What's Your Long Training Ride for Various Race Distances?

Triathlon Forum
1

Question to the forum: When training for a Sprint, International, Half, or Full Iron, what are the durations/mileages for your long rides?

Example: (2 hr. Sprint, 3 hr. International, 4 hr. HIM, 6 hr IM)

2

I love riding so I will go 5 plus hours quite often, even if there is no IM in sight (has not been the case for a while though). If you love the bike, then anything less than 3 hours (unless indoors) just seems too short.

3

2:45 for a HIM

I would do the same distance for Oly or sprint
.

4

im doing olympic distance and my long ride is usually 3h, sometimes a little longer.

more is not necessary, and volume can f**k you as much as intensity can.

5

3 hrs for a oly and half. Hell I am going to ride one day a week in the 3+ hr range anyway

6

3 hours for 40k race/int’l distance, outdoors, or 2.5 hours on the trainer indoors.

7

4 hours sprint and Oly
.

8

I generally don’t do a “long” ride of much over 2 hours the majority of the time. I do 2.5 or 3 hour rides occasionally.
This is for HIM and under.

Last year I did do 2 x 4.5 hr rides (3 laps) to prep for AmZof LC, but that was an exception.

The year I did IM, I would very regularly ride 80-100 miles, and occasionally 112 or 120. I don’t miss “having” to do that anymore.

9

Depending on the athlete:

Sprint - 2 hours
Oly - 2-4 hours
Half - 3-5 hours
IM - 4-7 hours
.

10

Good question. My long rides are around 3.5-4.5 hours for HIM.

11

4-4.5 HIM
3 for oly

sprint? what’s that?

12

2.5 to 3.5 hours for Sprint and Olympic depending where I am in my training schedule. That’s about 45-65 miles.

13

Sprint - 2 hours
Oly - 3 hours
Half - 4 hours
IM - 5 hours

I’ve done 18 IMs and started with 6 hour rides but slowly decreased that to 5 hours. Life’s too short;-)

14

Usually till my butt gets really uncomfortable. I don’t think you can really over-train for any event.

15

The rule of thumb I use is that your long ride should be at least as long as the total time of the event for which you’re training (up to an IM, of course). If you’re doing an Oly and expect to go 2:30 for the whole race, do at least a 2:30 ride (or maybe a 30 minute swim and 2:00 ride). If you’re a 5:00 half IM, then the long ride should be around 5:00 (or a 30 minute swim and 4:30 ride, at race pace). For an IM, a steady diet of 100 milers.

For sprints, I ride about 2 hours.