Agree with the run specificity. I’m in southeast Louisiana so it’s flat as a pancake here! But I do end up on the treadmill still, but that’s because a 108-120 heat index with high humidity and dew point is torture to run in!
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Theres a ton of different opinions and training strategies for you to approach training in general. Not all strategies are equal and will not work great for the individual; this is where coaches or you “thinking” come into play; perhaps more intensity and lower volume are what you need. Are you time constraint? What if you work shifts? It snowed and now its icy; I want to sub a long ride instead of long run. How about Jack Daniels or Fitzer or whatever (insert name) plan/coaching methodology? You want to add intervals? Go ahead. It might help you. It also might destroy you. Maybe you need to do some quality investigation and determine what has worked well for you in the past. Otherwise TBH you might want to just go back to the no questions asked coach. You pay for their expertise. If thats worth it to you or not, only you can answer.
Edit: To add to this, the volume seems okay all things considered. It seems in line to what various other plans have done. TR is a cycling focused plan, so obviously you want to be nailing the bike workouts and work around those sessions. Perhaps you need more work on the run, then maybe the TR solution is less “in your wheel-house”. However I see no issue in following the plans. I do not follow them to a T though, as I have identified shortcomings in the plans applicable to me and my needs. If there was a solution for my exact needs I would be all over it, but like… thats just silly. We all have different situations and jobs or life circumstances etc. that make doing a detailed plan impossible. I have adjusted my expectations accordingly and work with the tools I have. I have found myself going much, much faster than many coached athletes in a much shorter time. If I wanted to push into the stupid fast field/pro field, perhaps then I would consider a private coach.
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Well, yes, there are reasons for that. Again, most of it has to do with the physiological cost of the harder intervals vs. the easier running. It doesn’t always have to be a long easy run, but a race pace interval session needs to be placed properly in a plan with respect to other workouts in the cycle, not simply substituted in to avert boredom.
You’re highlighting some of the reasons self coaching is hard. You’re invested in the fun and excitement of your training, and it’s difficult to be objective about what is the best workout for your desired training adaptation. This is why many self coached athletes suffer injury or burnout at a higher rate - they go hard too often and don’t recover well enough. It’s not impossible; it’s just hard to do correctly long term.
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The other thing to bear in mind - and I think other posters have touched on this - is that a TR tri plan is a bike focussed tri plan. Most of my physical and psychological effort goes into the bike, consequently the swim and run plans are less taxing on both fronts.
If I do modify a plan, I will limit the runs to that in the plan - I might go easier but I won’t go harder, so I’m not undermining the next bike or swim.
Where I am there are no flat routes, so I’d take it off road for variety, or pace the hills very easy if it’s an RPE 4 run, in fact it’s much, much easier to run by RPE where I live than by pace.
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What is back to back hard workouts so daunting? And what makes you think they both can’t be quality workouts? We’re talking about a 45-75 min workout. It’s not all out balls to the wall for an hour. It’s a warmup, structured intervals, and a cool-down. That should not be a stretch, and there is no reason both can’t be quality workouts.
In a sport where you are literally finishing a hard ride and immediately going into a hard run, I’m surprised by how many people can’t fathom doing hard 60 min workouts on consecutive days.
I made a point to say I wasn’t trying to bash TR. I have enjoyed their bike plans, and will continue to use them because i think they are excellent quality workouts. I feel they are better workouts than what my coach prescribed, because they are even MORE specific and MORE detailed in their approach. If I ever did go back to a coach, I would want the plan to work around TR bike plans.
I understand they are a bike-first company, and the plans reflect that. All I’m saying is I’m surprised how bland the non-bike workouts are. I think in creating a triathlon platform, perhaps they should have recruited some people with a tri/swim/run background to collaborate with and come up with a more comprehensive and quality program.
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Running takes longer to recover than biking. Run on Tuesday hard. Bike on Wednesday hard. Start your recovery Thursday with a z2 run, easy spin Friday to continue flushing out the legs. By the weekend you should be mostly recovered from the runs and ready to riding long with intervals Saturday, and running long with intervals on Sunday.
You have a 2 quality bike workouts and an easy spin. And 2 quality runs with an easy recovery run.
I can fathom it, for sure. It’s a necessity in a sport like triathlon … sometimes. It seems like you’re asking “why can’t I do this all the time?” And again, the answer is that it depends. Sometimes stacking intensity is totally fine. Other times, it’s not optimal and could be detrimental. A lot of it depends on the time of race year and what else is planned around it, overall stress level, time available, etc.
In triathlon, unlike single sport, you can’t really plan to do sweet spot type interval workouts in lieu of LSD in two or three sports the way that sweet spot base lays out for cycling. It’s just too much stress consistently. But, you can do it every once in a while as part of a structured plan.
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This is what I noticed as well. Intensity becomes so difficult when you are doing 7+ workouts a week. It’s just damn near impossible to hit the intensity and volume at the same time. Doing hard days over and over is just going to destroy you, unless you have so much time to recover and basically train like a pro. Threshold work and SS work is just so difficult once you have to deal with running AND cycling
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I don’t consider myself to be self coached. I’m following the TR plans to serve as a guide. That’s what I’d pay a coach for, to give me workouts based on my races and goals.
2018 was the first time I hired a coach. Coached me through 2 70.3s and through training for a full IM. I learned a ton from him and saw major improvements. That was my first experience with interval based training. Before that, I would just go ride my bike hard, and run hard, and I had a book with swim workouts.
Right before the full IM I got hit by a car on my last big training ride. 2019 was up in the air because I was still recovering and wasn’t sure what I could even do. I did Augusta last year “self coached” but I basically went into my training peaks data and replicated what he had me do leading up to my prior 70.3s. Had a good race. Still unsure of what I’m able to do in 2020 because I still am not feeling right from the accident, so that’s why I don’t want to hire a coach. But I wanted structure for trainer workouts, and that’s how I came to try TR. And I really like it.
If you are trying to recover, you cant really be looking at stacking doubles in the same day. I question if anyone is doing a double and trying to “recover” on one of the workouts. You are trying to add more volume and intensity to your week. I have never heard of anyone doing a double trying to recover on one of them; easy runs off the bike are done to increase volume. Consistency>intensity
This is the mistake of most athletes without A) a coach or B) training methodology
Perhaps you could do some good picking apart what your coach did and trying to understand the tactics he used. Prioritization, rest weeks, peak weeks etc. are all parts you can dissect and use in your own training. You don’t need a coach to get you onto the podium. Its easier, its likely “faster” (depending on the coach) but you can arguably get to the same or better position with some research, testing and proper structure. Understanding your own training is a huge advantage
I’m sure that could work too. The downfall to that though is your hard run is on Thursday now, and you have less recovery time before a big weekend of training planned.
It’s really not that hard. Work hard, short efforts for 2 days. 2 days easy recovery. 2 long hard days. 1 day completely off (I don’t count swimming since there isn’t much impact. It actually helps me recover to be in the water).
I still question the fast brick. That seems more like “race specific training”. At the end of the day you need to ask yourself “why am I doing this”. If you are doing sprint and oly, sure then maybe it makes sense. However if its long course, I would argue fast bricks are going to do you more harm than good. If you can run off the bike, run fast, run far, you will be fine. Similar to doing BIG BIG run mileage days; most plans cap you at 33-30km runs. Anything longer and you are doing damage. If you can run 35km, you can run 42.2km. IMO you are best served doing easy runs off the bike to increase volume. Again, ask yourself what you are tangibly gaining. You already do speed work, why do another fast brick? Or even a moderate brick?
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Yes, my original training “plan” was to bring myself down to dust as much as I could, and then rest up before a race. Not smart!
I guess that’s where I am now. I really enjoy the structured bike workouts. IMO the swim and run workouts are lacking. So I can go back to my old plans and on higher intensity TR run workouts, I’ll substitute one of my old saved workouts.
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I got back a short while ago from my run workout.
2mi warmup
4x20” pickups near the end of the warmup
5x1mi repeats at goal race pace
Cool down until 1:20 total run time.
As opposed to 1:20 at RPE6.
Feel like I got a good quality workout today! It was like a TR Bike workout…first interval is ok, 2nd is hard, 3rd is OMG trying to hang on. 4th is hard but you see the light at the end of the tunnel. 5th is hard but you are motivated to finish, and you can empty the tank.
Same 1:20 worth of work. I think my version was a higher quality training and adaptation.
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IMO you are best served doing your speed work either up-front or on stand alone days to get as much quality on that high intensity and minimize the risk of injury, but whatever works works!
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I was thinking about this during my run. TR triathlon plans are on line with how A LOT of triathletes race (long course, anyway).
Float
Overbike
Walk
Just Making a joke since the tri plans seem so bike-dominant. And it seems like every triathlete wants to put down an impressive bike split, and be damned on the run 
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Just be very careful about this type of attitude when it comes to running. Saving energy or your legs for the next day and minimizing recovery time is typically better long term. This is why coaching is good because you have the second set of eyes on your progress. Lots of people do too much too hard and recover over 2 days, where you could dial it back by 15-20% and hit 2 more days without the recovery, increasing overall volume and limiting injury risk. You can’t treat running like TR workouts. Maybe if you do stand-alone marathon training, but in triathlon its very risky to do intense training days. Theres a good post on slowtwitch the other day on this; people chimed in and said that slow is better in general. Even some seriously qualified individuals posted on it and echoed the same thing.
I feel like you might be misunderstanding long course training. It is a lot of long slow work. If you read a lot of very competitive triathletes training, they do a lot of volume on the run at slower speeds and insert speed and intensity extremely carefully. Sebi said it pretty well; “it’s a fine line between fit and fucked”
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