When training for an IM. Do you run long mid-week and bike long Sat/Sun
or do you run long Sat/Sun and bike long Sat/Sun?
Thanks
Schedule permitting, I like the Wed long run and Sat or Sun long bike. More recovery between those two mean you can really do a good job on both and get more out of these key sessions.
Joel
Sat AM (pre 8am) long run
Sun AM (usually, if not mid afternoon) long ride
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Not training for a IM right but usually I go long on the bike during the weekend and on the run in thursday or friday…
Fri night, long run
Sunday, long ride.
But I am a work in process with no experience, so I am not recommending anything, just answering the question “when…”. My “logic” is, that it gives me a day to recover from the run (I only swim on Saturdays), and if I am not fully recovered, it is easier to “dog” it on the bike, than vice versa.
A mid week long run makes the most sense, however, I tried it and it was tough to recover with work and the other workouts. I do the typical cram in the long ride on Sat then long run on Sun, which actually worked great. Rest day on Monday and then ready go again. Tried the reverse to mix it up and the opposite of what I predicted happened - it seemed harder for me to recover with the run on Sat then ride on Sun. Go figure. Experiment around and figure out what works best & stick with it.
Sat. long ride, sun long run. You gotta simulate race conditions. bike then run. Mon I do an easy ride to speed recovery rather than take an off day.
long run in the middle of the week(Tue - Thu)
long bike on the weekend
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Long run - friday after work.
Sautrday - I rest, watch movies, read and do f**k all.
Sunday - Long ride.
<Sat. long ride, sun long run. You gotta simulate race conditions>
I agree with Esamarathon on this,and it has always worked best for me.
I find it difficult to recover from a long ride or run midweek.
Long bike on Wed or Thu am. Long run Sunday sometime.
LSD Run – Thurs
LSD Bike – Sat (or Sunday if Sat time needs to go elsewhere)
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I don’t do the same schedule every week – my work commitments force me to do the long stuff on the weekends, and I’m usually too beat on Friday night to even consider working out at all, much less a long run.
My last six weeks have been:
- long ride Sat, moderate run Sun (140/7:00 B, 16/2:00 R wkend totals)
- long run Sat, moderate ride Sun (120/6:00 B, 32/3:40 R wkend totals)
- long ride Sat, hard track Thurs/EZ run Sun (205/10:45 B, 6.5/0:45 R totals)
- double-brick Sat (82B/16R), long ride Sun (193/10:00 B, 16/1:50 R totals)
- long ride Sun, moderate running both days (167/8:30 B, 13/1:30 R totals)
- monster run Sat (24/2:50), monster run Sun (125/6:30)
Mixing up the focus for each week & weekend keeps me psychologically fresh for the efforts and enables me to do some focused overdistance work for each sport on alternate weeks.
You do more in a weekend than I do in one or two weeks! Wow!
I do 2 bricks every weekend with Saturday being a long ride of 5.5 - 6.5 hours followed by a 30-45 minute run and Sunday being a shorter ride of 1:15 - 1:45 FOLLOWED BY 2-2.5 hours of running.
- long ride Sat, hard track Thurs/EZ run Sun (205/10:45 B, 6.5/0:45 R totals)
- double-brick Sat (82B/16R), long ride Sun (193/10:00 B, 16/1:50 R totals)
- long ride Sun, moderate running both days (167/8:30 B, 13/1:30 R totals)
- monster run Sat (24/2:50), monster run Sun (125/6:30)
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mpl, your weekend totals completely blow my mind. Are you counting Friday as a weekend day too? I can’t fathom doing what you do… maybe for one weekend, at my peak, but week after week? Wow.
What is your weekly training like? I’m consistent throughout the week… usually ~2 - 2.5 hours a day, and that doesn’t change significantly on the weekend. But obviously you have a job, and so you can’t be working out that same # hours every day…
Anyway, very impressive. =) I admire that!
What is your weekly training like?
My Mondays and Fridays are relatively low key swims, almost never anything on the legs. Tues-Wed-Thrs have two workouts each day that depend on the weekly focus. Hardest swim is Tues, Killer intervals on the CT Wed, and track workout Thurs almost every week.
The main reason for calling out what I did was to explain that I avoid doing the same “Saturday long ride, Sunday long run” routine every week. Adding variety keeps the routine from becoming, well, routine.
As for the volume, two things: (1) it’s taken multiple years to get to this point (taking years of “training to train” for an IM), and (2) I only hit these numbers in the six weeks before my Kona taper, and to a slightly lesser extent for the six weeks before my IMLP taper.
I’ve been over 20 hours each of the past six weeks (3200+ “points”), and about 17 hrs (2600+ points total) in the six weeks before IMLP. Both of these are about 15% higher than they were for the same time period last year.
-Mike
woops- look like my original post didn’t go thru for some reason- ( probably ‘user error’)
anyway- was just wondering if you really thought a 10-11 hour bike ride was effective, and not a bit overkill? I don’t know if there is even enough daylight here now to do some of those workouts!
seems like most of the top pros max out at 6.5-7 hour long bikes, as far as I have heard…
however, I’m sure you will be ready to ride 112- piece of cake compared to what you have been doing!
Depends on my Schedule. I usually do the long ride on Saturday to get it out of the way and long run on sunday since it takes less time. Sometimes I’ll do a long run on fri and long ride on sat so on sunday I have time for family and fun.