50 miles a day for 7 days

gabe11 said:

All will this help me with my up coming half-iron man. Are there any suggestions out there?

gabe

It depends on your starting point, but a lot of folks ride 350 a week and many ride more than 50 miles in typical training rides.

What have you been doing to date, how much time do you have to your target event, how much running and swimming will you be doing during this cycling block and what's the key goal of this 7 day block as in: building training volume/base, improving cycling specific speed/power, doing a deep dig before some extra rest hoping for a supercompensation rebound?

I don't know exactly what you're targeting, but FWIW unless I was structuring some kind of preload before a taper (and then I'd have some days longer than 50 miles but I don't run or swim) I'd probably do some days longer, some days shorter and harder and take at least one day off completely rather than the same load day in and day out for a week.

-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

It depends on your starting point, but a lot of folks ride 350 a week and many ride more than 50 miles in typical training rides.

What have you been doing to date, how much time do you have to your target event, how much running and swimming will you be doing during this cycling block and what's the key goal of this 7 day block as in: building training volume/base, improving cycling specific speed/power, doing a deep dig before some extra rest hoping for a supercompensation rebound?

I don't know exactly what you're targeting, but FWIW unless I was structuring some kind of preload before a taper (and then I'd have some days longer than 50 miles but I don't run or swim) I'd probably do some days longer, some days shorter and harder and take at least one day off completely rather than the same load day in and day out for a week.

-Dave

Thanks Dave, I have been riding about 38 miles a day. Just back and forth to work. I ride in about 18 miles and then run 5 miles. My weakness is swiming but I have been going three times a week. My goal with the 50 miles a day for 7 days is just to get the rust off the legs. I am not sure if it would help or hurt. My half-Iron man is July 18 in racine, wi. It is my first one. What do you think would be a good course of action with the time I have left.
gabe

gabe11 said:

Thanks Dave, I have been riding about 38 miles a day. Just back and forth to work. I ride in about 18 miles and then run 5 miles. My weakness is swiming but I have been going three times a week. My goal with the 50 miles a day for 7 days is just to get the rust off the legs. I am not sure if it would help or hurt. My half-Iron man is July 18 in racine, wi. It is my first one. What do you think would be a good course of action with the time I have left.
gabe

Well I'm no triathlete and don't know all the inns and outs of Brick training and such but for the bike part I'd suggest some variety in your weekly schedule instead of setting an arbitrary 50 mile per day target.

As your event is a lot like a time trial and not at all like a criterium or mass start road race with attacks, chases, sprints and such I'd strongly suggest a few days per week where you do solid Tempo intensity for an hour and a half or more and another day or better yet two where you do some classic 2x20 minute Threshold intervals or something like that with each sustained effort being somewhere from 12 to 30 minutes long.

The Tempo work should be at your own best 'fast-fun' pace where you ride with focus but you aren't really holding the ragged edge or struggling to finish an hour and a half or more. It shouldn't be riding easily looking at the flowers and ideally should have some extended sections of road where you can settle into a good pace without a lot of traffic interruptions.

The Threshold work is up a notch like mini time trials backed off enough that you don't suffer and fade before each effort is finished and can actually complete two or more efforts. It's important to choose training venues that let you stay continuously engaged during these efforts, short breaks of 15 to 20 seconds to deal with traffic or intersections and such is fine but try to pick roads that don't force you to stop or coast (like steep descents) for more than 30 seconds or so and the overall intervals should be at least 10 minutes long with 12 being a better minimum duration and 20 to 25 minutes being typical for Threshold work. These take a lot of mental focus so you have to be fairly fresh and motivated but the payoff is huge especially if you haven't been training with much structure. Two days a week for the next four to five weeks and then some taper before your event in six weeks should help a lot with the bike leg.

Search the web and these forums for info on SST (Sweet Spot Training), Brick Training, Threshold work L3/L4, FTP, Tempo, etc. That's really what you want to improve on for sustained solo efforts like your upcoming tri.

How you work that in with your running and swimming and how you manage your weekly load so that it pushes you yet still allows you to recover and stay on track is a bigger question that depends a lot on your lifestyle, available time to train and recover, non sport stresses like work and family, etc.

Good luck,
-Dave