Unless you select Taper for B races your plan will “train through” them. And it’s up to you, it’s quite common for people to train through as part of an Ironman training plan.
Myself I’ve always burned myself up at 70.3s and with travel and logistics I usually skip a few sessions anyway on the week of, and give my self a day or two afterwards at least.
Have you done any long bricks yet? They’re a good yardstick for it.
Thanks everyone for the replies.
@JoeX how do you select Taper for B races?
I have a few 70.3’s under my belt but for prior races, I had a coach and the taper was much more conservative (although to be fair, I did not have a full distance IM fast approaching after it).
Brick runs have been feeling good. I’ve already had a sprint and olympic distance races as C races. In both I underperformed on the bike…frustratingly, my training has been going great but haven’t been able to replicate in a race…able to hold much higher power during training than in races.
And really hoping for a better performance this weekend…would be a nice way to round off a build block.
On a related note, do you guys adjust the week following a 70.3? My AT plan goes straight into Specialty block with no recovery sessions planned. Feels like that could be tough to do.
Is this a new feature in Plan Builder? I’ve never seen it before. The only option I’ve ever seen is to choose openers for races and all that does is change the day before the event.
Last month I did the Des Moines 70.3 when I was about halfway through the build phase of training for a full-distance IM. I changed two weeks of the training plan. The last two weeks leading into the race I swapped out the full-distance workouts and instead did weeks 7 and 8 of the 70.3 specialize phase. Then, the week after the race I picked back up the full-distance plan workouts. Luckily, I was on week 4 of the build phase, which is a cut-back week, so it worked well as a recovery week. Basically, ten weeks of training was like this:
It worked well for me and I had a great race.
I’m responding late to June’s roll call, or maybe I’m early to July’s.
I just finished the build phase of the full-distance plan (mid-volume). There’s six weeks until I start tapering for IMWI. The training is going well; I’m feeling both fit and fatigued. My only real frustration is that I haven’t managed to keep up the strength training, as I had intended. After all the S, B, and R, I just can’t find the will. Here are my weekly averages for the build phase, which for me was 10 weeks rather than the standard eight because I did a 70.3 race in the middle with a mini-taper:
S: 10,000 yds
B: 7 hrs., 95% indoors
R: 32 miles
Total: 13 hours, 45 minutes
I should go up to about 16.5 hours per week over the next six weeks. Because Madison is so hilly, I intend to emphasize the bike more than the other two legs.
Happy training, everyone!
Oops, you’re quite right I meant openers.
I checked through PB, it’s says openers for A and B races, I’m sure it used to be optional for B.
late late roll call;
Really happy with the last couple of months of training, best I’ve been at consistently hitting workouts in ages. Nothing super impressive as I’m in the process of coming back from a good 6 months doing SFA, but volume is back where it was and building back into some harder stuff with a couple of club runs per week and some fairly low key/flexible intensity on the bike. Easier one this week to freshen up for a 30km running event on Sunday, then getting serious for out duathlon state series.
Feeling pretty good about Busselton full at the end of the year, but holding off signing up until I get another good couple of months of training in. (Still getting a handle on some life stuff so I don’t want to get too ahead of myself- not to mention my swim has taken a big hit- but so far so good!
)
Thanks for the shoutout @JoeX !
It’s been a week since Muskoka 70.3, my first triathlon ever (in fact first half marathon too). The race was such an incredible experience, and I am now hungry for more. I have never considered myself an athlete my whole life, now that I’m 40yo I want to see how far this structured training can bring me.
I want to sincerely thank everyone on this forum and the folks at TR! The wealth of information here is unlike anywhere else. The forum and podcast helped me prepared the race physically and mentally. Everything from pacing, nutrition, and logistics were spot on. Very glad to finish at 6h33m, all within my trained targets at a surprisingly hilly course.
To all the beginners/mortals out there, I just want to say that the TR training plan works! I did the LV 70.3 plan from Jan 1 2023 until the race. I would say I followed the plan best I could. There were definitely a few tough moments adjusting to the almost daily training schedule and balancing that with family/work.
Will spend more time on a race recap if anyone is interested. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions on the race itself (no expert but can share my experience for sure).
Fantastic, well done!
If you want to keep going I would keep the training hours/routine up but take out all the intensity while you figure it out. You’d be surprised how much easier it is to do without any hard sessions. I did 9h08 last week, my second week of recovery and I hardly noticed to effort at all.
Mistake I made after my first Ironman was to take it easy, which really meant that I stopped entirely and took six months and a midnight race entry entry to get going again!
Another late late check in.
June didnt go as plan. Swam a circle at Eagleman instead of a rectangle. The bike was fast out rode 944 people. The run was hot, at the finish line I was really disappointed with my run time, but looking at the results I had the third best run in my age group.
Since Eagleman I have been in a slump, the heat has sapped some of my strength.
Pushing on, a family issue has ended my rode to Maryland, so no its on to North Carolina, hoping for that podium/WC finish.
Bill
Well… it is what it is
First DNF ever
enjoy the read
Sorry to hear it, a lot of climbing for a half.
My only DNF was also on a really hilly half, so demoralising.
To be honest it was a great experience. Had i had a flat course i could’ve winged it. But keeping the same steady power on climbs just brought me over my time (and i think contributed to overheating, the temp feel difference climbing was atrocious vs going 25km/h ++) . I probably could’ve finished “in time” the run i was just dragging it out and didnt want to be the last one out there. There’s also so much more torque required, i find, when climbing and my legs hate it.
I’ve been negligent in posting updates because, honestly, I was not sure how IMLP was going to go after training being far less than perfect with work & life stress. But I managed to pull together a good race with a 45 min improvement from my first full in Tulsa last year. Probably my last race for the season so it’s nice to end on a good note 
superb time!
Congratulations!
Nice! Congrats.
Fantastic result 
Hello, I want to ask if this threshold work during the last days before ironman (on August 5th) seem ok? I feel like they will be a bit too hard on my legs, but maybe I’m overthinking things.
You’re looking at maybe sets of ten minutes at threshold in those so I wouldnt be concerned.
Myself, I’d move the first two back to Monday and Wednesday, maybe swap them around, take those run intervals easyish on Tuesday also allows for travel. Cajon is whereI’d do a test ride after rebuilding my bike, so I don’t have any targets except to get a feel for the roads and check everything is working and in place.
The run on the third I would see as optional, depending on how competitive you are. The walk round and round the Ironman village and registration usually clocks up well over 10,000 steps for me.
Had my ironman yesterday, didn’t go to plan. It was the outlaw in Nottingham England. I had a plan to start at the front of the swim and get into the pocket and ride the wave! Well I got the shit kicked out of me and swam 1hr 16m about 10mins of what I can do.
The bike is where I’d catch it all back, I thought, I’ve been doing the high volume full distance plan for the last 44 weeks and I hadn’t missed a bike or run work out, so confidence was high!!!
So… Although I’m a 4w/kg rider and consider myself a strong rider I’m only 59kg normal never a problem only an advantage, however the 20mph headwind really spoils the party. I held my target power of 160w but that only resulted in a 5hr20m bike, sort of. It was while I had a brief bit of tail wind and I had my head down going for it that I missed a turn and went straight on!
By the time I realised it I was completely lost, after 20 mins or so I came to T junction and saw the other riders. This happened about 80 miles into it and I decided that if I finished the bike over 112m than I wouldn’t say anything, however I finished with 108m on the clock so told the ref in transition and got disqualified.
