Right…I’ve been having a think about this and “modern” methods.
It really does now seem like this is the best plan:
swim an hour to 65mins
make sure your transitions (both) only round that swim time up to 70mins
bike under 5 hours
a 3:50 marathon is practically walking
Do all intensity on the bike. This should be the bulk of your training. Best if it’s all indoors and you can’t handle a TT bike at speed outside, too.
Make sure you can swim 3.8-4km in one hour in the pool. And this feels easy. Once you can do this, you can drop down from 4 sessions per week to just two. Spending the other two on the bike.
If you need to can a session, make it the swim.
Running. Possibly no need to run longer than two hours or 25km. Definitely no longer speed work. Just do all speedwork at 3hr marathon pace. That’s IM speed plus a drop off.
Any Free time? Run 3-6km.
Make sure you’re running 5 times per week.
One “long”
One race pace.
Three fillers.
That’s a good plan, there’s certainly a bit of flux. E.g. swim could go out a few minutes as long as you are good at either cycling and\or running. Transitions really need to be under 10 minutes total, you’ll laugh at that but if you get somewhere like Hamburg which was 1K then you are unlikely to break 5 minutes in T1!
I never got anywhere near an hour in the pool but did quite a few easy IM races around 65-66 minutes, but that is partly because I don’t tumble turn and don’t push off very far at the pool, people doing 5 metre push offs are essentially reducing their session by 20%
Bike, yes, ride your TT bike, get used to the position, get aero but comfortable and try and get the 5 hour split to be achievable.
Running, largely agree with that, 3:30 is 5 min\K pace, that just needs to be very easy so reps don’t need to be particularly quick where you fatigue and risk injury. If you are realistically aiming for sub 10, 5M/K should be a fairly easy pace.
Don’t know about running that much though, depends on the person, if you can keep it really easy and don’t get easily injured then it is ok, otherwise I don’t think I’d risk it personally.
Alright. Pipe down there
RE: Running.
I’ve never been injured from running - just from falling over like a fool and temporary paralysis after my first IM.
I’d say this is largely what my ‘training’ looks like. Minor differences being 3 consistent swims each week and on average, 4 runs per week. I’m obviously not aiming for sub 10 this year but I’ve also done no run intensity or speed work in an effort to manage load and remain injury free
This is mainly for @Jorgan 's benefit as he recently declared he may still have an itch to scratch as a M50, and indeed is stockpiling tubular wheelsets
IM Austria seems to be one of the faster IMs, with a course rating of 18 minutes less than the average race for a superhuman 9 hour finisher Course Ratings | TriRating
There were 1031 finishers
157 (15.2%) went sub 10
103 (10.0%) went between 9h45 and 10h15
Looking at those who went 9h45 to 10h15, the AVERAGE splits were:
Swim, 1:06:40
Bike: 5:13:52
Run: 3:32:07
So, closer to @Poet 's suggestion that I thought, but if splittling hairs then maybe aiming for a 5h bike split is still a bit ambitious and the 3h50 run a bit tardy?
Looking just at the 157 sub10 finishers, the SLOWEST splits were:
swim: 1:14:20
bike 5:34:08
run: 3h51:58
ie. no-one with any split slower than any of those finished sub10
And yet I would say your splits favour strong swimmers. Sub-60 is seriously quick, yet I’ve always thought a 3h30 marathon would be the minimum for a sub-10.
The sub7/sub8 project showed the biggest effect on time is going to be the bike. The course, the road surface, the position you can hold and how much draft you are going to get.
Erm…I’m unsure it works like that???
Or is that saying “this is the slowest you can be on a single discipline and still break 10 hours” ?
That’s bang on what I was aiming for at Outlaw last year.
Although I think I swam a bit quicker than that?
However, when looking at these times, I’d round them to the nearest 5 minute interval and then look for the modal time. In essence; what are most people who go sub-10 swimming, cycling and running?
@buzz - I’d not say sub-60 is seriously fast at all
Sub-55 is. And the delta to get from 60 to 55 just isn’t worth it. And now, being honest (and this goes against everything I want Triathlon to be!), it’s probably not worth going from 65 to 60.
People nowadays are just absolute axes on the bike at all levels of swim ability.
Plus rolling starts means there’s always someone to latch onto on the bike.
My 5:15 at Outlaw was easy and incredibly dull and mundane. I could’ve done 5:05-5:10 if I’d have hung with the pack on the main road into the headwind, but that’s cheating.
If I ever manage to do it, I do not want an asterisk next to it (Barcelona, Lakesman etc)
And that’s kind of my point, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, so there are many ways to add up to 10. I’ve never done a sub-30 1900m, so to swim an IM swim in sub-60 will take a lot of effort and focus, and I think we both agree that time should be spent on the bike. 1:35/100m might be easy for you, but 4:00/km is easy run pace for @gingerbongo so his sub-10 puzzle is going to look very different to yours.
Yeah I’d be lucky to go under 1.10 for the swim. In reality I’d just train to swim 1.10 as comfortably as possible.
Then I’d beast myself on the bike to be able to get that to 5.15 or so. Leaving me just under 3.30 for the run. Something like that anyway.
Whether I could realistically get my biking there, I have no idea. My one IM was Wales, as a very new triathlete. I biked a 6.30 I think. And was very happy with that. Losing an hour and a quarter sounds a bit mental. But I am a much more experienced endurance participant now, and a better course will obviously give a fair chunk of time back.
Think I ran a 3.50 at Wales. So again, being stronger and a flatter run, I’d hope there would be some easy gains there.
It is tickling the back of my mind. I just don’t know if my life can tolerate the level of consistency and time needed. I’d guess that I’d end up not doing enough volume and I’d come in, off a semi decent build at like 1015-1030. Something like that. That annoying time that tells me I’m capable, but would need to put in the time to deserve it (punctures, mechanicals, weather, illness etc not withstanding).
