Alright, the title was a bit of a sucker, but I would love some input on how to improve my bike. This spring I have been building up for a 70.3 and improving my run fitness quite dramatically by incorporating Barry P religiously, but now I find my bike lacking.
How can I tweak my training to improve my bike?
Currently my schedule is (roughly)
Sunday:
Bike 90min - High Intensity
Run 5 Miles - Slow
**Monday **
Swim 3000y
Run 10 Miles - slow
**Tuesday **
Bike 90-120min - Sweet Spot/ Tempo (sometimes threshold)
Run 5 Miles (either off the bike or later)
**Wednesday **
Swim 3000y
Run 10 Miles
**Thursday **
Bike 120-180 - Endurance/ Tempo
Run 5 Miles (either off the bike or later
**Friday **
Swim 3000y
Run Long - 15-17 currently
**Saturday **
Rest
I know i have got to incorporate more riding, ideally 1-2 times more a week but struggle to sacrifice the run time.
How best do I adjust??
I would probably swap out (for a run) or add in a bike on Monday or Wednesday. Is running your strength or are you running ~50 miles/week to try to make some gains there? I’m usually 40-55 miles/week & it’s a lot of running but I have more days where I’m doing all 3 disciplines. You can run well off of 30-40 miles/week in triathlon.
I like the 5 mile runs after the quality/long bike days. I think those 3 runs + 1 long run + 1 workout day (maybe float more like 12-13 miles) would put you in a good spot & give you some flexibility in adding in another bike day. You have enough quality built in so are just looking at some easier rides.
If you have the time you could not tweak the running & add in some easy hour rides into the plan. Up to 2 hours easy once you’re used to the extra day. You could also do a ride on Saturday if you’re not tied to the off day. As long as you’re spinning easy, it can be an active recovery day.
Thanks for the response I appreciate it.
The run volume has been doing wonders for my run, (shocker to no one)
I like the idea of keeping the quality bike day runs.
Going to start by just adding some light outdoor riding on my non bike days abd see what happens
Where are your dedicated Zone 2 rides? Your rides are listed as follows:
- 90 min high intensity (So what does that mean? You can’t do high intensity the whole ride or else you aren’t actually doing high enough intensity. How much time are you spending in Zone 4 - and are you increasing the time in Z4 weekly?)
- 90-120 min sweet spot (this is clear)
- 120-180 endurance / tempo. How much time are you dedicating to Z2 for this ride? Zone 2 work is important.
I would be asking - do you need to run that much volume for a 70.3? I admit I’m a low mileage person because I get injured frequently, but your run volume looks almost like my peak running weeks for a “running only” marathon and not a 70.3. Personally I’d ditch one of your running 10 milers and replace with a Zone 2 bike. Consider 5 days a week running instead of 6. The bike / swim aerobic fitness will carry over to the run.
Honestly, it sounds like you could benefit from a coach to help you navigate. I know it is a cost, but it takes the stress and effort out of trying to figure it out yourself.
With that load, you probably don’t need a rest day. Maybe that would allow you to fit more bike time in. Relative to the type of training, what has worked best for me is doing tabatas once a week. The protocol is 8x20" intervals @170% threshold power, followed by 10" rest. Do three of these blocks with 10’ rest in between. This is tough, so you can ramp up with 10+20 one week, 15+15 the next and then go full house on the third week. You can get this cleared in a bit more than 45 minutes including warm up and cool down.
I would probably swap out (for a run) or add in a bike on Monday or Wednesday. Is running your strength or are you running ~50 miles/week to try to make some gains there? I’m usually 40-55 miles/week & it’s a lot of running but I have more days where I’m doing all 3 disciplines. You can run well off of 30-40 miles/week in triathlon.
I like the 5 mile runs after the quality/long bike days. I think those 3 runs + 1 long run + 1 workout day (maybe float more like 12-13 miles) would put you in a good spot & give you some flexibility in adding in another bike day. You have enough quality built in so are just looking at some easier rides.
If you have the time you could not tweak the running & add in some easy hour rides into the plan. Up to 2 hours easy once you’re used to the extra day. You could also do a ride on Saturday if you’re not tied to the off day. As long as you’re spinning easy, it can be an active recovery day. Pretty solid advice here. I’d reduce running frequency by 1-d/wk and increase riding frequency by 2-3 more sessions per week. All added rides = z2.
Instead of running so much, bike more. I don’t see the need to be running 15-17 miles for a 70.3 in addition to 2x 10 mile runs. Your plan is really run heavy and enough run volume for IM training. Nothing wrong with what you are doing, I’d just reduce run volume and frequency and add to the bike.
Thanks for the response.
As I noted the plan was intentionally run heavy as I was following Barry P to the letter and getting phenomenal results on my run.
I would probably swap out (for a run) or add in a bike on Monday or Wednesday. Is running your strength or are you running ~50 miles/week to try to make some gains there? I’m usually 40-55 miles/week & it’s a lot of running but I have more days where I’m doing all 3 disciplines. You can run well off of 30-40 miles/week in triathlon.
I like the 5 mile runs after the quality/long bike days. I think those 3 runs + 1 long run + 1 workout day (maybe float more like 12-13 miles) would put you in a good spot & give you some flexibility in adding in another bike day. You have enough quality built in so are just looking at some easier rides.
If you have the time you could not tweak the running & add in some easy hour rides into the plan. Up to 2 hours easy once you’re used to the extra day. You could also do a ride on Saturday if you’re not tied to the off day. As long as you’re spinning easy, it can be an active recovery day. Pretty solid advice here. I’d reduce running frequency by 1-d/wk and increase riding frequency by 2-3 more sessions per week. All added rides = z2.
Follow along the advice here. You are running 6 hours per week and riding 5-6. There is your solution if you need to improve the bike. Shift some time away from running and allocate it to the bike. You have already learned that dedicating a volume+frequency approach to a single sport will produce big gains. Nice work!
What are you strengths and weaknesses? What are your expected splits for the 70.3 or previous 70.3 race splits?
What do those high intensity and sweet spot workouts look like specifically?