The Triathlon/Ironman Training Thread 2025

Training
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Good luck! Did my first (sprint) race a couple weeks ago and the process/plan you’ve mentally thought through (and practiced in garage) sounds solid to me. Based on a single race experience lol. Except maybe you’re carrying too much? Obviously needs vary, but I took a gel before the swim and then a swig of Gatorade during the run and otherwise didn’t carry any water/mix/gels with me. Finished in ~1:08.

My only other unsolicited two cents is to (seriously!) practice visualizing the chaos of the open water swim. I have never had a panic attack before, but it was my first OWS (/mass start) and I needed to roll over, talk myself down, slowly stop hyperventilating, and let the race open up. Not sure where you’re at with the swimming but it really was more stressful than I imagined. Sharing this not to add stress but because I think some amount of visualization/prep can be useful.

Good luck!

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I genuinely appreciate the OWS advice and guidance on gels. I’d rather over fuel on the bike so i can get into the run with no doubt of bonking. - to your point, i likely wont need to take much during the run but love having the insurance of a gel in my pocket. When things hurt in a running race my RPE goes down a notch when i take a gel just because of placebo that carbs are helping.

I did a mile straight in open water in 34 minutes yesterday. Bang on 1:98/100m. The Oly distance only has 300 participants and the start is waved in pretty weird age groups, so I don’t expect to be starting with a TON of people, but i’ve told myself that i’m okay starting at the back of my pack and avoiding as much of the chaos as possible. For the sprint - hopefully this Oly experience will better prepare me for a mass start, because that is likely going to be insanity as you’ve described.

Congrats on finishing in 1:08!

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I’d say try biking and running sprint distance without socks if you can? I did sprint and olympic without socks. Much easier and less stressful in transition!!

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If I was on the pointy edge and thinking i’d win the thing, i’d consider it - my comfort is well worth the time loss of throwing socks on though.

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Let us know how it goes!

I’m racing Muskoka 70.3 this weekend but stuck in a few months cycle of injury — too little rest – too fast back to intensity – injury, so we’ll see how it goes.

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Good luck!

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How did Muskoka go?

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Sharing my story here, because I’ve finally taken the leap and registered for my first-ever triathlon.
And @JoeX told me in another older thread to share my story here!

Background I’ve been a cyclist for about four years now—mostly MTB and gravel events. At the start of this year, I began running more regularly after getting roped into a 10-mile race in April. Doing a 70.3 has been on my bucket list for ages (maybe even a full one someday), but time constraints always got in the way.

Why now? Our house renovations were supposed to start in July, but permit delays pushed them to mid-September. That means I’ve got extra time this summer to train.

About Me 28 years old Semi-serious cyclist for a few years Peaked at 4W/kg last year

The Event – August 24th
It’s a non-standard distance triathlon:

  • 1000m swim
  • 75km bike
  • 10km run

The swim and run distances seem manageable, and the longer bike leg is right up my alley.

The Swim
Back in high school, we swam weekly for an hour—but that was almost a decade ago. I still feel comfortable in the water, although I’ve never done more than 100 meters in open water.

In the past two weeks, I went to the pool twice:

  • 1400m at 2:15/100m
  • 1500m at 2:05/100m (both in repeats of 100m and 200m with rest)

My longest set so far is 250m, but I get pretty out of breathe towards the end. Plan: swim twice a week throughout the summer. The swim is my biggest concern at the moment.

The Bike
This is my strongest discipline. I normally ride 8–10 hours a week, but during tri prep, I’ll scale that down slightly to 6–8 hours. I’m setting aside my bike geek/elitism and using my road bike for the event.
If I enjoy this triathlon, a TT bike could be in my future. I would also love to do standalone TT-events

The Run
I’ve been steadily building my running volume, mostly at Z2 pace (~6:00/km). I’m up to about 15km per week.

My only faster run was a 10-mile race in April. I ran 1:24:12, wich is a 5:12 min/km pace. The whole run was a big negative split, with a 10km (51m52sec) and 5km PB (25min37sec) in the latter half of the race.
I’ve never done a standalone 5km or 10km PB effort. Should I attempt one before race day to dial in my expected pace for the tri?

Any tips, insights, or tri wisdom—I’d really appreciate it.

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As a beginner who’s fighting this same battle, I’ll tell you what EVERY SINGLE source has told me multiple times:

Try to go slower in training. Work primarily and ABOVE ALL on your balance. Swimming is not about going faster, it’s about improving your technique to swim easier with less effort. Forget the time for a while, and focus only on better form, better balance, better technique so you need less rest and get less winded.

337

Overall, pretty happy with the race. I had mentally prepared to treat it as a swim-bike due to a niggling hip injury, but finished!

My swim was probably (shockingly!) the highlight, and the three person mini wave start was far less chaotic than my only other panic inducing mass start. Finished 5 mins faster than I expected. Still struggling with sighting, but feel like the work in the pool is starting to pay off?

Bike was also strong, though the low 30s and VERY humid temp was starting to catch up with me and I ended up riding significantly less than even my target IM power, but did finish top 20 overall on the bike. Pretty uncomfortable by the end, though, and struggling to hold position (despite the many hills giving me a bit of a respite), which I’ll need to address before my first IM in Ottawa in a month.

And then things kind of fell apart on the run. I ran about 500m before getting pretty awful full on abdo cramps that forced me to walk/Run the first five km, and basically kept me at a high z2 effort – and a good 15mins longer than I’d hoped.

I’m not sure what to make of those cramps, which were new for me. I had no GI upset, but did take in more carbs than usual on the bike. Abs are still a bit achey, and so I actually feel more like it was due to the strain from holding an uncomfortable TT position? Have been doing brick runs (albeit shorter) without this issue. Plus I was dehydrated. Plus it was hilly hilly hilly. And so hot and humid.

All in all, a humbling and wonderful experience until the death march! In some ways feeling more and less prepared for Ottawa in a month, now, though :upside_down_face:

338

Olympic distance Tri went great. Got there an hour before my wave started and got my number and transition set up. Had no real idea what i was setting up so just matched what I saw around me.

Wetsuit went on and got in the water for the gun to go off with the first group of swimmers. .9 mile swim in ~33 min. Sighting was pretty difficult because the buoys were nearly invisible on the horizon. They only had 2 and we swam a large narrow triangle so seeing basically half a mile down the lake with other swimmers in pink caps (orange buoy) was hard. I just followed others and made sure when I took a breath I was parallel with others direction. That worked well enough. Finished very mid pack.

T1 felt quick enough. Not shooting for good or anything but 2:30 including the time to figure out where I even go to start the bike. Got the suit off quick and socks on thanks to @giventotri sock video suggestion.

Bike, just started stomping. Felt really good. I had preridden the course the weekend prior and got a new 1hr power PR from that ride. Knew where to brake and where to keep climbing. I passed what felt like every swimmer that had gotten out of the water before me. 1:16 for the 25 miles. I was 10th fastest bike of the day.

T2 was sub 1 min - bike racked. Swapped hat/helmet and shoes were tied and ready.

Run - it fell apart here. I walk ran constantly. When running held somewhere in then 7:30 to 8:00 min mile pace and then just mentally lost the battle and would walk until somebody would pass me and I’d start running again. This kept up for all 6 miles. Run was 56min high.

For running reference, my 5k pr is at a 7:19/mi pace so the 10k pace was likely too hot but the effort felt right at the time.

Hydration and fueling felt fine as I got both bottles mostly down the bike and took a gel at mile 3 on the run just because it was in my pocket.

Overall amazing experience. Pos 30/170 for the overall and I’ll absolutely be doing more. I have a sprint scheduled for this weekend but my mid back has been killing me. I didn’t do any swim/bike brick workouts and I think my aero bars are 40-60mm too low for a realistic setup. Also couldn’t get totally comfortable on the saddle after the swim which caused me to sit up a fair bit and ride drops. I’d ridden that position through all of training but never soaking wet in the tri suit. Now I know.

The top cyclists were running full trek, canyon and, quintanaroo TT bikes with disk wheels and ‘only’ put 4 minutes into my bike time which made me feel pretty good about my clip on aero bar effort. Obviously they saved some gas for the run where I probably did 20% more power for a worse time…

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Hi all,

I’m on low volume HIM tri plan and I wonder how do you guys (and gals) deal with the prescirbed intensity? In the build phase it’s not uncommon to have 5 intensity days in a week (1x vo2max & 2x threshold on the bike + 1x threshold or above run intervals + 1x race pace run), inevitably some back to back.

Am I the only weakling here and I need to HTFU or this is too much for you as well?

best, m

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Nice!

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It would be WAAAY too much for me. I can do two high-intensity days, and every bit of intensity has to go into those two days. Then there’s four low-intensity days and one rest day.

342

Ah, the joys of adrenaline. Race-day pacing is a new skill to be learned, the same happened to me on my first tri.

343

@jdcb Thank you!

@AgingCannon Absolutely the case. Along with the fact I biked so well I was out running with people they were just that out fitter than me and I was a bit sucked into their pace at the time.

Finished a sprint distance this morning. 2000 racers and 5 volunteers during packet pickup resulted in me waiting in line longer to get my packet yesterday than I spent racing today.

Got 20 min into my 50 min drive to the event before I realized I forgot my goggles. Glad I built in buffer time because I needed it. Parking was horrendous and I had 20 minutes from the time I stepped foot in transition until my wave started.

Swim was a battle for position and space the entire time, I never really got comfortable and there were shallow rocks at the start and seaweed throughout the course. ~14 min

T1, opted for no socks in my bike shoes which went great. The bars for bikes were too low for my saddle height so I had to rack my bike by the brake levers over the bar. (More on this soon)

Bike, shifted my rear derailleur into the easiest gear when setting up and racking my bike to avoid a slog while mounting. Must have put it back on the rack in a way that the left paddle or my force axs shifter was pressed because less than 2 minutes into the bike I’d made my way down to my 10 tooth with no ability of going back up the cassette. Fixed at home after the race, coin cell battery died. I also had taken my aero bars off for this race because it was poorly regulated and I’d heard of sprints not allowing aero bars because of safety issues. Wanted to avoid having to make modifications the day of. This also meant I didn’t have the blips with me that would have saved the day as a second set of shifters. 34:30 for the bike via chip with a NP of 263w. Luckily I was able to reach down to my front derailleur and manually toggle it from big to little ring which gave me some variety in cadence. Not ideal because I was either grinding or spinning out. Rookie mistake I’ll be sure to plan for. Intervals eFTP says I was a .99 IF but TR aiftp puts me at a .86 IF.

T2 - socks, shoes, 45 seconds of going back to the bike exit vs the run start for whatever reason. Note to self, don’t follow other people.

Run, 25:20 and I kept it easy. Learning from my last experience I didn’t want to hit the jets and regret it so I went out at what felt like low tempo. My back gets pretty tight for the first mile so once it loosened up in increased pace slightly but really to nothing more than tempo. I felt pretty mediocre so kept the throttle light until the line was in sight and ripped for the last ~250m. Not a strong run but consistent to say the least.

No more tris on the calendar but I’ll be doing more for sure. 5k run, 10k run, Marathon are my other summer events. Time to focus on a lot more mileage.

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Ahhh, welcome to triathlon!

Seriously though, great job. This sounds like my (and many of us) first race. Pacing takes a lot of time to figure out, then working at different distances changes everything. Honestly, this is probably one of the things I think I enjoy the most about this sport. Figuring it all out.

Sounds like you’re on the right track. Curious, what was your IF on the bike? I’ve found that dialing this in, even holding it back a little can pay dividends on the run. I’m by no means fast, but it helped me improve against myself immensely over the years.

345

Thank you! Its been fun to figure out. The IF for the Oly distance was .84 if using my AI FTP assigned by TR of 304. I feel my FTP is a bit high, but maybe i’m just soft… I’ve thought about setting the trainer at 320 and trying for a 20 minute test to prove it out.

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I’m no expert, but that IF seems pretty spot on for an Oly distance.

I had some issues with AI FTP, it was giving me an FTP that was overinflated. Late last year I decided to do a Kolly Moore test and went with that for a few months. Interestingly, it seems that AI is now getting closer to what FEELS like my FTP so I’ve been going with that lately. Getting to know what TH FEELS like is a really great tool, it’s helped me understand my training in a much more meaningful way.

Of course, a rough run off the bike could come from other factors as well. Sounds like you’re moving in the right direction. The journey is most of the fun for me.

347

Recap of my first 70.3 in Luxembourg 10 days ago.

Swim: Started at the back of the 2900 group (leaders already started bike when I was still waiting for my entry into the river :wink: . Went out slow, let body adapt and HR settle in. Went pretty good. Not fast but find a good tempo that I was able to hold for entire swim. Finished in 43:48. And then a long transition before the bike.

Bike: Cycling is my best discipline. First 35km went pretty fast (flat) at 38.5km/h but then the hills were coming. Not long or steep but 40km of rolling terrain makes the legs work more then in the beginning. Focused on feeling and looking at NP so not getting to hard on the pedals. Last 15km more flat again. Finished bike leg in 2:38:44 (34.3 avg).

Run: 3 weeks before my race my old injury popped up again so only last week before race I could do to short runs. But lucky, I did not feel the pain as hard as before. But needed some smart running because my run training was not as good (and much) as I hoped but ok. I went good. After 10-11km in I felt pretty good and tried to up the tempo a bit. But maybe this was a bit too soon ;-). After 16-17km upper legs started to get stiffer and I needed to back of a bit. Lucky, did not crack and mostly could hold the same pace the entire run. Survival modus last 2km in but overal very pleased with 1h54 run and an 5h31 overall race time. Not bad for my first 70.3 at 48 years ;-).

Really enjoyed my day out. Liked it! And I know I still have lots of room to improve my swim and run so…