman racing I do a lot of long rides on the weekends (4-6 hours with 70.3 and Ironman efforts) and quite a bit of low cadence/high power work during the week. I feel that combination has done a good job in both increasing my FTP and fatigue resistance.
could take a whole year to find 10-15w of FTP.
a month to add a considerable amount of KJs before exhaustion. For triathlon I know which I would choose in the short term. Sure, when thinking big picture I’m 100% in agreement with you.
The amount of mobility I would have in my shoulders if I would have started something 7 years ago when i started swimming and ST told me it was a waste of time.
Right, which is why i said do both. As we move into the off season, if i was training for triathlon, id take some time off now, build back into training through nov/dec with some TTE work, then do VO2 in january or february, allow my body to recover, then primarily work on TTE for a while. On a high level, I’d lay my season out like this, and then modify with the details as you actually move into each training block. However, all these things work together
Yeah, I guess I misspoke a bit. I really only care about getting faster and assume for me that is increasing power a bit. I dont care what my ftp is if I can go faster.
I think this comes from a mix of aero gains and increased power and endurance (holding power over time).
Thinking about bit, I rarely do any TTE work. Not much VO2 max work on bike either.
Had a great ride!!! My goal was to stay around 200 watts as much as possible and it worked because I felt great coming off the bike.
Loved every second of it other than how bad I had to pee and how long I held it. I dont need the power, but am just looking for how to get faster which I assume would come from increasing my power a bit and being able to hold it.
maybe a different cassette and crank for that coourse?
I was in aero except for the top of each hour when i consumed food and caffeine, when I had to grab a bottle from BTS and fill up front aeria with it, and at times when I was going uphill. I have an aero helmet, socks, bottle and a TT suit, and a decent position (I think). Could still probably make more gains though.
My long rides (4-6 hours)were at IM effort pace. Probably could do some more at 70.3 pace but I struggled in my 70.3 race and I’m not even sure what my 70.3 power should be. I’ll need to clear that up a bit.
Sounds like you’ve got your equipment dialed in and you’re not wasting too many watts punching through the wind.
One of the standard long rides I get that really seems to “harden” my legs is a 30 min warmup, 2:30 at Ironman pace (IF of .68 to .71), and then 2x 30 min intervals at 70.3 pace (IF of .75 to .77) with a 10 min easy spin in between, followed by another hour easy/cooldown. All on the TT bike of course practicing race nutrition. I’ve found I’ve been able to run really well off the bike and also put up some pretty good 70.3 times on just Ironman training alone.
Jumping in here, as I am in a similar situation. I’m 3 weeks out from my first full (IMCA). I’ve done 2 halfs and lots of shorter stuff. My ftp is nothing to get excited about, 220. I’m 5’6", 155 pounds, muscular build. I’m already messing with what do do ending out the year and going into next. My plan was to take a couple weeks off (just do easy stuff that’s fun, when I feel up to it, so not totally off). Then a 6 week TH block to end out the year. Would I be better off doing a VO2 block, or even a TTE block? I’m a TR user, really like the product. However, as I’ve progressed over time I’m finding myself curious about trying different approaches. Looking at @imswimmer328 suggestion above has me thinking maybe I’d be better to give that route a try?
TTE is time to exhaustion, in this case I’m talking about the length of time you can ride at threshold. While many use 60 min power as a proxy for threshold, i don’t think that encapsulates it well. I tend to think of it as the point where fatigue changes from being a linear function to an exponential function, typically with that definition people’s TTE at FTP ranges from 35 to 75 minutes. Doing progressive threshold/sweet spot work will increase this TTE closer to that 60-70 min mark, and by doing so you also increase your ability to work at durations below threshold.
The approach i describe is basically from kolie moore on the emperical cycling podcast. He has lots of good information, which is also backed up by his experience as a coach
