Looking at doing the Lanzarote 70.3 next March, which will be my first one.
Do you have any suggestions on what training plans to use? There are quite a few 20 week plans for general 70.3’s but they take different approaches and I’m not sure which one to follow. A lot of them focus on “just finishing” but I wanted to try a bit harder than that.
There are also the trainin plans on the IM site for specific races, and although they aren’t extortionate…they ain’t cheap!
The course looks to be a hilly one too, so I am guessing I’ll need to implement that into the next 20 weeks.
I highly recommend this 16-week plan by Mikael Eriksson.
(Or this one, if you don’t have a power meter).
There is a lot of low cadence work in the plan, which will suit the Lanzarote course nicely. Also, the long bricks will sometimes include up to 32 minutes low cadence subthreshold work before you get to the aerobic/race pace intervals, fantastic way to gain muscular endurance and learn to bike and run on tired legs.
I went from “quads of concrete in T2” to “good to go off the bike” in my races.
Many thanks for getting back, I really appreciate it. That plan you sent looks like exactly what I was after!
Currently I am probably at a stage where I can run about 5k, cycle about 20 miles and my swimming is quite poor. Unfortunately cardio has not been a priority for me for a while!
I have got some coaching lined up for running technique and swimming. But I’m not sure what kind of level I need to be at to start this plan and how I should structure it to get there?
Hopefully 8 weeks is a good amount of time to be at a level to start the program.