If you already trained in the following way for running each week, with sessions interspersed with plentiful rest days:
1 x vo2
1 x tempo/threshold
1 x long run (z1-2)
And you wanted to add a similar sessions for bike training. Would you do them:
On the same day, a.m and p.m
On the same day as a brick (consecutively)
On different days leaving only one day off a week.
This is hypothetical. Lots of other stuff like life, work, strength, experience etc to factor in, but discussions often get lost in these weeds so I’ve kept it simple.
Fire away. Big training days with lots of time off, or a more even spread?
There will be lot of opinions, but this comes down to training history and ability to tolerate high workloads of intensity. I would say absolutely not, doing two VO2 max workouts in one day is a disaster waiting to happen. You might last 3-6 months if you are a true stud but you are just digging your own grave. If you are doing a true VO2 max workout, it should take a long time to fully recover from, like 3-7 days.
i haven’t searched for it, but there was a discussion about incorporating cycling and marathon training. From that discussion, I put together a plan that worked for me. As the other poster mentioned, your ability to recover is the main issue.
Some will say, “Easy days easy - hard days hard” and make all bike workouts and run workouts on the same day (i.e. morning and afternoon). I tried that for a bit and it didn’t work for me with my busy schedule. I’ve found the below to work for me, but of course running was my primary focus thus the two running workouts and weekly long run. I sometimes added some quality at the end of long rides or in the middle of long rides, depending on how I was feeling. As I was marathon and half marathon training, I wanted to go into the Sunday long run with legs that weren’t 100% so I kept the Saturday long ride. This was just a general week of training.
Tuesday was actually the toughest as I usually tried to do my cycle workout in the morning and then an easy run in the afternoon. That Wednesday run workout would be spaced until later in the afternoon on Wednesday as to allow for more recovery time. It’s amazing what an additional 7-8 hours will do for the legs.
Rather than piling up the intensity I’d be tempted to do 1 threshold and 1 VO2 MAx session per week (and make it quality), and have the rest z1/2. Then alternate the hard sessions between the run and the bike each week.
So, week 1: Tu Run VO2Max, We Bike easy, Th Bike Threshold, Fr Run easy, Sa Long ride, Su Long run
Week 2: Tu Run Threshold, We Bike easy, Th Bike VO2Max, Fr Run easy, Sa Long ride, Su Long run.
I think you mistake is trying to duplicate the same structure for both sports……way too much intensity, IMO.
You can absolutely have two long run / ride days per week, but also looking to have double VO2 Max days and tempo days is probably a recipe for blowing up.
