Hi!!
Let’s say I have the swimming okay… And can be with the first group out of T1…!
How should I train on the bike? I have like 3-4 rides a week, and it’s hard to get to ride with some group, but I’ll have the experince to ride in a group this summer… So I only need to know how to train the next two months to get my legs ready for ETU/ITU OD races…!
Schmidt-DK
Seems obvious that you should be riding with roadies as at least a significant part of your training. Surely there must be groups to ride with in Denmark?
Yeah… There are, but my swim is at the same time…! I think that I can maybe train in a group 1 time a week…! But I really need to know something about the intervals…
Don’t you have a coach?
Well, you don’t have too long of a time to prepare. My best advice, if your swimming is good, is go out and do some easy group rides to get comfortable drafting right behind a guys wheel and a fast group ride to learn how to accelerate. Intervals won’t really help you if you can’t stay relaxed when bumpin shoulders accidently in the group.
Besides that, almost all draft-legal races comes down to the run. So work on that too.
Hi there, I’m racing a few of the ETU/ ITU Europe races this summer. As far as biking goes, I’ve been road racing, crit racing and riding in chain gangs with large groups for the past month or so to work on the speed/ acceleration aspect. However, there’s a whole bunch of tactics that you can only learn from taking part in these events that nothing else can be substituted for.
If you come out with the first swim pack (ie 17min 1500m) you’ll find yourself with guys who can knock out a 55min 40km bike with out too much trouble.
BTW, what races are you doing?
I can knock around 17.20 on 1500 m…! I’m going to compete in the junior european championships, sprint distance.! I will race some ETU-races this year, hoping to be with the first or second group up the water and into T2…! And then just smoke on the run…!
Hey lars,
You may ask over at Gordo’s Triforum. They are more long distance (Ironman) specialists over there, but there still are some short distance dudes lurking and giving good advice.
I’d say, with 3 to 4 rides per week :
1 ride with a bunch (about 2 to 3 hours I guess, moderate intensity with some short bursts of intensity)
1 long ride (for you that would be 2.5 to 3 hours and not 5 to 6)
1 interval session (some examples have been given above in other answers I think)
and when 4 sessions per week, do bricks (bike, run, bike, run, … or swim, bike if you have facilities to do this). These don’t need to be high intensity at all cost.
Just an idea. Just have fun and you’ll progress. Take my and any advice with precautions and do what suits you in the end.
I ended up not replying properly to this one and it was down in page 5 already!
Anyway, contrary to what most people believe, bike training for draft-legal races is not that much different from non-draft.
Why? Because the objective is still to have a high aerobic capacity (AEC) in order to handle well the bike leg and be able to run well off the bike. The higher your LT, the lowest percentage of your LT will you hold while in the pack.
Of course there are differences. The first one is that a draft-legal athlete needs to have better anaerobic capacity (ANC) than a non-draft athlete. However, this level of ANC is nowhere close to the one needed by a pure cyclist, which means that those that ride hard group rides often are at a risk of building too much ANC and not enough AEC. The second difference is that for riding well in packs you need to have high cadence in order to better handle the changes in speed. The third difference is more obvious and it is related to the need to have a good knowledge of pack dynamics.
With these factors in mind, the cycling training should be planned accordingly. Of course there isn’t a magical recipe that you repeat every week in order to improve. The different workouts that you’ll do depend on the periodization and the degree of specialization of the training cycle. Also factors related to the long term development of the athlete should be kept in mind, especially for a junior athlete like yourself.