Last three seasons, my wife and I have both had a professional coach who we like a lot. However, I am keen on trying to coach us for a while. We are age groupers who have been focusing on Half and IM distance. Next season we will have no full distance races, but probably a few oly and half races.
This coming winter, we won’t have as much time for training as we are used to (due to work and other commitments). According to “all” experts, it is rather important to focus on cycling if there is a need to cut the hours, but I am thinking that it might be better to keep the running at a good enough level and minimize the cycling instead. The reason for this is that I believe it takes much longer to increase the training load in running than in cycling.
So, if I keep the running load high enough during the winter season, I won’t need to increase it very much when spring comes. And increasing the cycling won’t stress the body as much as a run increase would do. Does that make sense?
I am thinking of a basic schedule like this:
Monday: Swimming (60 minutes), Strength training (core)
Tuesday: Interval run (60 minutes, VO2Max focus)
Wednesday: Cycling (90 minutes, Threshold focus), Strength training (weights)
Thursday: Swimming (60 minutes)
Friday: Brick (45 minutes bike+30 minutes run) Sweetspot intensity
Saturday: Strength training (weights)
Sunday: Long run (120-150 minutes)
As you see, there would be really little cycling, and no scheduled rest days. The heart will rest Saturdays and the legs will “rest” Mondays and Thursdays. We both need more strength, and that is the reason why we prioritize those sessions this winter. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are inflexible as those sessions are with our Tri club. It is almost impossible to get lanes for lap swimming in our city unless we swim with the club.
Would this be a good approach to this winter’s training, or have I missed any important aspects?
I like the idea of more running than cycling if your are time crunched to reduce the risk of injury. Completely agree on your thoughts on that!
But I’m in the camp that thinks that you shouldn’t do too much strength if you times not in your side. I would actually swap the strength on Saturday to bike. A longer aerobic if possible.You are already doing 2 other strength sessions per week.
I see a very low run frequency. Add 10-20 min run off your bikes or swims (add in 5x15 min per week). You gain volume and frequency and showering and changing already amortized over the swim and bikes already scheduled. If time crunched, just cut the swim or bike back by 5-10 min and change faster to cram the extra runs in. You would be better off with more frequency of swimming too. Can you add two 30 min swim slots by tacking onto the Tuesday and Sunday runs?
That would be a very different take on how to build the schedule. Sadly, I can’t change or add any swim times. My tri club only has lanes twice a week: Monday evenings and Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm. I believe three runs a week is good for my body and mind; it gives me enough recovery, and my total weekly distance would be 40-50k. When spring (and daylight) comes, I will probably add another run (z2 Thursday lunch) and 3-6 hours on the bike. In the (short) Swedish summer, I will also have the possibility to swim open water and do full tri sessions, but now it is hard to fit it in.
I think the schedule looks good, it might be worth considering changing your Weds and Sun workouts so that instead of doing one ride and one run, you do two brick sessions. I think frequency is important and if Weds/Sun were both bricks, it would increase your weekly bike frequency to 3 and your run frequency to 4.
