SBR training vs dedicated bike training

Triathlon Forum
1

Hello all,

I apologize in advance for the long winded, rambly-ness of this post.
My main goal for 2015 is to put together the best 70.3 I can in September. In the past I have not had much success (PR is 6:40), mostly due to crappy bike fitness (70.3 bike split is around 3:25 on a relatively easy course). My run fitness is decent (open half PR 1:54) and to be honest, I really don’t care enough about the swim right now to worry about it. Needless to say, my big focus this year is the bike. I have a nice new trainer, am all set up on TrainerRoad, and am ready to rock.
I have two main questions.

  1.  Should I start out 2015 with S B AND R training, or would it be better to just bike as much as possible for a while (for me that would be 5-6 rides aka 6-8 hours a week) and save the running and swimming until later in the season when I’ve (hopefully) built up some bike fitness. 

  2.  If dedicated bike training is the best idea, should I still run in situations where biking is not possible? For example, my lunch break at work: I can get 30-40 minutes of running in, but biking is not possible due to time constraints. Or will the running hinder the recovery of the biking?

Again, I know this is kind of rambly, and I appreciate any input that will help me have a stellar 70.3 in the fall.
I am doing my first FTP test tonight or tomorrow, so plan on many more questions regarding training and improving J
Thanks!

2

If I’ve got this right, your current PR is 6:40 with a 3:25 bike split.

If my math is right, this leaves you with a combined 3:15 for the swim/run and I’m going to assume that your swim and run times were balanced (ie: one of them wasn’t an outlier)

I’m guessing your current speed across all 3 sports is actually somewhat balanced and that the bike is not that big of a comparative weakness.

Respectfully, I suspect your swim time was “slow”. In addition to your swim time simply being slow, swim fatigue (lack of technique/fitness) will have a significant and cumulative effect on your bike and run.

I’m not sure how close your run split was to your open PR of 1:54 but run splits are an excellent predictor of overall performance and people that have faster run splits generally place higher overall.

As I mentioned, I don’t think that the bike is that big of a comparative weakness.

So, here’s my suggestion as to how to start your 2015 training:

I would suggest SBR training and that you actually start your general period with a swim (technique/fitness) and run (BarryP) focus.

For the bike, I would suggest 2-3 days per week of “hard” riding with the goal of increasing your FTP. With TrainerRoad, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much you can improve on the bike by using power and with only a few hard and short but repeatable sessions each week.

As your season progresses, you’ll want to continue to make gains on the swim and run but this is when the bike will have more of a focus and priority (volume/intensity).

Good luck with your training and racing.

Hello all,

I apologize in advance for the long winded, rambly-ness of this post.
My main goal for 2015 is to put together the best 70.3 I can in September. In the past I have not had much success (PR is 6:40), mostly due to crappy bike fitness (70.3 bike split is around 3:25 on a relatively easy course). My run fitness is decent (open half PR 1:54) and to be honest, I really don’t care enough about the swim right now to worry about it. Needless to say, my big focus this year is the bike. I have a nice new trainer, am all set up on TrainerRoad, and am ready to rock.
I have two main questions.

  1. Should I start out 2015 with S B AND R training, or would it be better to just bike as much as possible for a while (for me that would be 5-6 rides aka 6-8 hours a week) and save the running and swimming until later in the season when I’ve (hopefully) built up some bike fitness.

  2. If dedicated bike training is the best idea, should I still run in situations where biking is not possible? For example, my lunch break at work: I can get 30-40 minutes of running in, but biking is not possible due to time constraints. Or will the running hinder the recovery of the biking?
    Again, I know this is kind of rambly, and I appreciate any input that will help me have a stellar 70.3 in the fall.
    I am doing my first FTP test tonight or tomorrow, so plan on many more questions regarding training and improving J
    Thanks!

3

For me I’m in a similar situation. While my bike splits aren’t bad they aren’t anything to write home about. I want to be a beast on the bike so I’ve opted to skip hard running in lieu of difficult bike training blocks. My half run times are in the top 5% so I’ll use the 2 days I’m off the bike to do longer (15-20km) endurance runs as apposed to tempo and speed workouts. Then as my season comes into focus I can then shift into a structured SBR plan designed for the season ahead.

I guess I’ll still be SBR but the intensity is what I vary depending on my needs/desired outcome.

4

Hi, thanks for the tips.

My run split for the 6:40 70.3 was around 2:25, so about 30 mins over my open half. I will say that it was quite a bit hotter that day then when I ran my half.

5

Being that far off your open HM time is probably an indicator of either poor pacing on the bike or not enough fitness overall. I’d also recommend sticking with all three sports in a more balanced approach for now.

6

Being that far off your open HM time is probably an indicator of either poor pacing on the bike or not enough fitness overall. I’d also recommend sticking with all three sports in a more balanced approach for now.

I really felt like I paced the bike decent, but I admittedly didn’t train all that great.

7

Don’t give up running altogether or you will find yourself struggling in the spring. continue to do some short speed work on your lunch hours while you focus on your bike

8

One thing to keep in mind: it’s going to take much longer to build a high level of run fitness vs high level of bike fitness.

I might propose that if you are willing to do a bike block, you rethink that to do a run block.

You can go from 60-90min rides to 4 hour rides easily in the course of a couple of weeks. It’s a longer, much longer, path to go from 45min runs to 1.5 hour runs. To do it as quickly as you can do that for the bike is inviting disaster/injury for the large majority of the triathlon population.

As an example some of my fastest long course athletes (pro podiums to overall fastest age groupers at 70.3/IM’s) are touching their bikes rather infrequently right now, some maybe 2 or 3x a week right now and certainly some are under 4 hours of riding per week.

So my advice in a nutshell is worry about other things now, then add the bike in later. It’s much easier to build fitness in 1 or 2 sports at once than all 3 at once

9

One thing to keep in mind: it’s going to take much longer to build a high level of run fitness vs high level of bike fitness.

I might propose that if you are willing to do a bike block, you rethink that to do a run block.

You can go from 60-90min rides to 4 hour rides easily in the course of a couple of weeks. It’s a longer, much longer, path to go from 45min runs to 1.5 hour runs. To do it as quickly as you can do that for the bike is inviting disaster/injury for the large majority of the triathlon population.

As an example some of my fastest long course athletes (pro podiums to overall fastest age groupers at 70.3/IM’s) are touching their bikes rather infrequently right now, some maybe 2 or 3x a week right now and certainly some are under 4 hours of riding per week.

So my advice in a nutshell is worry about other things now, then add the bike in later. It’s much easier to build fitness in 1 or 2 sports at once than all 3 at once

So true.

10

I would also warn to not neglect the run. While it seems logical to overemphasize the bike because it’s the longest leg of the 3 in a HIM, reality is that you will likely lose far, far more time with a crappy/undertrained run compared to the time saved on a heroic PR bike. Like on the order of 2-3x the time lost on the run compared to gained on the bike.

I think the ‘focus on the bike’ training strategy is best applied to those who are experienced, who have proven that they can throw down a solid run time in a HIM (not just run a fast open HM, although that def helps.) Reality is, that most AGers who try to overemphasize the bike do it at significant cost to their run, and pay for it with the run time losses on race day.

A crucial point as well as mentioned above, is that run fitness takes much longer to develop than bike fitness, due to the impact of running. You definitely should not cut back on the running at your level - if anything, emphasize running before you start the race season in earnest, and carry that run fitness through to race day.

I strongly suspect that the time you will save/gain by NOT walking large portions of the run will far, far the results by using the bike-centric strategy, which will likely leave you walking large chunks of the course, given your 6:40PR.

11

Great info, thanks so much for the help guys :slight_smile:
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