I'm turning to this trustworthy board to help with several questions I have about my upcoming HIM. I've got friends to chat with locally, but the collective wisdom here can't be beat.

My background: I'm a runner with 10+ marathons. I've done three triathlons in my life, last one in 2007. I am also doing a full IM in September. I am using a 30-week training plan for the full IM (on week 8 right now). Half will fall during week 11. I am swimming >2200m twice a week right now, cycling, and trying to maintain my strength, the run. As a newbie swimmer and cyclist, I just have a few questions...

Swim:
I have a daughter that swims and has coached me some, but I am still slow (40 min pace per mile). I can live with it, but I would like to get faster. I am quite certain I am not pulling through all the way, so I am working on that. I counted my strokes some today, and it was taking me 34-36 strokes per 25m (my daughter laughed when I mentioned it). What should I be targeting, and what are some suggestions to get there? I scouredin the swimming thread from a few weeks ago and found several helpful tips there.

Cycling:
I averaged 18 mph yesterday on an 36 mile ride. Again, I'm satisfied, but I would love 20. On climbs, I have a habit of keeping the bike on the big ring as long as possible, switching through the back rings until I have to go the small ring. I am finding that causes a big momentum loss when I finally make the switch. I am toying with switching to the small front ring earlier, and I think it is more efficient, especially on big hills. Am I on the right track?

Tapering:
I have a good understanding of how to taper for a marathon, but I am not sure how to manage it for the HIM. Any thoughts on that? I will be three weeks out this Sunday, but since I am still building my base for the full IM, I plan on continuing to build in the bike in particular. I am confortable with my running conditioning, though I admit to being naive on how the bike event will affect me overall. If any of you have ideas for me the week of or maybe two weeks out, that would be great.

Thanks in advance, and if any of you will be in Chattanooga on May 17, I would love to connect.

I am a slow swimmer too and my thought process was if I get 10% better at swimming then I will shave 10 minutes off my total time. So I focused my efforts on biking and running. 10% better there shaves lots and lots of time off. Also the easier you make the bike the more legs you will have left for your run.

On the bike gears... I normally switch to the smaller ring as I approach the hill and then move to the highest gear and go down as needed. As you are noticing this prevents the need to go from low gears on the big ring to the high gears on the small ring while you are sitting on a hill and losing momentum.

On tapering I would not do anything extremely long the week before the half and then nothing a day maybe 2 before. Your IM plan probably has you pretty close to the HIM distances so I wouldn't taper a bunch. I would focus more on recovery time after.

One thing I've learned in the past year is how important the bike is. Pacing correctly on the bike will not only impact your bike but your run as well (90% of your day).

I was reading last night about power generation on the bike and how it impacts your run. The lower your bike cadence the more glycogen you'll burn, which will leave you with an empty tank of gas going into the run. This time last year I was averaging high 70's to low 80's rpm on my bike cadence. Over the past year I've trained myself to be comfortable in the low to mid 90's. Most of what you'll see will tell you to target 90-100. That alone won't make you faster on the bike but can be a game changer for a full IM.

I would also highly recommend TrainerRoad for improving your bike. Several folks on here were plugging it last year so I finally gave it a shot. It's a game changer.

Wish I could offer more advice on the swim but I'm still not there. Search this forum for GoPro Swim Analysis and you'll see some great feedback these kind folks gave me for improving my stroke.

Good luck with it all. Triathlon is one of the cruelest endeavors in that I have yet to hit the limits of what I'm capable of.

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The lower your bike cadence the more glycogen you'll burn

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never heard that...mind me asking where you read it?

It is a message on the trainerroad workouts. While I do not like spinning at 70rpm for long periods 80-85 works well for me during longer events.

Brett Sutton may disagree with low cadence, he has written a few blogs about it (and seeing as Ryf and Wellington have done with it). But there have been several people that went from low to high cadence with great success (see Carfrae and McKenzie). To me, it all depends on the person.

Training and Racing with a Power Meter

It was recommended as a starting point once I started training with power. I read some of it last year, got a general idea, but I'm going back now and a lot of it makes a lot more sense. He has a few chapters devoted entirely to triathlon, including a great table with recommended % of ftp ranges for each level / distance of racing.

The cadence thing really stuck out to me this time as I'm introducing a buddy to power training. During his initial ftp test his average cadence was probably in the 60's.

If you're a data junkie this book has more than you can handle. Use cases and graphs galore. But lots of easy to swallow text as well.

If you actually visit that link and preview the contents take a look at pages 216 and 217. What he seems to really be getting at is not "mashing" on the pedals (applying high force). He mentions that you can go low or high cadence as long as you're not mashing, but for me high force typically equates to low cadence.

The way I always thought of it was you should attack the bike with cardiovascular strength not leg strength. The key is to not kill your legs pushing really hard on hills but keep your cadence up and move to a lower gear.

Don't completely blow off working to improve the swimming leg. While your time may not improve much on that leg you can work on being more efficient and end up with more energy for the rest of the race. So your swimming improvements spill over to the bike and run segments.

Number one tip for swimming in a tri is to practice at least once in a similar body of water bc lap swimming does not equal lake/river swimming!

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Number one tip for swimming in a tri is to practice at least once in a similar body of water bc lap swimming does not equal lake/river swimming!

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This can't be stressed enough. Swimming in a straight line is much much much harder in the middle of a lake or in the ohio river.

There are also some people that FREAK out in open water and have no problems in the pool.

You may have to adjust your breathing sequence etc. to work on swimming straight in open water. You need to constantly pick up references/markers on the bank when you breath to help keep your bearings.

Swim - you need to swim more, a lot more and this will also get you faster. I would aim for at least 3 days a week with a minimum of 3000 per session. You should have a few 4000-5000 sessions in there. Swimming builds fitness but does not stress your body as much as running and biking. Put it this way, it is hard to swim too much.

Cycling - If you do not have a power meter or use heart rate I would throw speed out the window since it can vary so much from day to day depending on conditions. I would play around with a few cadences to figure out what works best for you (80-85, 85-90, 90-95rpm). Anything lower and you will be mashing. This is true for hills as well, you will slow down a ton but if you are pushing it hard on the hills you will pay for it later. Most of your time training should be done cycling especially with 10+ marathons under your belt.

Since you are a newbie be sure to run after most of your bikes. Be sure to get in one day of a long ride and a longer run to see how your legs will react (90+ mile ride and 1-1.5 hour run).

Tapering - for a HIM that is your "B" event I would just taper the week of, treat it kind of a recovery week with less duration but a little higher intensity. For a full most people do 3-4 weeks out.

Great stuff - my IM is a month before OP's. My current training seems to match the advice given (it should since I'm shelling out $$ for a coach).

The thing I'm struggling with is wrapping my brain around the right effort for the bike portion. In my previous tris my approach to the bike is to pretty much ride as hard as I can and hope for the best on the run. The endurance rides I've been doing so far are all Z2 HR and feel ridiculously slow...but on the upside I feel really fresh after them.

For those of you who have done IMs did you ride in a specific HR/power zone or did you use something like Best Bike Split as a guide or something else?

Oldag, the first hour on the bike should feel really easy and you will want to push harder. It also depends on your fitness too. 60-80% FTP is typically where you see most people shoot for. If you feel really good the last mile is when you push a tad bit more. What you need to keep in mind is the run though and how you have felt during bricks. For first timers I would say 60-65% to make sure you have a good run. I did this and felt great but did not have enough miles on my legs to keep up with the run. I believe I was on pace for sub 3:30 but I had no strength left and did a 4 hour run. Sucked but it was my first.

Sounds like you are on the right track. I'm using a coach for the first time ever and finding it to be very beneficial...More so than I thought it would be. She has me swimming three times per week. One is usually closer to 2K, and the other two are 25-2900. I did 3k for the first time ever yesterday. There was one week where I swam six days and hit nearly 11K yards. I am also still 7 months from Ironman, with a 70.3 in 6 weeks.

What I have found with all the swimming is that it didn't change my speed a whole lot at first, but rather it gave me a lot of swim fitness. I've gotten together with my coach twice since January for swim lessons, and each time I was taught things to help my form. I've been taught many of those things before, but before it didn't matter what I was trying to do or habit I was trying to make, because my form was going to collapse and I'd be swimming like a drunk monkey after 500 yds. Now I'm swimming faster than I ever have and actually enjoying it. When I try to tweak my stroke, the rest of it stays intact and I can see changes. I also did an olympic swim last weekend, and have never swam so straight. It was my first open water swim in nearly two years. I'm definitely becoming a believer in swimming more. It may only be 10% of your day, but if you can waste yourself on the swim if you overheat and your heart is racing, which leaves you whooped for the next 138.2 miles. Stress from anxiety and stress from training wear on the body similarly, but only one gets you to the finish quicker.

I agree with all of what has been said on the bike. I'm a big fan of power meters. They can be had fairly cheaply at this point. I saw a friction facts blog post last week that showed from a gearing drag point of view, you are best in the big ring with the exception of the last three gears. That said, anytime you approach a hill where you suspect you'll end up using the little ring, you should shift before you get there. The loss of momentum while climbing is significant, but throwing your chain because you shifted under heavy load is worse. I have recently learned that if you throw your chain, you can sometimes get it back on without stopping by shifting back the the opposite ring (if you throw it to the inside, shift back to the big ring and pedal).

Tapering: I was tapered though the entire training cycle for my last Ironman, so I can't say much here. I can say that if you are doing this 70.3 as a training race, I'd take minimal taper before, or even none, then do the race and use the following week as a major recovery week. A taper week plus a recovery week is a lot of time off from training for "B" race. A lot of it depends on how hard you plan to race and how much is on the line. If you are going to go hard and gut yourself, then you should taper more and recover more. If you look at it like a big training day with catering, then you can race it at Ironman intensity, test your nutrition and bike setup, and still have a productive week of training.

Agree on the swimming - I'm getting around 9-10k yards per week, and the only time I have a set under 3k is if it's following a harder effort earlier in the day.

I've become much more efficient and actually look forward to most of my workouts. Lots of long endurance sets. I'm faster but not anything remarkable. My main goal is to get out of the water feeling fresh enough to tackle the bike and run. Swimming at 5200' will definitely be a challenge. I'm doing some breathing drills to try to get used to swimming with less oxygen...we'll see how that works.

Maybe I missed it but I'm pretty shocked no one has mentioned it yet. If you truly want to maximize efficiency which in turn will increase your speed you need to check out Total Immersion Swimming. Game. Changer. My swim time was only 20 seconds/100 m (which is good for me) behind what the pros were doing for a 70.3 in a ridiculously choppy ocean. And I do not have a long swimmer's body. You can find the videos online.

So many great suggestions- thanks everyone. I know the swimming volume is due to increase in the next couple of weeks, but I'll see if I can figure out a way to do it now. Like many of you, it's hard trying to balance the training with family, job, church, and other commitments. Great help though...

That is why I am not going to do an IM for some time, it is a huge time commitment. At this point I would rather spend time with my wife and newborn than do a 5 hour ride. What works for me is working out before everyone wakes up...or should be waking up.

Update:

Bib number for IMchattanooga 70.3: 2209

I've incorporated much of your advice. Still learning as I go, but I'm ready for the weekend. My goals:
1. finish
2. 6:00
3. 5:45 if all goes right.

Training for full IM kicks up to three swims a week now (though will likely just swim a couple of times this week). I'll do a short run or two this week, maybe a brick, and get my bike tuned up. I've swam twice in the river- struggled to stay on a course, but I at least know what to expect. I cycled the actual course last Saturday- happy with a 3 hr time. Pray for me Sunday!

Good luck.

Good luck!

I know it's very clique, but there's no such thing as a great bike followed by a bad run. I definitely felt like I could've pushed MUCH harder on the bike at CdA last year, but with the hills and the crazy wind, I just settled into my cadence (which for me is 100-105 on flats and 75-80 on climbs) and rode comfortable all day. I came in about 20 minutes slower than I wanted on the bike but the wind had a lot to do with that. The upside to not stressing about my speed was, I had a ton of legs left for the run and ended up only being about 20 minutes of my marathon PR at the time.

With this being your first full, just enjoy the bike and hold back a little, if you hold back a little too much, then that's just more legs for the last 10K, but if you push a little too much, you could be death marching the last 10K or more. The difference between a good bike and a great bike is only 15-20 minutes, but the difference between a good run and blowing up can be hours.

Over the 4 70.3's and 1 IM I've done, I've learned 1 very important lesson...the entire day is determined by the bike. Never skip a bike workout.

Good luck on your 70.3.

First off, good luck this weekend! Just make sure to have fun and not take yourself too seriously.

I was a competitive triathlete in college (class of 12) and haven't done one since, but I do have 2 half IMs under my belt. Was a difficult distance for me to figure out. I bonked bad on my first two, but finally got it right on the 3rd one.

Best piece of advice I can give you is make sure you have your nutrition and hydration plan dialed in. After 4+ hours of racing, it becomes much more about fueling than it does about your fitness.

-Don't change anything on race day that you wouldn't otherwise do on a long training day. If you're used to eating a big breakfast an hour before. Do that. If you're used to eating a bagel and fruit 20 minutes before. Do that. I got crazy looks morning of my races because I was sitting there eating a huge omelet and fruit 45 minutes before my start because that's what I was used to doing in training.

-By now (hopefully) you know what works best for you as far as fuel (gels vs solids vs liquids, etc.). I found that my body was much more receptive to solid food/gummy pack things vs gels or liquids. I just couldn't hold them down. Go with what you know. Heck, I would eat chocolate chip cookies, snickers bars, and PB&J's on the bike because for whatever reason I could hold that down better than gels.

-Timing is everything. Make sure to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to fuel and hydration, because if/when you start cramping, it's too late. The research I've done (and I found it to work in my training) was that my body was able to work off of my pre-race meal for the first 45 minutes-hour and then you need to take in anywhere from 250-350 calories per hour (depending on your metabolism, output, etc.). After that first hour, I was eating 100 calories every 20 minutes for the duration of the race.

-Everyone is different, so what works for me, may not work for you. And I'm sure there are some on this board that take in way less calories during a half and are completely fine, but my best race was when I followed the outline above.

Good luck!