I think the best investment one can make is knowledge. Analyse plans, read books. Then one can adapt any plan to suit their needs.
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Yeah, I have a coach nowadays and I do think it’s some of the most valuable money you can spend training-wise. I get a stupid good deal though- no way I could be paying the kind of prices I see most coaches advertising. (not a knock, just a broke student 
)
If coaching wasn’t an option I’d be pretty happy to go back to what I was doing, and I think part of that is just experience. Having a coach brings a far greater wealth of experience and minimizes the ‘stupid mistakes’ element, but at the end of the day you have to actually do the things to know which are the best things for you.
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100% to this and all it requires is a little effort. Most books or resources have sample workouts and it is not rocket science. It is just about the time you want to invest and if you have the time.
I have thought about it many times as I have an analytical job and right down my alley but after being on the computer working with numbers, excel, macros, etc all day I want to just load up a workout on TR and get going.
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I’ll give you a peak at my plan for next week:
For 60$ I think this is pretty good value. It assures a correct training intensity distribution across disciplines, it has periodization (it targets higher intensity workouts in the first weeks, and more race specific workouts near the race), it builds TSS progressively with rest weeks every 3rd or 4th week. I really like it.
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@jmdcovas doesn’t that just come from the 80/20 book? I have the book and put the plans in excel. Yes I could have paid the fee to get them in a nice chart on TP.
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I am two weeks out from IM Choo and Adaptive Trainining added a couple of Anaerobic workouts that were labled as Stretch. I just deleted and found endurance workouts.
Are the TR Triathlon plans great, no. However, I am doing the HV plan and I feel strong and prepared
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Yes it’s exactly the same plan, 70.3 lvl 2, just inserted in trainingpeaks. It’s usefull because it automatically syncs the cycling workouts to zwift, and running workouts to garmin. Also, the plan is now “mine” and I can reuse it anytime I want.
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Makes sense and $60 for convenience is good at times. I believe you need to be a TP premium member correct and not just a free account?
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You can have just the free account, but then you cannot move workouts around or change the plan, just apply it to the calendar on a certain date, and that’s it.
I actually bought a bundle with the plan and a 5 month trainingpeaks premium subscription, so I can adjust everything if needed.
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the bundle was $60 or just the plan?
I have a coach I like that only costs £60 a month. I can contact my coach whenever I want and my plan is totally adapted to me. This is like half the cost of purple patch triathlon. She works with tritrainingharder. I’ve been with her for a year and would recommend. Coaching doesn’t always cost the earth. Sounds like an ad but it’s just my experience. Tr triathlon plans are a waste of time imo.
I’ve used Joe Friel’s Your Best Triathlon as the building blocks for my training plan for the past two years, with mostly finding similar TR workouts as what was suggested in the book for the bike portion (much like the TR plans I did my own thing on the Swim, especially once pools closed and had limited access). Unfortunately, I didn’t fully make it through either year’s plan to my set A race–2020 got derailed right as my first Build block was starting (because, Covid…) then this year got derailed right as I was finishing my last Build block heading towards Peak/Taper (because, Covid…). I really enjoyed the progress I made from them (definitely pushed my long ride limit to new heights), but looking at TR’s current HV Ironman plan using Plan Builder doesn’t seem too bad, at least from the cycling perspective. Combined with Adaptive Training I’m contemplating giving it a go for this upcoming year, but adapting as necessary based on what I’ve learned the past two years following the Friel approach.
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From what Ive read it doesn’t seem hard to lay out a training plan, in fact because I reorganise the weeks to suit me, in many ways I already do and have for years.
However, putting together a progression of workouts is less easy, measuring performance in the workouts and adjusting the next week…well that’s where coaches and adaptive training come in, right?
Self assessment and ‘listening to your body’ don’t come easy to everyone, so for the rest of us an objective/external assessment is needed.
Scientific Triathlon plans by Mikael Eriksson (available on Trainingpeaks). Can’t recommend them enough. Cut my Olympic PB by 9 minutes in my 6th season of short-course racing (on a properly measured course) and got a 70.3 PB under adverse weather conditions. Got faster on the bike & run under an easier bike training regime.
For a trainer app, if I were to cancel TR, I would go for TrainerDay or just use my Garmin.
Do not buy anything branded Triathlon Taren, he is clueless and/or a snake oil salesman.
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Accidentally podium’d a 70.3 at the weekend… was a small field of 21 athletes, 5 DNS and a brutal day out… thought i was coming 8th or 9th but turns out I ended up coming second.
Considering i usually come between 25 and 40th percentile of the field, i assume the 5 DNS’ were the top 25% that usually beats me 
I guess you have to be in it to win it sometimes!! likely the only podium ill ever see in this sport
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Stop sandbagging, you’ve got your podium already!
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I’ll be there. Riding 2hr on Saturday to make sure everything is sorted out on the bike. Easy spin Monday, then packing it up and flying out Wednesday. The run and bike previews on the IM YouTube page are great. I don’t have many hills around, but I’m not worried much about the bike. To me it’s all about keeping your power and cadence numbers in line and not being stupid. But the run has me a little worried for pacing it. My new Garmin has a feature PacingPro which gives you target paces based on elevation. Going to give that a whirl.
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Awesome, i’m doing the Gibraltar TR workout as my last long one, then just tuning the bike and heading to St. George. As for the hills, i’m in the same boat with not many sustained climbs in my area. Dealing with a tweaky knee at the moment, so just taking it easy until race day then letting it fly. Heat, altitude, mountains, and most likely a non wetsuit swim. What a World Championship should be. 
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Without trying to start the “what training is most effective” thread again, I’m semi seriously considering a year of "ride a crap ton pretty easily, modify a marathon plan to fit around that, and swim paying no mind to the other two "
I think for where I’m at mentally with training (I don’t like “training,”) and what I’ve seen myself react best too (doing more, consistently, >*), it might be fun to try.
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Obviously please check this in your recon vs just blindly trusting me, as things definitely may have changed in the past few months, but a little course tip I wish I had known:
Circa mile 18 whole descending Telegraph St, there’s a ton of spiderwebbed asphalt they repaired with tar. It’s actually very smooth and safe, but it’s extremely tricky to read at speed and felt sketchy as hell (even though it’s fine.). So check that out and hopefully you’ll feel better than I did riding it blind.
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