Hello - my wife has her own subscription and is doing the bike leg only for a 70.3 (56 miles) on 6/22/2025. Last year she completed this leg in about 3:15.
She’s been doing a 4 day a week and selected ‘rolling road race’ as the event type. As she moves into the build phase its suggesting 3 of 4 days all anaerobic and v02 max workouts. Previously it was a good mix of sweet spot and threshold.
Does it seem like its creating the correct workouts for her or should she select something different?
That’s not going to help. Sustained power is where she needs to be. Climbing RR or TT, even a Fondo plan. Long steady intervals focused on tempo type power are what she needs to be working if she’s close to the event.
Eh…I don’t think that’s way off for a build phase. Builds are typically way over or way under threshold. I’m following a 70.3 plan (and have in the past, too) and these types of workouts were beneficial.
Agreed with @kurt.braeckel. Some VO2 and such is a part of a good build but Anaerobic doesn’t really apply to a 3 hour TT and especially not “all anaerobic and VO2”.
I think people get mixed up with TR plans because they think “Oh the course I’m riding has rolling hills and I’ll be racing it” but the “road race” plans are meant for mass start road racing where there will be attacks, counter attacks, sprinting, breakaways, etc.
VO2 can be beneficial far enough out from the event. Anaerobic? Very much a waste of time for a 56 mile TT IMO.
Hey there,
We’d agree with what @kurt.braeckel and @mwglow15 posted above. We think the 40k TT or the Gran Fondo plans would be better suited for 70.3 bike leg prep.
The Rolling RR plan is meant more for peloton riding across rolling terrain where there will be surges/attacks/counterattacks. Even the Climbing RR plan will feature quite a bit of surging to simulate the kinds of efforts one might face in a pack going up a long climb.
The 40k TT and the Gran Fondo plans both contain the sustained types of efforts your wife will need for her bike leg.
You can find the instructions on how to change your current plan here. You should be able to edit your event type/details within that Plan Builder setup flow.
Hope that helps – feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions or if you need a hand applying any changes to your plan!
Plenty of people have used the half distance tri plans, and deleted the swim and run workouts.
If you want to go hard I would do build FTP then Timetrial and extend the tempo workouts.
Could be a 2.5-4.5h session depending on the rider and route…
Looks like her event is in June. I wouldn’t say it’s close. Plus those VO2s help in the overall raise-your-ftp game.
VO2 would be fine, but anaerobic work? No, that’s a waste of time and energy. Extremely taxing work with little to no benefit or applicability to the event in question. A mix of VO2 and sustained power workouts would be a good deal for her for a couple of months.
Thanks all! This is helpful. I’ve taken a look at both plans. They both seem to default to and max out at a weekend long endurance ride of 1 hour until race day. I realize I can use the drop down to bump that up, but should it be recommending, by default, more volume? Regardless, everything else looks more on target to what I expected.
In short no, it works by determining what will make you fitter based on parameters which you can adjust. Simply put it starts with the athlete and moves forward, rather than starting with the event and work backwards.