It's all about the bike!

It's all about the bike may sound like a cliche, or a well known book. But when it comes to triathlon, and more importantly, middle (70.3) and full (140.6) distance races it's far, far more than just a cliche. 

For illustration purposes only

When I'm planning and writing session plans, especially those for longer distance races, the main focus is on the bike, with AT LEAST 50% of the overall session plan being dedicated to the bike. The main reason for this is so that you will not only give yourself the best possible chance of completing the bike leg in a time that you're happy with, but also so that you can get off the bike in T2 and exit onto the run with your legs in the best possible condition. Obviously, this takes some self discipline in how well / efficiently you pace the bike, ie. if you "smash" the bike leg and demolish your pb I can almost guarantee that you'll pay for it on the run. If you put too much into the bike and save yourself as much as 20 - 30 minutes, it'll probably cost you an hour or so on the run (in an Iron distance race). so pacing is of absolute paramount importance. I was at a seminar last year and the coach delivering it made the point that you can be a sub 3 hr marathon runner, but if your legs are shot when you get off the bike, it'll count for absolutely nothing. 

Going back to the original statement of "it's all about the bike", there's a common misconception among novice athletes that if they're only competing in sprint or standard distance races they don't need to put the big miles in, as is the case for Ironman athletes. However, even if you're "only" racing sprint distances, you still need to be putting the miles in. In it's very basic form, triathlon is an aerobic endurance sport and even the sprint distance races will take around an hour for an experienced athlete and possibly twice that long for novice triathletes, so the main focus of your training should still be on building aerobic endurance, because the better and more efficient your aerobic endurance, the more efficient you should be. Endurance can only be developed by putting the long, easy miles in and then "bolting" the speed on top of that. In much the same way that we structure the run sessions, if you push too hard on the bike in training. your muscle cells, ie the mitochondria, won't develop and become more prevalent within the muscles, so although you might feel like you've buried yourself on a long ride, you've actually done very little in terms of building your aerobic endurance, so you can see why it's important to not only put the miles in, but to train correctly too. Personally I tend to race standard distance most of the time, but my weekend rides are still generally around 60 miles and then I'll use the midweek club rides to develop my speed. 

The jump from sprint / standard distance to Ironman.

In the past few years I've noticed a huge growth in the popularity of Ironman and iron distance races, with many athletes making the jump from absolute novice or sprint distance up to full iron distance within a year or so. This is great and I've always maintained that if an athlete follows any properly written, structured and progressive session plan, they'll succeed in completing the distance. That said, for some athletes, there's a danger that if they don't train properly they'll always be chasing their finish time, instead of racing the event with absolute confidence, if that makes sense? These tend to be novices who train alone or don't follow a set training plan, so it's absolutely vital that more emphasis is placed on the bike training than the other disciplines, in general. Even more so when competing in Iron distance races. Yes, there'll be cases where someone is a competent cyclist and runner, but a weaker swimmer, in which case you'd still place a large emphasis on the bike, but you'd also focus on their swim, or whichever discipline was a significant weakness. I mean, what's the point of being a great cyclist and runner, if you can't make it past the swim cut off? So each case / triathlete is taken on merit. 

It's all good and well having the best speedsuit, a fancy pointy helmet and a sleek TT bike, but if you haven't put the work in during training, you'll not get the most out of yourself or your kit. Most of us are "hobby" triathletes and we have varying degrees of motivation, drive and ambition, with some athletes having ambitions to push for age group places and others getting great satisfaction from racing with club mates etc, but at the end of the day, one thing that we all need to be doing is following a structured and progressive training plan. 

The thing with a lot of novice athletes though, is that they probably aren't used to sitting on a bike for 7+ hours, so regarding their bike training, the emphasis needs to be on aerobic endurance, which will mean putting the long hours in on the bike, often at what feels like an easy pace, as well as a fair share of speed and strength sessions. There's no set way to train for this, ie, some people say that winter is all about building endurance and summer is about adding the speed. But a friend of mine, who is a multiple Kona qualifier and age group winner, does most of his speed work throughout the winter and then adds the endurance element during the summer. It's horses for courses though and it depends on what works best for you, although it's generally easier to build endurance rather than it is to develop speed. Regarding the way that training is structured and following the 80/20 "rule", an analogy that I often use for endurance training is that if you think of the body as a diesel engine, which you can tune up to become highly efficient and deliver a lot of power etc, the more low intensity endurance training you do, but isn't particularly fast. Then, when you add in the really tough, short, speed and strength sessions, which is like bolting a big turbocharger on to the diesel engine and you've suddenly got this highly efficient engine, but it's also capable of delivering great speed too.

Don't get hung up on power.

For illustrative purposes only

While more experienced athletes will possibly have a power meter on their bike, which, if used correctly, will allow them to gauge their efforts much more accurately and efficiently, it's important not to get too hung up on the numbers. You could have the scenario where one athlete is capable of producing many more watts than another one, but because of the type of training that they've done, they may not be able to hold it for very long. This may work well on a sprint distance triathlon, but on an Ironman, they may find that they're struggling in the latter stages of the bike. So while it can be beneficial to use a power meter, the most important thing is to get your training structure right first and develop the aerobic endurance. 

Although this post started off more about 140.6 distance races, competing in and racing in sprint and olympic distance races is a totally different race strategy to that of an Ironman. If you're using a power meter your power outputs for sprint or olympic distance should be around  80% - 90% of FTP and 70% - 80% of FTP, respectively. Whereas, during an Ironman, you should be throttling right back to around 60% - 65% of FTP, which may sound easy, but maintaining that sort of consistent power output for 112 miles requires not only a lot of restraint, but also a huge amount of aerobic endurance. 

In Summary

• Dedicate at least 50% of your overall session plan to the bike.
• Train smart - structure your training so that approx 80% of the sessions are very low intensity, maximal aerobic function sessions and 20% are very high intensity.
• Get the miles in - no matter what distance you're racing, get the miles in and build your aerobic endurance "engine".
• Don't get hung up on numbers too much. Strava KOM's are all good and well, but think about the session objective that you're doing.
• Be patient - there is NO shortcut or magic wand. It takes time, patience, dedication and discipline to develop as an athlete. 
• Most importantly, enjoy it. Although it hurts during races and we might wonder why we do this, the rewards are immense.

If you'd like to speak more about your goals and ambitions and how I can help you on your triathlon journey, click on the link below which will take you to my coaching Facebook page, where I can be contacted through

Certa Cito Tri Coaching