Doing a few sprints in the coming months, so would like to know what works as a training plan for STers with limited time. Six to seven workouts with one rest/hang with support crew day per week. Just looking to improve over last year: top third of age group (45-50). Strongest discipline for me is the bike. Run and swim coming along.
Doing a few sprints in the coming months, so would like to know what works as a training plan for STers with limited time. Six to seven workouts with one rest/hang with support crew day per week. Just looking to improve over last year: top third of age group (45-50). Strongest discipline for me is the bike. Run and swim coming along.
My first sprint tri will be in a few weeks, 400m swim, 20k bike 5k run. Currently my workout schedule is:
Mon - Swim, avg 2100 yds
Tue - Tempo run, 30-60 mins
Wed - Tempo bike, usually on trainer, 1-2 hrs.
Thu - Long run, 60-90 minutes (Last week was 9.5 miles in 1:16)
Fri - Swim, avg 2100 yds
Sat - Long bike, 2-3 hrs, 40+ miles, 5-7 mile run
Sun - Rest, or possibly easy 30-45 minute run.
I’ll let you know how it works out in a few weeks, but I’ve dropped from 197ish lbs to 174ish lbs since I started in early Feb.
John
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This is typical for me.
Running 6 -7 days a week. Varying distances and intensities, up to a long run of 20 kms or so.
Riding 2-3 times (including a Spin class or 2). I may increase this by commuting to work on the bike (15 kms each way)
Swim 0 times per week, except during a race week, where I’ll swim on race day.
3-4 runs a week right now, 2-3 swims, 4-5 rides
if i was just doing sprints, i would up the swim one prob.
longest run for that distance is around 8-9 miles, longest ride 3.
for me tempo work has gone the furthest in sprint speed, i tent to get hurt with track intervals in running.
this has put me pretty concistantly in the top 5 at sprint races overall.
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Here’s my average workout.
Sunday: Run 5 miles at 6:40 pace
Monday: Swim 1000 yards at lunch, Bike 20 miles after work
Tuesday Bike 20 miles
Wednesday: Run 3 miles at 6:20 pace
Thusday: Swim 1000 yards at lunch Bike 20 miles
Friday: Run 3 miles at 6:20 pace Bike 10 miles-HARD
Saturday: Bike 40-50 miles
It is bike centric because that is the only part of training that I really enjoy.
It depends…where do you live? If it’s in Ontario, I’m training 200 hours a week so don’t even bother!
If anywhere else, it looks like this:
Mon- off
Tues- bike 1hr intervals, swim 1 hr masters practice
Wed- run intervals, hills or as of last night, track work.
Thurs- See Tues
Fri- tempo run
Sat- swim 1hr masters, bike up to two hours
Sun- long run 15 to 20 k
Next week I will be adding a morning Wednesday bike, about 40 min because I am running way behind on the bike these days.
I’m still a clyde, always will be.
j
I turn 50 next week, and do mainly sprints (with the occasional Olympic and half IM to remind myself why I stick to sprints). My strength is swimming. I train pretty much every day, although I typically get in only 7-8 hours per week training. Sprint triathlons are all about going at threshold, or nearly so, the whole time. That means that you want to raise that threshold as high as you can. There are multiple ways of doing it: do huge miles below threshold, or train around your threshold. Both will work. Like you, I can’t (or won’t, or don’t) do huge miles. So, I do hard.
I think you want to crush your opponents with your strength (in your case, the bike). Put as much time into them as possible. I did one Oly last year in which the guy who came in 2nd in my AG beat me handily on the bike and run, but lost so much time in the swim as to finish pretty far back. Keep hitting it, but make every mile count. Try to get in 30-60 minutes at 95% of threshold (what you can hold for an hour all-out), twice a week (I usually do an 11mi TT a couple of times per week, takes me < 30 minutes), plus a longer ride or two. Swim hard: don’t do mindless yards; rather, push your threshold with higher speeds and less rest. Make it hurt. 2-3 of those a week will get you comfortable, if not FOP fast.
Run after those hard bike intervals. Make them race-pace fast, rather than long. There is no time in a sprint triathlon to “get your running legs” back. Get comfortable with the feeling of running hard off the bike. The run is the one discipline where I’ve (finally) learned that doing all my runs hard is bad: that way lies injury. Run as often and consistently as you can, if only for 20 minutes at a time. If you can get 25 miles per week, you’ll be faster.
You don’t need a rest day when you’re working on limited time.
Here, the “sprint” races are 400m/20k/5k so if you want to be top 10, you need to be under an hour. When i was focusing on sprints, I would do 3-4 trainer rides per week, mostly tempo stuff, I would still do a 3-5 hour ride on the weekends but only because I like to. During that time I worked at a pool, so I would just bust out random 500s all day long, I got really fast at swimming the 500s so there was no need to do any longer swims since the races were 400m. I would also run lots of tempo and trail runs. THis was usually good to get me in the top 10.
Not that I am a specialist in anything, I do race mostly sprint and oly distance.
Swim 2-3X week 5-9K meters
Bike 3 X week around 80-120 miles
Run 3-4 X week total 18-28 miles
For what its worth, I am in the top 5 in almost all the sprints I enter and top ten in all olympics. Did come in 158th in my age group last year at 1/2 IM switz but thats another story all together. 
Basically, I just do what my coach Kurt Perham tells me to do.
not that I specialize in sprints, just that it’s the default option for low-volume trainers…
1 swim as master’s session as hard as possible for every set, 1 bike as 2x20 max effort plus 10min wu/d, 1 run as 4mi easy 3mi hard.
Add some bike commuting, bricks as a 15 min run tacked on to the commute in to work, and a long bike two or three times a season, typically 6-8 weeks before what I laughingly call the A race for the year. In a good week, might get in another run or bike.
This isn’t enough to improve, but it’s enough to maintain.
Optimally I think probably 8 hours a week, alternate long runs and bikes on the weekends, would get a bit further.
Offseason goes to slightly easier swims, weights instead of bike, 2 runs a week as one hour easy and one moderate tempo, plus the odd bike trainer session at max effort 4x10 or so.
Thanks for all these tips. It seems like quality over quantity, which is good for me. I was doing 3 workouts in all three disciplines per week until two weeks ago, when it became burdensome and not fun. I was very tired and couldn’t go very hard–no “key” workouts. Since cutting back to 6 workouts, 2 each more or less, I’ve had some great workouts–faster runs, swims, and bikes. I’ve also lost 7 pounds because I’m not pigging out after workouts. I think I’m going to go a lot faster this than last. I have the base laid down, and now I’m focusing on speed. I hate brick workouts but they are very time efficient and race specific. I’m going to do at least one a week until my A race in July.