This is my fifth season of training and what I would call my first serious season. For the past four years I’ve raced one or two olympic distance races a year on a mountain bike finishing in 3:00-3:15. I got the road bike and I’m signed up for 6 races including Eagleman in June and I plan on signing up this summer for IM Lake Placid in 2005. I train approximately 7-10 hours a week which friends think is a lot. I’m sure that’s a warmup for some people here. Compared to friends I consider myself to be in good shape but when I race, you guys (and gals) really show me what being fit is. Many of you pass me like I’m standing still, especially on the bike. I don’t need to win but I’d like to be in the top 50%. So my questions is, on average, how many hours a week do you train?
During the season, about 10 hrs per week but seven or eight of that is on the bike. My training is way out of balance, but I love the bike and hate running.
Today, with a big snowstorm happening and later to be followed by freezing rain, my only work out will be digging out.
Right now I’m at 12 to 13hrs but 2 hrs of that is hockey. When it gets warmer outside I’ll add 3 or 4 hrs to the bike and drop the skating. I have so much fun training, it’s like an addiction.
Yes, I’m single and have no other life.
Maybe I’ll see you at Eagleman.
jaretj
If it’s not on fire, it’s a software problem.
14-20 hrs/week pretty much year 'round. This includes about 1 hr strength work and 2 hrs yoga per week…but as a Masters woman, those are critical parts of my training.
FWIW, my Olympic PR is 2:25, 1/2 IM PR is 5:12.
G
One can get good results training with the amount of time you train. Just make sure you make every hour of training quality. Make sure you give adequate recovery, and make sure you balance your training and you will be fine.
A coach may not be a bad idea.
Right now 10-12 h/wk … I would love to train more, but at this point it’s about it. I don’t really seeing it increasing. The good thing is that as time goes on I’ll get more done in the same block of time.
Still very early in the season, and I’m not planning on peaking until September, so around 6 hours a week now. All on the bike, I was having major issues with recovery from run training, so put tris on the back burner for '04.
Throughout this month, I’ll be ramping up the volume to approximately 15 hours a week by the end of Feb. (2-2.5 hours per day, plus long ride on Sundays of 4-5 hours, and one day off or easy 1/2 hour spin). This will include 2 quality sessions per week (Tues and Thurs) plus racing or a hard group ride on Sunday.
right now 10-15 hours…depending on weather…this summer when Ironmans approach, 20-24…I dont think there is any magic number, but even at 24 hours I feel underprepared for an ironman…mental.
These days I am training 13-17 hrs/wk and I’ll ramp up to a max of ~21 hrs/wk. Key races are 2 -1/2IMs in June/July. This is my 3rd year of tri-training - I started from scratch in all 3 sports. Hoping to move up to a MOPer this year.
I’ve been told I’m obsessive compulsive for training 8 hours a week. Eight hours a week is a short recovery week for many people on this forum. But for me, it’s about all I can muster right now. I’m also not getting that long weekend ride in due to the weather. So when the weather gets nice, I should be able to get in 10 fairly easily, with the max being 12.
I have a maximum of about 90 minutes per day during the week to train. But I usually don’t get that in – it’s more like an hour, maybe an hour and a quarter a day (but sometimes less than that). If I can make it to Saturday with five hours in the training bank, I can usually make 10-12 for the week by picking up the other 5-7 hours on Saturday and Sunday (2 hour run, 3-5 hour bike).
I try to focus on quality sessions during the week, then up the miles and back off the pace on the weekend. Fairly standard approach for many, I would imagine.
RP
8-12 right now, but ramping up for a late May IM. Definitely going with higher volume this year over prior years.
Robert,
Your schedule sounds a lot like mine; I can get about 1.5 hours weekday and the rest on weekends. What kind of times are you getting in races and do you mind me asking how old you are? I’m 35, so I’m in a pretty competitive division. It sounds like what I expected, people are putting in a pretty large number of hours.
Tom
I’m probably the only duathlete on this board so all of my training is obviously running and cycling. I normally average between 12 to 15 hours per week all year. For me it definately is a “habit/addiction.”
Right now only about 7 or 8 but when it gets warmer I hope to hit 10 to 12. It’s going to be fun this year, I’m signing up to coach soccer for under 5 girls. Thank God they know less about soccer than me!
I have 8 to 9 hours on my planned schedule, but my actual hours are around 6 to 7 right now. I can’t remember the last time I had a week where a workout wasn’t missed for some reason or another.
Dawn
I’m pretty new to the sport and have only done 1 sprint tri late last fall. I’m on month 6 of triathlon training. 
This week has me at 14 hours (base1, week two). I’m on the 600 annual hours plan in Friel’s bible and I think I’ll max out somewhere at 18 hours during base 3?
My next race will be a half-IM in May. Thinking about doing a full IM distance this year. I’m probably insane for considering that distance in my first year out. I figure if I’m doing all the hours for a half-IM though, I might as well just ramp up a little and do a full one. shrug
You’re not alone - I have been training/racing as a duathlete for the last 2 years. However, I have started swimming this winter and I may even get the nerve to race a sprint tri in late season. I noticed that there is a definite lack of long course races for duathletes - so I pretty much have to pick up the swimming if I want to do any ironman distance. I’m told duathlons are tougher than tris - so this tri thing should be a piece of cake 
I have 1/2IM in June and IM USA in July. I’m currently training about 11 hours a week (2 swim/4 bike/3r run/2 weights). As my big races get closer I’ll ramp up the hours until I peak in late June at about 20.
If I wasn’t doing a full IM this year, I would probably max out at about 15. But 10-11 is probably an average.
This is my second season. I’m at 10-12 hours/week now, in Base 3. I do 3 x swim, 3 x run, and 4 x bike every week. I’m actually trying to do proper periodization this year, rather than endless slow miles. I’ll probably get up to around 15 hours/week by June, with my target race being Lake Placid.
I’m no expert, but based on what I’ve seen, you can do pretty well on 10 hours/week, if, as others have said, you train correctly. I’m still trying to figure that one out myself.
i started training for ralphs in the end of october, trying to follow a very nice but ambitious plan i paid markallen.com to put together for me. My first half was last year (5:04) so Im shooting for sub-5 at ralphs. also want a slot to IM Moo. Ive done 9-15 hours per week excluding strength and flexibility, except for christmas week when I only did 4 hours of running (no pool or bike at my dads & plus its christmas!) (seriously – all you guys who said you do 15-20+/week, does that include thanksgiving and christmas week?!?) My average s/b/r over these 15 weeks is 10:20; average total time is 11:20. 90% of my bike time was trainer time. (As you can tell I have a nifty excel spreadsheet. I’d cut and paste a pie chart or two but can’t figure out how.) Also, I am very stingy about what “counts” as time. No extra credit for my mountain bike commute or time in changing room getting ready to swim!
Right now in depths of winter and working full time I think 15 is all I can do. At first when I saw some people say they regularly do 15-20+ per week I was like – these guys must be friends of joe bonness or not have jobs or something but i think i can see how my 12-15 could become 20 in the spring when its possible to get out and do some rides!
Also, FWIW, some guy on gordo’s forum said that traininglog.com (related to ironcoach.com) – a place where people can share and compare their logs - will soon be up and running