Advice on which plan to choose

Hi all,

I 'm new here and am looking for advice on which plan to do.

I am a first year triathlete and come from a background of competitive power lifting. I switched to triathlon training in november of 2018. My A race is a half ironman 70.3 just over 12 weeks away. The past 6 months I have been riding 3-4 times a week for a total of 4-6 hours a week. My total training has been between 10 and 14 hours a week.

I would usually do two sessions a week on the trainer and 1-2 rides outdoors. The sessions on the trainer would be mainly zone 2 with intervals thrown in and the outside rides I would just ride- sometimes on TT bike and sometimes hill climbs on my road bike. I have a power meter on my TT bike but not my roadbike. The last time I did a test was in January and my FTP was 245 watts but I never used power for training- mainly RPE and heart rate.

Two weeks ago I pulled a muscle in my lower back (non training related) so I haven’t been able to ride at all. I will be able to start training again next week.

Should I just start with the traditional base since I am new to trainerroad way of training and my event is about 12 weeks away so not long enough to follow base/build/specialty.

Thanks for any advice and I’m happy to be here.

I would do sweet spot base 1 and 2. That’s what gets you most bang for your buck on limited time (and 3-4 rides per week is limited time). You’ll do a lot of work just above the intensity you need on race day for a 70.3, and you’ll build a solid aerobic base which is likely your weakness with a background of lifting and fairly unstructured riding.

Would start with the low volume plans, if you stick to your current routine then do 2 of the sessions indoors, adapt one to do it outdoors, and then if you do another outdoor ride you can either pick a 4th SS workout if you’re feeling good, or just ride if you’re feeling fatigued from the 3 structured sessions.

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Thanks for the response. Why would you choose sweet spot base over half distance base?

I believe you still need to start with a traditional foundation because you say that you are forever in the teaching method.