I am turning 55yo in a month and a half.
My priority for this winter will be strength training aiming for conserving and developingmuscle mass, preparing a Boston qualification (which should not be that hard given my running background) and keeping my base level on the bike at a 3.25w/kg FTP (currently at 3.75).
Has anybody taken a run at doing the sustained power build plans? Any of them? I’ll be doing Ironman MD next fall, Eagleman next June. I like to hone in on a weakness and I feel like my bike could be better. I’m a life long swimmer and I don’t like to do too much run volume in the offseason. I’ve gotten overuse injuries before.
So sustained power build is where my mind is going right now. Take 8 weeks, focus on biking, swim easy once a week, run easy once a week, strength training twice a week but time everything out so biking stays the above-all-else item.
Highly suggest you give the Sweet Spot progression a long read. You’ll be shocked on how “little” volume you can build out TTE. I would place the end of that kind of progression to maybe 3-4 weeks for Eagleman.
Thanks! For your swimming/running, is there a specific plan you follow? Do you have a coach?
My greatest success has been on my own. Haven’t used a TR plan in 2 years I think. With that said I do base my own plans off of a current plan sometimes. I pick and choose what I think will work for me and so on. I like to do intervals less often that what the TR plans do, but I do much longer workouts.
OH, I also don’t design my swim workouts AT ALL. I’m sure I could if I tried, but rather not open that can of worms being an adult onset swimmer. I subscribe to Tower26 for that. There are tons of ways to find swim workouts online and in books too. I’m sure the TR swims are decent as well. Plenty of peeps on here use those.
If bike is your weakness this is exactly the plan I would do. I used it last year but not in off season, in the run up to Ironman and I saw my best FTP ever, +10% on previous years but I couldn’t keep up the running with it and saw some signs of overtraining as I tried to switch back to FD tri.
I do think off-season should be off-season though, so I would save it for early spring if I was doing a summer IM.
Others have seen great success doing SSB and SPB alongside their swim and bike training but so think this tends to be FOP athletes. Ive not heard of newbies doing it.
Thanks! I appreciate the alternate perspective. I had found an article on TR talking about alternate plans for multisporters and it mentioned SPB so it stuck out.
Guessing nobody was doing HV SPB if they’re pairing it with the swim and runs?! Probably low or mid. Impressive folks.
Man, I would dread even a semi-warm swim with a thermal cap on.
Being follicly challenged myself, I personally haven’t lost a swim cap, but definitely have had “cap creep”. Will never stay down over my ears, etc.
Have you tried just letting your hair grow for a few days before an event, letting the stubble act as resistance against the cap popping off?
Would normally agree re: temp, but I’m perpetually cold and live in the north, so 
Certainly no IMFlorida swims with that technique though.
No, but I’ve gotten that suggestion too once before, I’ll try giving it a test this week. I think it’s a great idea in theory. STG was the worse because I was super sunscreened up (yes, pre swim, I do it the day before for extra absorption. I’m super pale lol) and the cap was coming off hundreds of yards in. MV was better, but still, far from ideal.
Depending on your level, TR plans might work for you.
If you are not a strong swimmer, TR might provide a decent set for you…
If you are not a strong runner, the TR will also provide something that will get you going…
But if you are strong on any (or all) then, TR might not work…
I stopped doing their runs because they really dont provide the right balance with the bike wo…
I’m going to disagree with this.
TR full distance triathlon plans have been used by complete newbie triathletes right through to Kona Qualifiers with success.
No plan is ideal for everyone, and not everyone can adhere to enough of a plan (any plan) to succeed but personally I would not be racing at all without TR.
Pretty sure I did MV and I learned then that I can do 400,500+TSS bike weeks sequentially but not if I want to be running with any sort of quality or volume. Other people will be different.
However, it’s worth knowing that nowadays the plans adapt to you as you train so if you pick HV and start struggling, it will tune down the workouts to be achievable. And conversely if you pick LV and it’s all easy, it will tune them up. So really you can forget intensity and focus purely on the time you have available and are used to training when you pick a plan.
I am sure they are more than one KQ that have done TR.
I have not seen the full distance running training, but if they are similar to half distance, I doubt we will see many doing the TR running.
At that level of competitiveness, you will need more than TR. Sure, if you are a natural, then anything will work… but for most… it will show its limitation very quickly…
For the record… I did TR plans for 2 years with great success. But I did slow down my running considerably…
I know other people doing the same weekly hours on training as I was doing getting faster…
They were not using TR…
So I might be a bit biased on my opinion
I am not trying to open a can of worms here but I agree with the statement since it uses the word “might”.
The definition of a plan that “works” is also dependent on its context.
Generally speaking, I find that TR plans might (that word again) not be as individual as needed for one to reach her or his best potential performance given the time constraints to train.
This is not saying nobody will qualify for Kona if only following TR plans. I am just suggesting that a more individual approach would make it more likely.
If, as @Joelrivera said, the athlete is particularly strong in one of the disciplines, probably this hypothesis of TR being a less optimal plan, gets a little more fuel.
I’m hoping to start doing some strength training this offseason. I feel like my power output is pretty low for my size and could be improved significantly with weight training.
I have also switched to an Enduro MTB plan for my bike training. There’s a good group of MTBers near me that are fun to ride with and my endurance training hasn’t translated well to hill climbing. The Enduro plan is a nice change of pace from what I have been doing since I started using TR in March 2020. I’ve been considering doing some enduro racing next year and some shorter offroad triathlons, so that should shift my fitness a little in that direction.
I really enjoy swimming and will sneak some easy swims in here and there as well as some running, but my focus will be on the weights and biking (at least once my PT says my injured shoulder is good to go).
I’ll eventually switch back to a half plan to prepare for the 2022 Maple Valley 70.3.
Well sure, any plan might not be optimal.
You have to ask yourself though, do I need a perfect plan or do I need a good plan?
If you think you need the perfect plan, then you need to decide how you will know it is perfect before you start. I don’t think that you can.
And if you think TRs plan is not good enough, then you need to be recommending something that you believe is better.
I don’t think there is anything better out there.
But if we’re going to say that people should get a coach instead, then you’ve got the whole “how do I select a coach that will give me a perfect plan?” question to resolve.
I would say that any athlete who is experienced enough to be close to their potential, either in tri as a whole or any one discipline, is probably knowledgeable enough in what works for them that they can and will adapt most generic plans based on their own personal experience.
RE: the balance between running and cycling, I feel like that’s going to be different for everyone. What’s appropriate for me as a 20 year old ex high school runner is going to be very different than for a master’s athlete with reccuring injury issues. One of the inherent difficulties in creating a standardized triathlon plan is that each athlete has different goals, abilities and needs in each discipline, so there’s simply too many moving parts for any plan to be even close to ‘optimal’ without some degree of adaptability and flexibility on the part of the athlete, which IMO are more practical considerations anyway. In that regard, I think one of the strengths of the TR plan is that the run/swim portions are general enough to be both approachable for beginners and easily modified to most ends.
Feel pretty confident as a swimmer and runner. For the last few years I’ve been following their Tri plans to a T, including FDHV in 2019 for IM MD. Tempted to fall back to the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach since it worked out well last time (10:21 after falling short on my nutrition on the run) but I’m always open to and looking for new angles and training approaches. Appreciate the feedback!
AT, great point. It really is such a game changer. I know that it doesn’t TOTALLY factor in the swimming and running, but I figure as long as I’m honest in my post-workout assessments it should all even out. I just did the Sprint Speciality HV plan with that approach and I didn’t miss a workout.