I am fairly new to cycling. I started in March of 2024 and have been consistently training with structure for 11 months now. As of late I have been able to maintain 205-220 watts outdoors both in avg power and NP with 800+ft of elevation gain and up to 2,500ft across the course of 20-60 miles. I am 5 foot 10 and weigh 67.8kg. My last 61 mile ride I was able to ride at 3.3w/kg for three hours. I have a pretty high heart rate I’ve noticed in comparison to other athletes. I can get my max up to 205 sometimes and quite frankly a 170bpm often feels comfortable and maintainable. I’ve also ran half marathons well above 185-195bpm range. I have always been athletic and hard working and I’d like to believe I am genetically gifted. Unfortunately, every now and then I get some self doubt. I guess why I am on here is to see if anyone else was in a similar situation that started like this and ended up getting pro bike splits in 70.3. It’s my dream to get a pro card. Not to make money from it but just being able to accomplish something so hard and specific. Right now I am putting in 16 weekly training hours. That does not include driving, recovery, or weight lifting. I am hoping to get to a maintainable 4.4w/kg which would probably be around 300w for my weight. Has anyone been able to do this? I am currently 27 years old.
HR is not a useful metric to compare yourself with others.
Peak performance for endurance athletes typically occurs between the ages of 28 and 34. This doesn’t mean you can’t be a great athlete outside of that range—it simply reflects when physiological factors like VO₂ max, mitochondrial efficiency, and recovery capacity are at their highest. After this peak phase, these attributes naturally begin to decline, though the rate and impact vary by individual and training habits.
I’m a bit unclear—are you aiming for a pro card in cycling or triathlon? If it’s triathlon, the run segment is often the most decisive part of the race. That said, you still need to be competitive on the bike and in the swim to stay in contention.
If your goal is to reach Cat 1 in cycling or earn an amateur racing license, that’s absolutely achievable. You’ll likely need to target a power-to-weight ratio around 5 watts per kilogram, but remember—numbers alone don’t always translate directly to race success.
Ultimately, I’d strongly recommend working with a high-quality coach. The right guidance can make a huge difference in structuring your training, managing recovery, and helping you reach your goals efficiently and sustainably.
First off, good luck on your journey.
Second, HR isn’t something that you should look at to determine, well, basically anything. I have a “fast ticker”, not as fast as yours, but from years of running as a kid and then in my 20s I could max out in the mid 190s, and even in my 40s I could sit in the 170s at threshold watts for an hour, and I was able to get close to Kona qualifying times (in a 70.3) in spite of limited training due to active duty service. So it’s possible to do those kinds of things… but that’s different than earning a pro card.
So to answer your question specifically, yes, kinda, I got there, was a 315W FTP at 70kg a few seasons, 4.4W/kg when focused specifically on cycling. Never raced that high as a triathlete, and it will be more difficult for you to get there as a multisport focused athlete for reasons that should make sense - you have limited training time and are spreading that workload among three sports, your body can only handle, adapt to, and recover from so much training. There’s a reason why most triathletes aren’t as strong as pure cyclists.
So rather than set an arbitrary W/kg goal, just continue to push the progress and maintain your consistency, because your goals are lofty and will take years of consistent training to achieve.
The other thing I would say in a bit of “hard truth” moment here, is that at 27, the likelihood of earning a pro card as a triathlete where you currently are is extremely remote. Doesn’t mean you can’t but you’ve got a little ways to go to get to where you’re doing low 2-hr bike splits and then running fast half marathons off the bike.
I would encourage you to set more intermediate goals to help you get there in a stepwise fashion. Keeping the long term goal of a 300W FTP or a pro card is fine, but make sure you’ve got process and shorter term goals in place to help you keep on the right track and keep motivated over the long term.
Consistency is the key (something I was never able to achieve in my 20s due to my work), year over year over year.
Conversely being strong on the bike is far and away more important in IM racing. In ITU/draft legal, yes, the run is absolutely decisive. He is an aspiring IM 70.3 type, and the bike will be critical, not just to being fast on the bike, but to ensuring he preserves his legs for fast runs. If he can pace at a lower IF and still be fast in the low 2s, he can be off the bike fresh and run well. That’s what you’re after. (ITU, you have to be a fast enough swimmer to be and stay on the right feet in the water, then sit in the draft on the bike and tear up the run).
All three sports matter, of course, but the racing format dictates which one is most important in my experience, and for him it’s the bike IMO.
Not to argue, but my point was that you still need to be competitive on the bike. I’ve done multiple full-distance races and more half-distance events than I can count. I’ve ridden 2:15–2:20 splits in half-distance races (at a reasonable IF), and it meant absolutely nothing because I could only manage a 2:00-2:10 run (I am just not a natural runner at all) and this is still coming out the water right after the front pack.
At the pro level, races are almost always decided on the run—even when bike split records are broken.
I understand. I was just giving as much information as I could.
I am aiming for a pro card in triathlon. My fastest half was a 1:23. That was with maybe one year of dedicated running training back in 2020. I started running consistency again a year ago and I’ve seen progress but not quite to where I was at prior. I was a walk on for a local college XC team for a few semesters. I appreciate your feedback
Thank you for your input and feedback. I will keep that in mind and continue to make more intermediate goals. Thank you!
I can currently run 7:30 ish miles after a current 60 mile ride. Although I am not pushing 4.4w/kg+. Only doing 3.3 right now. I appreciate your feedback!
I think you’re applying a bit too much confirmation bias in your analysis. To be frank, riding 2:15-2:20 bike splits is very good, but a 2:00-2:10 half marathon is non-competitive at the level we’re talking about. My implication was not that he could be a 2 hour bike split and then just be non-competitive on the run. My implication was that the difference between being a lead pack biker in that 2:00-2:10ish range vs being merely “fast” in the 2:15-2:20 range is a vast, vast difference and is insurmountable relative to being a 1:10 half-marathoner and a 1:15. The reasoning here is that in a 2 hour event, it is a lot easier and more common to build a 4-5 minute advantage that is a LOT harder to overcome on a 75 min run than it is to build on a 2 hour bike.
The bike leg is far more predictive of overall results in a 70.3, assuming all events are relatively strong. You aren’t going to be a high level AG nor certainly an elite by having a massive discrepancy in any single leg’s performance, and as mentioned, while your bike splits are very fast, your run is non-competitive at the high level, so your example doesn’t really apply here.
Every single person who finished sub 3:40 at the 70.3 worlds had a bike split within 2-ish minutes of the winner. If your bike split is not elite, or within a one to two minutes of being elite, you cannot compete because your run isn’t going to make up that gap at the elite level.
Think of it as the ticket to the dance… you can’t dance with the prettiest girl if you don’t have a ticket to get in. The strong bike leg is that ticket, and that has to be developed first and foremost. And then strength on the bike translates to the run because you have to be able to put out that elite bike split without taxing your legs beyond your ability to run fast. It doesn’t matter if you can go 2:15 on the bike if you’re doing it at a .9IF for the entire time and then you run a 1:40 half marathon because you have no legs. You train the bike to bring that IF down into a tempo range so you can get off and express your fast run.
@borntotri you should hire @kurt.braeckel as your coach because he is right - being that I never focused on Half Distance and always watched and thought about Full Distances the time’s I am discussing are grossly off.
But I still believe in the rest of the original statement to be true (age, finding a coach etc).
Nah man, just trying to help. 
Also for the record, my last half was in 2019 right when baby #1 was on its way (actually born 2-days post race)!
I feel it… my last 70.3 (in fact my last tri) was also in 2018 with #2 on the way. Trying for a Kona spot in a 70.3 and I was top 3 in my category on the run, good enough on the swim, but about 10 min slow on the bike (racing to a 235W FTP at 70kg at the time - I was active duty and much of the buildup to that race I was on a ship riding an exercise bike…). That’s ultimately what led me to take up the bike “full time” thereafter, my goal being to return to triathlon as a strong cyclist, rely on my long history as a runner to keep me at the pointy end there. It worked, I got up to 315W for a couple of seasons there, 4.4W/kg… just never returned to triathlon. 
Conversely, my first ever 70.3 I had the goal of going sub-4:30, and I hit my swim goal, went 2:29 on the bike… and proceeded to run a 2:05 on the run because my legs were utterly shot since I knew nothing about pacing, didn’t have a power meter, and just had arbitrary time and HR goals in mind. 
That is pretty much every race I did! I would come out of the water around -0:30-0:50, bike to a +3:00-5:00 and run myself backwards to a -26:00-32:00 (if its hilly I was worse).
I am not kidding, I have a horrible run. When doing full’s which was my biggest concern I would still run 4-4:15’s but the run was just such a bigger part.
Yes, it’s more of a factor in fulls, but still, generally speaking full Ironman finishing correlates more strongly with your bike split than your run. I’d argue you’re a bit of an outlier given the discrepancy in your performance between a pointy-end bike in most categories but a field average run.
We obviously see races decided on the run at the elite level, but again, that doesn’t happen without an elite level bike to compliment it… the ticket to the dance. But you can’t expect to be highly competitive especially at the elite level with a massive gap in your performance even if you’re exceptional at one or two events.
I think the path here for the OP is to refine swim technique to be efficient and gain speed; work the bike up to ~4W/kg and keep progressing as able on the run. Once at 4W/kg then probably shift some focus more to improving the run split… but zero doubt in my mind from my athletic and coaching experience that the bike takes priority for him for a while. (FWIW my general approach is to focus on really developing one sport at a time in terms of training blocks).
Overall training priority I’d address for OP here:
- Bike FTP development
- Swim frequency, technique, and volume (in that order)
- Run biomechanics and volume
But that’s without knowing much about him, just a general approach.
Welcome to the forums! Hope you’re enjoying triathlon.
Paging @Benwgoodfellow who turned pro triathlete recently
IMHO you’ve only been cycling 11 months so can’t read much into that yet, what’s you’re history in other sports?