After years of experimenting as a runner, I found that frequency and consistency was the most important aspect of my running regime. If I could only put 10 hours of running into a given week, I found that I improved better if I ran shorter distances frequently, to the point where I was running 10 times each week .
Now that I’ve switched to multi-sport racing, I was quite curious about cycling training. In your years of experience, what type of training did you benefit from the most? Short and frequent rides, just a few long rides, a mix between the two, etc.?
I am not an expert and pretty pedestrian around here…12 hour ironman * 3 and 48 years old. So I don’t think its unlike running, you have to put in the miles consistently over time. Then once you get the miles and you need to ride harder. Lots of folks train with power, some heart rate - just need a way to measure the work your putting in. Good luck.
I am not an expert and pretty pedestrian around here…12 hour ironman * 3 and 48 years old. So I don’t think its unlike running, you have to put in the miles consistently over time. Then once you get the miles and you need to ride harder. Some folks train with power, lots heart rate - just need a way to measure the work your putting in. Good luck.
Fixed it for you. According to last year’s Kona bike count less than a third of the field had a powermeter of any kind. Powermeters may get all the talk around here but they are not the dominant way of training.
I’ve found that training on a progressive bike plan is the most helpful.
It’s too easy to go either too easy on the bike, with too many rest stops, or too much coasting, or the converse of going too hard on the long day and riding yourself into a fatigue hole where it affects the rest of your workouts. (I suspect on BT, it’s mostly the latter.) I used to think it was a good idea to go out with the competitive roadies, hammer 70 miles with all-out sprints and long climbs with them, and then add miles on top, but I was usually doing those workouts not in a context of a plan, and often went harder than I needed to - resulting in subpar workouts later or extra recovery days needed.
Am back on a progressive plan for HIM, and it feels much better. Sure, I won’t kill myself in terms of fatigue on the long bike day, but I can back it up with solid runs and swims and other bikes the rest of the week,all of which progressively increase in difficulty.
The plan is also really helpful for getting either speed or distance improvements, both of which require you to ride way outside of your normal hard training ‘comfort’ zone (not comfortable but what you know you’ve done before.)
I do an intesity based workout every other day. I no longer race triathlon however. I’m a cat 1 mtb racer, however I do all of my intensity work on the road bike . Doing intensity over volume definitly works. You don’t need the volume. I wish I knew what I know now back when I was racing Ironman. I just did my first 100 mile mtb race last weekend. It took 8 hours to complete. My longest ride before that race was 5.5hrs and I only did 3 rides over 4 hours before the race but with a lot of intensity. I do a lot of 4X15 at FTP workouts. I train 12 hours a week all on the bike.
You don’t need the volume. I train 12 hours a week all on the bike.
I’m glad that you put these two ideas in context. So often you see studly amateurs or pros talk about how you don’t need a lot of volume, without quantifying what “A lot of volume” is, to them.
A lot of age groupers hear “you don’t need the volume” and think “so, 3 hours a week is good then?”
Having a power meter and a knowledgeable coach has made my bike training very efficient and effective. I’m limited to about 4 rides a week, 3 of which are relatively short (60-90min) but hard. 2x20s, 4x10s, etc… Then I have a long ride on the weekend, which is also at tempo pace. This has been good enough to result in top 2-3% bike splits at local races, but is still fairly pedestrian at national level races.
I do an intesity based workout every other day. I no longer race triathlon however. I’m a cat 1 mtb racer, however I do all of my intensity work on the road bike . Doing intensity over volume definitly works. You don’t need the volume. I wish I knew what I know now back when I was racing Ironman. I just did my first 100 mile mtb race last weekend. It took 8 hours to complete. My longest ride before that race was 5.5hrs and I only did 3 rides over 4 hours before the race but with a lot of intensity. I do a lot of 4X15 at FTP workouts.** I train 12 hours a week all on the bike.**
I think your idea of volume is still pretty high compared to most AGers. 12 hrs per week on the bike is a good amount, good enough to race Ironman well.
A 5.5 hour ride is also a very long bike, particularly at your speed, where you’d likely cover over 100 miles.
Having a power meter and a knowledgeable coach has made my bike training very efficient and effective. I’m limited to about 4 rides a week, 3 of which are relatively short (60-90min) but hard. 2x20s, 4x10s, etc… Then I have a long ride on the weekend, which is also at tempo pace. This has been good enough to result in top 2-3% bike splits at local races, but is still fairly pedestrian at national level races.
I like this gent’s ideas here so I’ll piggyback. My cycling training comes down to “how effectively can I use this piece of the pie”? For sprint, Oly, and an occasional half Iron, I’m able to knock out about 10 hours per week on average s, b, and r. Since triathlon is almost 50% cycling, I tend to cycle about 5 hours out of the 10. If I get extra time in my schedule, I’ll almost always opt for an extra cycling session.
What do those 5 hours look like? I try to spend a fair amount of time (almost 1 hour per week cumulative) at or near threshold zone 4 on a 1-1.5 hour ride. The other ride is the weekend tempo mentioned above, accumulating about 1.5-2 hours of zone 3 on a 2-2.5 hour ride. Find a sane, hard-working, collegial group that is training for half and full Ironman; good luck finding this! So now, we’re up to about 4 hours of cycling. If I can get a 3rd ride in, I either do speed work (chunks of spin-ups or very high cadence work anywhere from :10-1 minute and about 6-15 repeats) or a V02 max session. So, the bases are covered with plenty of zone/level 2, 3, 4, 5, and 5c/level 7.
What’s the difference between running and cycling? I think you can push pretty hard in cycling and bounce back much more easily than with running. I would say concentrate on quality in cycling whereas running one must be always very careful with injury.
PS: I use power, but I don’t stare at it, and I coach all levels of tri. Good luck!
Never ride easier then your Ironman pace/effort/power and often ride harder then that.
Yup. I never do a “slow” or “easy” ride. If I’m riding 4 times a week, it would include an interval, a tempo or 2x20, a long ride, then some intermediate distance ride. This year I’m trying to average at least 21 mph on every ride (no powermeter). 21 may not be very fast (I guess its all relative), but I see a lot of people do recovery rides at 18-19mph.
I figure, why waste a ride on an easy/recovery ride when I have 3 days (at least) a week when I don’t ride at all? I just don’t have the time.
You don’t need the volume. I train 12 hours a week all on the bike.
I’m glad that you put these two ideas in context. So often you see studly amateurs or pros talk about how you don’t need a lot of volume, without quantifying what “A lot of volume” is, to them.
A lot of age groupers hear “you don’t need the volume” and think “so, 3 hours a week is good then?”
Thanks, Jack, for commenting. 12 hours a week on the bike is hard for me to fit in. To me that would be “moderate/high” volume.
I think one of the reasons frequent shorter runs work is that they allow better recovery where longer runs will break individuals down further. You also have to keep in mind the kind of racing you do and your muscle fiber type, if you are a fast twitcher and are doing shorter races like 5-10k these shorter runs I have heard are better because they can be run at a more rapid pace. For myself, as a slow twitcher and longer distance racer my best performances came from over 100 mpw in singles.
Given what you said about the type of training you like I’d say doing 2X20s and SST frequently will help you provided you are competing in olympics or shorter and don’t do much in the way of volume (less than 10hrs per week). If you have aspirations to do halfs or fulls, more volume with rides that are longer in duration will help you more in my opinion, downplay the harder stuff to compensate for this.
Lastly a word to those who say go hard all the time, this is not the optimal way to race at your fastest, it is the optimal way to reach your highest potential on 8 hrs a week of riding but low intensity is the superior way, always has been, always will be, most people are simply naive when it comes to the amount of volume you need, as in 30+ hrs on the bike a week, yeah its not a time efficient way to train but that doesn’t mean its not the best way.
Good timing with this post and thanks to those above who have commented. Just this past week I listened to the Zen Tri podcast interview with Amanda Naeth (sp?) and she preached the importance of “Zone 0” recovery rides. The host of the show also preaches the benefits of lots of Zone 2. Also in Triathlete magazine there was a quick article on Crowie’s use of LSD running as slow as 9:30min/mi. I guess the bottom line is see what works for you.
I myself am training for my second HIM and enjoy the long varied speed bike rides as well as the 100mi group rides with roadies. I don’t like it to be all work like a job. I have seen huge gains with more time in the saddle. I enjoy the social part of riding and stopping for a coffee and bagel mid ride.
If you look at all the posts above you can extract that having the correct ratio of intensity to time available is probably what will get you the best bang for your buck.
You should treat cycling workouts like weight lifting.
That is, you don’t go into the gym and just see what looks good and pick up some weights now and then.
You go in with a plan, what sets your going to do, what you’re going to work on and goal weights (at least you should ).
Same thing with biking. I advocate training with power, but the same thing can be done with times going up hills. You might be doing 2x20, 5x10, 3x15 ect. You have a goal “weight” (that being watts or time up a hill) and you try to hit it for each set. If you can hit it, you raise your goal next time.
So that’s the basis of your cycling routine; spending time right around threshold. If you have more time than that, you add Sweet Spot work. That’s the zone above tempo but below threshold. You add as much of that as you have time for and your body can take.
When you get about 6 weeks out from a race you add VO2 work. Billats, 30sec on off, ect up to 3-5 min all outish.
5 Minutes is a good place to start. If you can do that you have the option to either raise your FTP or shorten the rest period. I prefer to raise FTP and keep the rest period at 5 minutes.
Good timing with this post and thanks to those above who have commented. Just this past week I listened to the Zen Tri podcast interview with Amanda Naeth (sp?) and she preached the importance of “Zone 0” recovery rides. The host of the show also preaches the benefits of lots of Zone 2. Also in Triathlete magazine there was a quick article on Crowie’s use of LSD running as slow as 9:30min/mi. I guess the bottom line is see what works for you.
I myself am training for my second HIM and enjoy the long varied speed bike rides as well as the 100mi group rides with roadies. I don’t like it to be all work like a job. I have seen huge gains with more time in the saddle. I enjoy the social part of riding and stopping for a coffee and bagel mid ride.
If you look at all the posts above you can extract that having the correct ratio of intensity to time available is probably what will get you the best bang for your buck.
Well, I would suggest you really can’t compare what a pro does to what anAG’er should do with the limited time we have. And Brett at Zen Tri isn’t much of an expert. Pro’s training 30+ hours per week certainly can do low zone recovery rides. As an AG’er who trains half that volume, I can;t afford to go out and dick around on the bike. Zone 1 is where bike fitness goes to die.
Good points. I myself don’t compare my plans to a pro but I do think slow recovery rides the day after an intense cycling WO have their place in increasing blood flow and speeding muscle repair (if you have time) I guess I am fortunate in working for myself and having a supportive wife I have as much time as I want to train.
As far as Brent he may not be an expert but he has some great insight even though he still discovering quite a bit. He had Mike Ricci from D3 on quite a bit and you can’t argue with his expertise.
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