Plans and options for 2x a week training

My wife is a marathon runner and that is her main focus, but she cross trains in cycling 2 times a week in Zwift, she feels bored with it however. Are there any 2 day a week training plans that would work for her? Shes not a racer, but she will merely use this as cross training and for fitness when we ride outside (we live in a very hilly area).

She can’t do more than 2 times a week since it will interfere with her running plans so are there any options here for her? or is 3x a week the minimum?

Unless you could find a Duathlon plan and adapt that, I don’t you will find a 2 day a week pure cycling plan. If you are just cycling, 2 days a week isn’t enough. In TR, her option would be to do the LV plan (3 days a week) and just skip one of the days. Or she could use TrainNow, and just pick the type of ride she feels like doing on that day, with the amount of time she has to workout.

I think she needs to be careful, the low (what everybody should be aiming at) has a lot of intensity to make up for the lack of hours in the saddle, maybe if her focus is marathon running, maybe just time in the saddle (zwift or rgt, doing group rides), is all she needs rather than interval sessions

As a cyclist I avoid running training plans / training for a marathon, as it will mess my cycling up, but some gentle runs doesn’t

3 Likes

Agreed.

Sounds like her 2-day/wk restriction is currently based on time constraints, but fatigue is what she should be really paying attention to.

If her goal is simply to fill in the week with low impact aerobic exercise, she doesn’t need a plan, just Z2. Even sweet spot intervals will likely negatively impact the quality of her run workouts.

2 Likes

Thanks everyone, ill pass the info along to her!

Nope…have her look at the sprint tri low volume plan. 2 rides a week and sometimes they are only 45 min. They can be intense, but if she’s on a plan, adaptive training will sort her out after a few rides.

I use this plan right now because I like to run stand along races, do duathlons and also long fondo kinds of events. The sprint tri plan gives me a bit if structure during the week so I can long run and long ride on the weekends.

Marathoner would be more interested in the training outcome such as improved cadence. Let her self select higher cadence workouts/trainer rides with whatever distraction works for her. Gunsmoke reruns might be for you not her.