I did Hamburg 2018 on not much more than 10hrs average. Finished around 10hrs. It can be done, it’s not even that bad to be honest if you radically prioritize workout quality, nutrition and recovery.
The thought of 20hrs training per week for an amateur seems absurd to me. What are people doing during those hours?
Running, riding and swimming? Just a guess. 
I personally need volume over intensity if I am training for an endurance event (hell, any event really). I was regularly doing ~15 hours / week with a couple of select weeks ~20 hours when I was doing tri’s.
Even now that I am back to just being a cyclist, I took that added training time I had established and put it into extra time on the bike…I avergage ~15 hours / week normally. My bike fitness took off in 2018 once I did that…and I had been riding for 30 years at that point. I’m arguably stronger now @ 55 than I ever was in my youth.
Good for you, that’s very cool you can still progress at your age and that you’ve found an approach that works for you. My point was not that 20 hrs per week is generally a bad thing. It is that we may consider whether blanket statements like “everyone I know does >20hrs, I don’t think it can be done on less volume” help or hurt the confidence of someone looking to step up.
There is still too much gate keeping happening when people romanticize the full distance and how incredibly hard it is and all the sacrifices one makes. It may discourage other athletes from stepping up and that would be a shame. I’d like to offer an alternative perspective.
Oh, absolutely….some athletes respond better to certain kinds of stimuli. I respond to volume, others respond to intensity better. I know guys that KQ’s on an average of ~10 hours / week.
Response, work & family commitments, sports background etc are all factors in determining what and how much training you can do. Tri is a giant puzzle in that regard and there is absolutely no single “right” answer.
Well after a truly disastrous 70.3 FL where at mile 30 on the bike I blew, time for a couple of weeks of easy rides heading into 2022. I’ guessing with three 70.3’s in the span of 2.5 months this fall, I was just a bit tired mentally, physically.
I think for 2022 I’m going to focus on a local 4-race international distance series over the summer, a 70.3 Florida in December to redeem myself, and some bike racing. Thinking do to olympic distance plans for first part of the year to develop some speed…time to decide which provider of plans…TR, Scientific Triathlon, Friel, etc.
What caused you to blow up? Assessing what went wrong is going to be a critical learning moving forward.
Did you just start out too hard?
Today was the final day of my first block in preparation for Outlaw Full in July…
Started with a 2km swim, then Cumberland - 1 and a 5km run off the bike.
I’m starting “Build” with a Ramp Test on 28th December - does anyone have any tips for the Build phase? (first time i’ll be fully committing to finishing this phase, and never as part of a Tri plan).
I bought a Coros Pace 2 a few weeks ago, and after a few runs, I decided to do my training with power instead of pace or HR. Anyone else? I find it to be not as valid as a cycling PM, but way better than HR and pace.
I’ve found my Stryd to be incredibly precise with regards to day to day readings. The absolute numbers mean nothing really IMO, but it matches up perfectly with RPE for me. I still run to RPE and double checking HR but the run power I more use to pace myself better up hills and to analyze after the fact. If I do a 5/10 RPE run and notice my average power is 320 instead of 310 like normal I know I either had a good day or am getting fitter. It it’s a trend I’m getting fitter.
Totally agree. I have found it to be super nice for keeping the intensity down on low-intensity days. Very consistent day-to-day for me.
A late check in. Been a rough couple of months since Weymouth 70.3. Just been ticking over what i can. I started a new job so have not been training much and just trying to salvage what i can. January is looking good with more time to dedicate. I want to try and throw in a marathon goal next year as well as my trip focus to build for a full distance in 2023.
What are peoples thoughts on a marathon training with try? Do you think it will help. My run is the weakest
I have signed up for Outlaw Full. What plan are you following? I am just about to finish a polarised build (bike only) and am thinking of doing another round and starting a full distance plan in March.
Running power is a pretend number that all companies that support it create. Its a different formula for every company. And, as you say, its not valid as a cycling PM. The number means nothing compared to others companies or even athletes using your same device.
I thing they should stop calling it running power, because it really is not a power metric, bu I digress.
As long as you use your own numbers from one device (in your case COROS) it should be very close to training to HR/pace.
You may feel different in the summer. HR goes up, pace goes down when temperature start to rise but the power should still be the same. So your effort may feel harder…
You may want to start with just volume. If you are doing just running, try to get to 60 to 70 miles per week of running. If you are also cycling try to get to 40-50 per week.
Once you have a few weeks of easy volume than you can start adding some wo…
I personally like Jack Daniels. He has multiple plans for different levels of running.
You may even start with a natural progression of 10k plan, half plan then marathon plan. They key is volume!
I’ve used plan builder rather than a designated program.
Pretty excited for Outlaw Full, also have Staffordshire 70.3 booked.
If I had done Copenhagen last year I’d be at Outlaw full this year.
The non-comparability of the numbers, stop calling it running power, feeling different in the summer - all of these I agree with. But I would take it a step further, and say that I think that these add up to make it a better metric than pace or HR. With pace, there is really no way (other than GAP adjustments which are awfully limited in training usefulness) that I know of to account for wind, rain, grade, terrain (trail running and pace are notoriously difficult to reconcile), etc, that can significantly affect the workout. The “power” measurements help with much of this. It also helps a lot with shorter intervals. I was doing 2:30 repeats last week, and the “power” on my watch responded to increase in RPE within a few seconds, whereas HR and pace took much longer to get to a steady measurement.
Just some thoughts. IMHO running is all about RPE and respiratory rate, but the power helps add some granularity to training numberes
100%.
And I was not arguing against it. The opposite. I think the metric given out its very useful, because like you say, its many factors added togheter.
My biggest issue is the sensors. As we all know, garbage in - garbage out. Unless we have super accurate sensors, the number might actually be worse than pace/hr.
An example. I live in Pancake flat area of FL. My 935 have said multiple times that i have done 50 feet of elevation on a run that I know for a fact has no elevation whatsoever. The watch would have given me a very wrong value while on the run. Not sure if that make sense
I agree with the sentiment of your post, and agree there is no blanket minimum hours, so I’m not disagreeing with you but in my visible universe there’s no one saying Ironman is really hard, and everyone saying “you’ll be fine”. It’s just untrue.
You won’t “be fine” unless you train for the race, you will suffer all day and maybe DNF. Social media doesn’t like the message I bring, and people often try to hound me out of FB groups when I try to bring reality to their blind optimism.
If it was easy to do, they would’ve called it marshmallow man.
I’m 50lbs overweight. Ran track in middle school 15 years ago (I did do a 5k last year) and took swimming lessons as a kid. I have an old hybrid bike I ride on weekends a couple times a year. I just had a baby and started a new job. What do I need to do to get ready for the Ironman I signed up for? It’s in 5 months.
/s