Yes. I did 80min at 225W and 140bpm last week on my road bike. Going to do same road on Tri bike at 140bpm…
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Humor me good people:
On a scale of 1 - 7, with 7 = “Crazy but epic - do it!”; 4 = “Crazy - some risk but could be done with care” ; and 1 = “Crazy - avoid at all costs”, how crazy would it be to do a 70.3 and 140.6 on back to back weekends, 7 days apart, with the 70.3 coming first.
Additional info:
- both races would be “just finish within the time limit and enjoy the time”
- 2 140.6’s and 6 70.3’s under my belt in last 10 years.
- 20+ years of endurance training
- Would have 31 weeks to prepare for this
Feedback away!!!
A handful of people do Ironman 70.3 Wisconsin and Ironman Wisconsin back to back every year, since they’re on consecutive days (the 70.3 on Saturday and the full on Sunday), so I don’t think doing them a week apart is that crazy, maybe a 5?
I’d probably train for the full, pace both races very conservatively, temper any expectations about results, and prioritize recovery in the intervening week, but otherwise it sounds doable.
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Doesn’t sound too crazy to me. But could be real crazy if “finish within the time limit” is a capacitive effort for you, which is sounds like it wouldn’t be.
With 7 months to prepare you could definitely do a little test at some point between now and then to make sure it won’t kill you. Like do a 70.3 simulation of some kind (brick of long Tempo bike ride into a decent paced 10k/10mi run) and then have a relatively easy week between and see how you feel the next weekend.
If you’ve done that many halfs and fulls and been training for that long then I can’t imagine a half at “enjoy it” pace will wreck you so bad that you can’t come back the next weekend.
My PR (on a pancake flat course) came 7 days after doing a hard 100k ride followed by a 20k tempo transition run. Then an easy 4 hour ride the following day.
My only AG IM win came a week after a 70.3, where I absolutely blew up and walk jogged the last 5k of the run. Admittedly, the walk jogging made me question my decision to still race the IM.
It’s not crazy at all, but I do think you need to understand how your body responds to varying taper lengths. I’ve got 25 years in me (43 y/o now) and it took me (and coaches) about 18 years to realize I perform best off of an extremely short taper for long events. If I was you, I’d look back at prior training data and see if you can suss out where your best performances have occurred in relation to the taper you did. If your prior tapers involve some sort of hard longer effort a week out, then let it rip.
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Last year I saw a guy in his 60’s at IMCA. Two weeks later I saw him cross the finish line under cutoff at Rio Del Lago (100mile trail run). Anything is possible…
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I did worry about this in the early years, and what position to do what workouts, but when I got a tri bike that became my trainer bike and I just stopped worrying about it. There was a thing about ramp testing in aero for a while but that kind of evaporates with AI too.
IIRC it took about three months training for my ramp test in aero to match my ramp test on the roadie. About a 10W difference I think it was.
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Would you enjoy it?
I wouldn’t - the half I’d be worrying about the full, and the full I’d be wrecked, so that would trend toward zero for me.
But if it sounds like fun to you, then slap a 7 on it and break out the race kit! 
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Just saying Hi and good luck to all. Been a TR user since 2018 when I started Triathlon, 55 now. have done some 70.3s and a number of Sprints and Olys. My son (15) competes nationally with USAT and Im signed up for my first full distance this summer at IMLP in July. Have a training plan from Mikael Eriksson Scientific Triathlon That Triathlon Show Podcast
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March done. Running keeps improving…Now hopefully a good next month towards my first goals in May (1/4 Triathlon and a 1k-100k-10k)
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March was a very good month for me,
46,850 swim
505 bike
100 run
These are the minimum goals for the next five months.
In October when making the plan and goals for the year I wrote that my goal for the Shamrock Half Marathon was 1:38 finished 1:37:58
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Spent the first two weeks of the month sick and work ramped up which got in the way of my swim schedule. Bike was right this month.
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I had a week of skiing with my son in March, which really hit my training and cratered my performance in the half-marathon I ran… but was absolutely worth it. 
My March stats, not counting the 12-15 hours of skiing:
- Duration down 14% from 23:38 to 20:25
- ICU load down 25% from 1316 to 988
- Total work down 42% from 5716 to 3291 kJ
That being said, I managed my first 2x30@90% sweet-spot workout (ever) and I definitely feel stronger, so I’m pretty happy with the month.
I also signed up for my second-ever (first was 2021) tri, the RJA Memorial Mighty Montauk on June 7. It’s a “long sprint”: 800m swim, 23.4K bike, 6.1K run. Weird distances, though my real challenge will be the swim: I can barely swim 50m without stopping right now. 
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Assuming those distances are in yards / miles? Solid numbers and congrats on the Half Marathon goal. breaking under 1:40 is in the back of my head for a late season race this year.
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Feb:
I ended up focussing on swim, so I’ve ramped that up to 3/wk and enjoyed it 
Bike good but run is still irregular.
6week Avg TSS has been 240 for the last three weeks but no move in FTP. More consistency needed.
Did a 10k race last weekend so established a a baseline, no surprises except that I haven’t gone backwards. Threshold Power, LTHR and pace as expected from last year. Have a few weeks off work, so need to keep a lid on it and focus on getting that routine up to 3/3/3.
Had some physio work on my back and neck, so some minimum strength work on my swim days after the session.
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An update and a recommendation to my March. Ride with someone faster than you. After 5 years of friendship and saying we should ride together I finally got out with a Female Pro. The workout her coach gave her was 3 hours wtih 5 x 20 minutes at 70.3 power. After the first two we both thought we rode a little harder than prescribed. That afternoon when checking my Garmin I see my second interval was acutally one watt higher than what my TR FTP, an increase is an increase 
We also came across three guys chasing a Bull through a number of yards on our route.
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95% of the 20 min number was 1 watt higher or the raw 20 min power was?
Raw. My mechanic and I often talk about the TR FTP being a little light.
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Been a WHILE since I checked in…
I’ll be racing:
Ohio 70.3 - July 20
Ironman Chattanooga (defer from last year due to BAD bout with Covid) - September 28
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It has been a while, welcome back! And good luck
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