I’m new to the game. Getting into from running. Starting to train for some duathlons for now since I swim like a rock. I’ll work on that later. I was wondering… What kind of mileage/hours are competitive people typically putting in running vs biking per week during a base building phase?
Background coming from running 50-60mpw. I’m thinking I can drop that to 40ish and shoot for 75mpw on the bike.
Will vary wildly.
But no matter how well you run, you can and will hemorrhage time on the bike if you undertrain it and wont run as well off the bike which is a double whammy.
I’d say target 8 hrs riding, 30mpw running for base building.
i am not a coach and have a lot less knowledge than others on here, but in my experience and what i’ve seen recommended around here is spend lots and lots of time working on your cycling skills. tons of saddle time. i hesitate to give an hour/mileage for either due to the variability for each individual.
you have a run background so you’ll be fine for the run even if you are doing a lot less running than you are used to. i’m not saying totally ignore running though.
maybe 75% training time to bike, 25% to run (rough estimate - that could be moved a bit either way) and that gap in % would decrease a bit as you make progress and get closer to different training/race phases.
welcome to the madness and good luck.
I’m new to the game. Getting into from running. Starting to train for some duathlons for now since I swim like a rock. I’ll work on that later. I was wondering… What kind of mileage/hours are competitive people typically putting in running vs biking per week during a base building phase?
Background coming from running 50-60mpw. I’m thinking I can drop that to 40ish and shoot for 75mpw on the bike.
are you talking a full? if so, 75mpw on a bike is not enough. unless those are really really really quality rides.
you should be able to drop down to 30-40mpw and be fine as long as long as the quality of your workouts are good.
as someone who was an adult onset swimmer, i suggest getting a swim coach (group is fine, i couldn’t afford 1 on 1), and swimming 4x a week. it’ll make life so much better race day, imo.
oh, and get a good coach.
Pretty much a 5k runner right now. Probably do a couple sprint duathlons to start. Eventually learn to swim better once I get semi-ok on a bike. Will do a half or full IM eventually. Hopefully running will carry the other legs well enough 🙃
Pretty much a 5k runner right now. Probably do a couple sprint duathlons to start. Eventually learn to swim better once I get semi-ok on a bike. Will do a half or full IM eventually. Hopefully running will carry the other legs well enough 🙃
learn how to enjoy swimming or bike riding. otherwise, doing a full is not going to be fun.
Pretty much a 5k runner right now. Probably do a couple sprint duathlons to start. Eventually learn to swim better once I get semi-ok on a bike. Will do a half or full IM eventually. Hopefully running will carry the other legs well enough 🙃
learn how to enjoy swimming or bike riding. otherwise, doing a full is not going to be fun.
Just recently started biking and I love it. I need to get alot stronger though. Different parts of the muscles.
I don’t mind swimming… I’m just absolutely terrible at it. I’ll get a swim coach one day and fix it. For now, trying to add biking and then go from there
Bike to run miles - 5 to 1 when balanced
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I’m new to the game. Getting into from running. Starting to train for some duathlons for now since I swim like a rock. I’ll work on that later. I was wondering… What kind of mileage/hours are competitive people typically putting in running vs biking per week during a base building phase?
Background coming from running 50-60mpw. I’m thinking I can drop that to 40ish and shoot for 75mpw on the bike.
I was a runner for 30 year when I go in to the game. I did 5K’s after college until I was about about 28 years old and thought that I was too old to ever PR again at the 5K distance. I toyed with Marathons for two years but they were not my thing so I focused on half marathons for 6 years before crossing over to Triathlon, I peaked at about 55-56 miles a week when I was doing marathon training.
When I started out with Triathlon I cut my mile to about 1.5-2.5 hours a week so make time to train 4.5-6 hours a week on the bike. I didn’t see a lot of gains on the bike for the first two years and was doing 13.1 mile runs off the bike at the end of 70.3 races at about 30-35 minutes over my open half marathon times.
I change thing around and my splits became 3-4 hours running and 3-4.5 hours cycling. Some weeks I had higher run volume than I did bike volume. My run times off-the-bike are now about 5 minutes over my open Marathon times and my bike times have improved faster on the new split that they did when I was doing a lot more cycling than running.
1.5 to 2 hours of running was putting my in the top of my age group on the run at every race I did, but I was neglecting my biggest strength thinking that there were bigger gains to make by focusing on my my weaknesses. 40 miles a week will be plenty of mile for a Triathlete. Triathletes train different that runners do. Runners go out with a group of a dozen training buddies every Saturday morning and do 20 miles at 2 minutes a mile over their marathon race pace. Triathlete go solo and do 2-3 hours on their bike with 2-3 intervals of 20-30 minutes long at race pace then jump off the bike and do 20 minutes of running at race pace. The Triathlete is the one dropping the Pure Runners in the last 6 miles of an open Marathon. 
On a typical week I do (2) 60min interval training session on the bike trainer (VO2_Max type stuff), one (1) outdoor ride from 90 to 180 minutes long (with a brick run), two (2) 75 minutes runs, a 20-30 minute brick run, and a 25-35 minute recovery run.
6-7 hours cycling, 2.5-3 hours of running. So a little more than double the duration cycling compared to running. I’m a relatively stronger runner, but not by a ton, so I’m focusing a little bit more on cycling than I have at times in the past.
You’ll find that almost everybody spends much more time biking than running even at the elite level. It requires a lot of time in the saddle to improve at, even if you have good running fitness. It also has the largest opportunity for time savings in a duathlon or triathlon because of the longer duration compared to the run leg.
I am a runner like you and spend most of my time running 8 months of the year and the other 4 months before a race I spend much more time on the bike. In order to hit proper bike volume you won’t be able to run the same mileage you’re used to without suffering in some way like risking injury or overtraining; and if you don’t have that issue, you’re likely not biking hard or long enough.
The elites run only around 40-50 miles per week but bike over 300. Time ratio during a training block should be at least 1.5:1 bike to run and many people will go 2:1. As I mentioned above, you don’t have to bike this much year round but as a rule of thumb you will be better off prioritizing biking as much as possible.
One caveat to the above is that if you are severely time constrained it can be smarter to prioritize running since it can give more bang for the buck, but in that scenario you should also be doing very intense rides when you do happen to have time for riding.
Anecdotally, I improved by almost an hour between my first and second IM after taking a very bike-centric approach and I wouldn’t say my overall top end fitness was much better.
Pretty much a 5k runner right now. Probably do a couple sprint duathlons to start. Eventually learn to swim better once I get semi-ok on a bike. Will do a half or full IM eventually. Hopefully running will carry the other legs well enough 🙃
took me about 5 or 6 years of 110 miles riding and 16 miles running every week to finally win a race. Raced mainly sprints…
Y’all are awesome 🙃
I was working on getting a general plan for winter training and really had no idea what kind of proportions I should have. This all started because I was getting nagging overuse injuries from running so I picked up a bike and then thought it was fun. I appreciate all the advice
Great advice above, and I’ll add that structured bike training will give you a lot more bang for your buck than unstructured. Check out TrainerRoad, Zwift, etc to get a structured bike training plan. Also, typical run training calls for 2 hard workouts a week and a long run whereas biking can be done at high intensity much more frequently without the injury risk. Balancing out biking and running, you’ll probably want to shoot for 2 hard rides and 1 hard run per week with a long ride and a long run, once you’ve worked up to the appropriate mileage of course. My approach has been to build my running around the structured cycling plan, that way I’m able to gauge my recovery and decide if I can do a hard run workout in between a couple of hard bike days. YMMV
I’ll get a swim coach one day and fix it.
I wish it was that simple! LOL!
Think folks have already given some good advice. With full bike training, I think you’ll be surprised with how difficult running 40 miles/week can be. I typically average ~45-50 (running) miles/week training for 70.3/140.6. I came to triathlon from running & spent years at 80-100+ miles/week.
I think 30ish would be a good number for you to target. And I would build up to maybe 150 miles/week on the bike. 75 really isn’t that much on the bike & you’ll see that once you start training. If you’re doing a decent weekend long ride (even just 2 hours) then it should be pretty easy to get over 100 miles in 4-5 rides/week. Try to get your shortest rides to an hour. Think about time just as much as mileage. Something like 7-8 hours/week on the bike might be a good goal to build to.
Don’t worry too much about the running fitness. If your duathlon/triathlon volume increases then increase your running mileage. Several pros even hang out around 50 miles/week. I ran mile to half PBs this winter/spring before tri season. I was in my triathlon base and doing a ton of swimming/biking & not much running. The running fitness didn’t go anywhere & I ran PBs when I had almost given up on running PBs. I run a lot off of the bike too. I think that really helps me in racing. You’re never running fresh in triathlon &, yes, you get to start with it in duathlon but then you have to finish with it after biking.
I ran mile to half PBs this winter/spring before tri season. I was in my triathlon base and doing a ton of swimming/biking & not much running. The running fitness didn’t go anywhere & I ran PBs when I had almost given up on running PBs.
^^ second this. this year i ran a 2:51 open marathon off of 30 mpw of running and 8 hrs/week of biking in the winter off season after recovering from a fall ironman-- I simply rode the wave coming down from an ironman season with a lot of banked aerobic training volume from that very bike heavy build.
bike volume increases aerobic capacity and can be used to safely add intensity to your program with a lot of crossover to running fitness
I’m new to the game. Getting into from running. Starting to train for some duathlons for now since I swim like a rock. I’ll work on that later. I was wondering… What kind of mileage/hours are competitive people typically putting in running vs biking per week during a base building phase?
Background coming from running 50-60mpw. I’m thinking I can drop that to 40ish and shoot for 75mpw on the bike.
For what it’s worth, I also came from a running background before switching to triathlons. I ran a similar mileage as you, although I raced longer distances and my ‘A race’ was typically a marathon. This year I completed a full-distance IM and a few 70.3s. I am competitive as a triathlete- I just did the 70.3 WC in St. George and qualified for Kona.
For the full distance, in the final ten weeks leading to the taper I averaged 8 hrs/ week on the bike and 36 miles running. Average training time (including the swim) was about 16 hours/ week. In the 10-week base phase of my training, I averaged 6 hours, 24 miles, and 11 hours of total training per week. For the 70.3, my averages for 10 weeks of training were 6.5 hours, 30 miles, and 13 hours. I train almost exclusively inside on the bike, which is why I think in terms of cycling hours rather than miles.
As is probably typical for people with a running background, I hold my own on the bike but get beat by the bigger guys. I make up a lot of time on the run. Thinking about next season, I need to spend more time in the saddle. I’d like to get up over 10 hrs/ week for the full-distance.
I generally only do one hard running session per week and I’ll even skip that as the race gets closer (to avoid injury). By ‘hard’ I mean speed work and/or threshold runs. I save my high-intensity workouts for the bike. I find that makes me stronger on the bike and I still run plenty fast. I’m not that much slower than I was as a full-time runner. In fact, I PR’d in the half marathon at the end of my base training for the full-distance IM. Kind of crazy to PR at only 24 miles per week, but when you think about it 11 hours of training per week is more than I ever did as a pure runner. It gave me a very strong aerobic engine.
The bottom line is that I think you will get better results if you go below 40 miles of running and above 75 miles of cycling.
I’m new to the game. Getting into from running. Starting to train for some duathlons for now since I swim like a rock. I’ll work on that later. I was wondering… What kind of mileage/hours are competitive people typically putting in running vs biking per week during a base building phase?
Background coming from running 50-60mpw. I’m thinking I can drop that to 40ish and shoot for 75mpw on the bike.
For what it’s worth, I also came from a running background before switching to triathlons. I ran a similar mileage as you, although I raced longer distances and my ‘A race’ was typically a marathon. This year I completed a full-distance IM and a few 70.3s. I am competitive as a triathlete- I just did the 70.3 WC in St. George and qualified for Kona.
For the full distance, in the final ten weeks leading to the taper I averaged 8 hrs/ week on the bike and 36 miles running. Average training time (including the swim) was about 16 hours/ week. In the 10-week base phase of my training, I averaged 6 hours, 24 miles, and 11 hours of total training per week. For the 70.3, my averages for 10 weeks of training were 6.5 hours, 30 miles, and 13 hours. I train almost exclusively inside on the bike, which is why I think in terms of cycling hours rather than miles.
As is probably typical for people with a running background, I hold my own on the bike but get beat by the bigger guys. I make up a lot of time on the run. Thinking about next season, I need to spend more time in the saddle. I’d like to get up over 10 hrs/ week for the full-distance.
I generally only do one hard running session per week and I’ll even skip that as the race gets closer (to avoid injury). By ‘hard’ I mean speed work and/or threshold runs. I save my high-intensity workouts for the bike. I find that makes me stronger on the bike and I still run plenty fast. I’m not that much slower than I was as a full-time runner. In fact, I PR’d in the half marathon at the end of my base training for the full-distance IM. Kind of crazy to PR at only 24 miles per week, but when you think about it 11 hours of training per week is more than I ever did as a pure runner. It gave me a very strong aerobic engine.
The bottom line is that I think you will get better results if you go below 40 miles of running and above 75 miles of cycling.
So about 5 to 1?
Think folks have already given some good advice. With full bike training, I think you’ll be surprised with how difficult running 40 miles/week can be. I typically average ~45-50 (running) miles/week training for 70.3/140.6. I came to triathlon from running & spent years at 80-100+ miles/week.
I think 30ish would be a good number for you to target. And I would build up to maybe 150 miles/week on the bike. 75 really isn’t that much on the bike & you’ll see that once you start training. If you’re doing a decent weekend long ride (even just 2 hours) then it should be pretty easy to get over 100 miles in 4-5 rides/week. Try to get your shortest rides to an hour. Think about time just as much as mileage. Something like 7-8 hours/week on the bike might be a good goal to build to.
Don’t worry too much about the running fitness. If your duathlon/triathlon volume increases then increase your running mileage. Several pros even hang out around 50 miles/week. I ran mile to half PBs this winter/spring before tri season. I was in my triathlon base and doing a ton of swimming/biking & not much running. The running fitness didn’t go anywhere & I ran PBs when I had almost given up on running PBs. I run a lot off of the bike too. I think that really helps me in racing. You’re never running fresh in triathlon &, yes, you get to start with it in duathlon but then you have to finish with it after biking.
5 to 1 again?
Yes, 5 to 1 in terms of miles seems about what I do. Or 1.5-2 to 1 if you’re thinking in terms of time.