Obviously, this isn’t athlete specific, or goes into details on HRM pace, or intervals, or form work, but for someone who has done several sprint triathlons, and wants a bare minimum idea of what you should be doing per week, if you added up all the miles per week: For build period, I’ve been told you should be doing, bare minimum, 135 total bike miles a week, 30-35 miles running a week. With swimming, it looks like 8-9000 meters a week of swimming.
Is that about right?
I’m no expert, but I am fairly sure that 30-35 miles running per week is a lot more than the bare minimum for a HIM.
I did 4.11 average total for a 52 week period for the swim, bike and run, and did 1 IM, 3 HIM’s, 12 Olys, and 3 Sprints.
So, if you goal is to finish, and have a life, thats way more than I have ever done. (Even now where I may be up to 7 hours a week average and did 2 HIMs and one sprint in 14 days). But, the more you do, the better you get, but the more you take away from others things in life.
Dave
I just went through this in another thread – concensus seemed to be to work up to the following key workouts:
3 hr bike
1.5 hr run
45 min run / 2 hr bike / 45 min run brick
When you can do these w/o trashing yourself, you’re ready.
… at least I hope…
I did a 5:25 half IM last year on about 4000 yards per week swimming, 100 miles per week biking and around 25 to 30 miles running. Was not that difficult to finish and ran less than 10 minutes off my half marathon PR despite less than optimal pacing on the run. So, I think that the bare minimums are less unless you are defining bare minimum to be bare minimum to place in your AG.
You’re looking for numbers that don’t exist.
The guideline I was given as a young runner was that your collapse point would be at 3x your daily average for the last 8 weeks. For 21km this comes out to 49km (just under 31mi), factor in some crosstraining benefit and 30mi a week would be more than sufficient.
I recommend you search for el fusers thread on the topic - lots of people weighed in with what the got through their first half on
I finished my last half (in my second season of tri) in 5:37 with this weekly volume:
Swim: 4,500 yards/week
Bike: 100 miles/week
Run: 25 miles/week
That volume was in the last 6 weeks leading up to the event. Felt fine post-race and recovered fully within 48 hours.
Saw this elsewhere for someone who did 4:50 (he’s 48):
“Average weekly training for 2006 was 49 miles/3:21 hours/20.38mph bike (hours on trainer don’t count towards miles/speed), 13.5 miles/1:31 hours/6:39 per mile run, 7500yds/1:49 hour swim, for 6 hours 41 minute average weekly training. Biggest week, by far, was about 12 hours because of a century ride (only ride longer than 56 miles).”
Way, way less than you were told.
I just completed a half ironman on June 10 on about 5 hours of training/week. I’d say that’s probably pretty close to the bare minimum.
another rule of thumb: take the event distances, double them, and there’s your ideal weekly volume.
so, roughly 4k swim, 100m bike, 25m run for a half.
don’t know if that’s a good rule or not.
<< For build period, I’ve been told you should be doing, bare minimum, 135 total bike miles a week, 30-35 miles running a week. >>
That’s about what I’m doing for an IM.
Obviously I’ve had some bigger weeks (particularly lately), but on avg I’m only doing 30-ish miles running and like 90m on the bike per week, YTD. The bike avg keeps bumping up quite a bit as I’m doing more long rides of late, but still sticking w/ 30-35m a week runnnig, over 4-6 sessions.
On the ‘Steve Larsen Approved’ HIM Plan last year, I avg’d 18.5m running and like 60m biking.
Again, there were obviously bigger weeks in there (and smaller, that’s how averages work), but there ya go.
I was, and still am, a fan of doing more intensity for less time, particularly on the bike. I prefer a hard 2 or 3 hr ride to a 5-6hr steady to mod-hard ride. Different strokes for different folks. Focus on the key workouts, everything else is filler.
do you want bare minimum just to finish within the cutoff, to finish mid pack, run the entire run or what? I know 2 people who won a 1/2 IM with 10-12 hrs/ week then there are others like me for whom 10-12 hrs/week gets me 20th/100 in my AG.
That’s much more than bare minimum. Many folks go under 5 hours on that volume. If you want to “race” it and feel good, that volume sounds great for 3 months up to a couple weeks before. For decent runners, weak cyclists or the running-injury-prone maybe try a bit more cycling and less running? just an idea.
I just went through this in another thread – concensus seemed to be to work up to the following key workouts:
3 hr bike
1.5 hr run
45 min run / 2 hr bike / 45 min run brick
When you can do these w/o trashing yourself, you’re ready.
I agree. When you can do these 2 or 3 x in a month and do 2 of these in a week, you are more than ready.
Interesting numbers. I am self coached and wonder like alot of other folks am I doing enuf? I have started keeping a training log in prep. for a 1/2 in Sep. Last wk. was out of balance. (Swim 1:30/Ride8:45/Run1:45) The swim yds. were 2,700 and mi’s on bike at 120. I don’t keep mi on run; just time or 2 hrs. I am building to number close to or exceeding what you have by end of July.
half IM last year on about 4000 yards per week swimming, 100 miles per week biking and around 25 to 30 miles running.
Ditto. I’m doing Muncie in 3 weeks and this has been my typical week.
It all depends on where you want to finish or if your goal is to finish. If you’re doing that kind of volume, you’ll be in very good shape either way.
I’m 39 and last year did my first HIM. I went 5:30 on about 5-7 hours of training per week. Not FOP, but MOP and I thought decent for my first time considering I drive a desk for a living and have two small kids. I didn’t swim more than 2,500 yards a week, rode about 60 miles a week and my longest run was 11 miles. This year I have things more dialed in and expect to see significant improvement, but you sound like you are more than there.
Yeah, I think it depends on what your goal is for the race, and what kind of time you have to work with for training. At my peak training, for the last 2 months leading up to the race, I was going 55-60 mile rides on Saturday following immediately by a 4-mile run. That was my longest training day and took me around 4-4.5 hours.
My second-longest was my long run day (Thursday), and I’d do 13 miles 3 times leading up to the race. That took me just under 2 hours.
My goal has been to simply finish without walking and hopefully beat my previous time for that distance (assuming a similar course profile). If you’re going for podium, that’s another story entirely.
I am also self-coached (if you could call it that), and have never used a heart rate monitor and only do interval training in the pool, and even then it’s pretty basic stuff. I use Gatorade, PowerGel, water, and Clif Bars for HIM’s and that works fine for me. Nothing scientific.
I’ll have to step that up for my first IM though I’m sure.
well yeah, as long as you know how to swim too 
The run/bike/run brick looks like a good one.