38 Week plan - Not sure how to plan it out!

Training
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HI There,

Starting 38 week -IM training plan next month… new to Trainer Road not sure how to plan out my training plan… any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Plan Builder…

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Don’t!

There’s a reason that most IM training plans fall into the 16-20 week variety. Through experience coaches have found that to be about the sweet spot for most. Although you can find some in the 12 or 24 variety. Anything longer and most folks simply get burnt out with such a long term goal. Anything shorter just isn’t enough time unless you’ve got a fairly deep background.

With 9 IM’s under my belt now my suggestion would be to just swim, bike and run as much as you can and without structure until the beginning of the TR plan (I think it’s a 20 or 24 week plan). If you’re not accustomed to hard bike trainer workouts maybe include 1-2 TR sweet spot workouts per week to prepare you for when the IM plan begins. Alternatively if you feel like you need more structure do a low volume sweet spot plan and then swim and run as much as you want/can to fill in the time.

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Good point about avoiding structured training for too long of a period of time. Especially for Triathletes.

I was watching a Webinar with Tim Cusick and he mentioned that even Masters cyclists probably shouldn’t be doing more than 20 weeks structured training as well.

I believe he classifies “Masters” as 50+. Not the 35+ for road cycling racing that many use.

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Thanks for the advice! What IM training do you recommend… I’ve used the Trifuel 38 weeks plan for my last four Ironman programs … I need something different.

Shawn

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The counter point is that, for me, without a bit of structure or schedule I tend to not do as much. I’m not a triathlete but I try to schedule 3-4 lifting and 4-6 cycling days per week and without at least a schedule I get a bit lost. So even if you aren’t on a strict plan think about which days you’re swimming, biking, running, or doing strength work and some rough estimate of how much just to keep you honest and on track.

But even with this be flexible and err on the side of more recovery and what will keep your motivation high.