I’ve been doing the sprint triathlon plan since January, and I’m about to exit the specialty phase and head back into base. For cycling this works well, but for running i’m going from 55min base runs to 25min walk/runs and I’m concerned about losing run fitness. Thoughts?
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You know, I kind of share your concern, but at the same time it’s probably a good idea to drop the volume for at least a week since running can put some long term strain on connective tissue/joints. You might give up some short term fitness to avoid longer term niggles.
Maybe give reduced volume a week and then if you still feel like adding trying throwing some extra morning Z2 20 minute runs.
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The Tri plans arent great for following all year for this exact reason. They assume that you would take a significant chunk off after your A race to recover, fine for full distance but for Sprint thats just not the way it works. The injury risk associated with building longer runs is no longer there, and in some cases does actually get worse because there are times that my plan has had me going from a shorter base straight into specialty and the runs jump up by a significant amount.
Personally I would just run how you feel at the moment. If you would benefit from a bit of rest take it easy and do the lower mileage. If the body is feeling good I cant imagine that there is much of a risk in doing a longer easy run.
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^^^^^^ This. I’m letting my TR subscription go when it’s up in January because of this. I like to ride and run. The build to events is great but the “after” is terrible plus there’s no good way to deal with different distances. If I race sprints but also want to throw in a half marathon, the plans can’t accommodate that.
I can’t blame TR for this issue though. Until adaptive training works with runs, the run side is just a stagnate plan based on time. If there was a “maintenance” block rather than sending you back to base, it could work, but going back to day one base just doesn’t make any sense.
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Thanks folks! I’m happy doing my own thing with the running, as I have been with swimming, until the longer and more intense stuff returns!
Yeah, I could see how that might make PlanBuilder lose it’s mind. ‘Wait a minute, your C race is a marathon?’ Ha!
Seriously, though, the best job at TrainerRoad would be Product Manager for the triathlon plans. There are so many slam dunk ‘feature adds’ that could be made. The unlocked potential of triathlon and planbuilder is immense.
But just generally, if it’s hard to make one planning engine to handle many individual cyclists, it’s 3 times 3 harder to do it for many individual triathletes. So I definitely understand how a great meany triathletes might be unsatisfied with what PlanBuilder can currently deliver.
My racing calendar would make TR lose its mind. This year I am concentrating on having “general triathlon fitness” and just “eventing”, but I like to event so I am doing a lot of them, often with conflicting priorities. But they are all fun and thats my fitness journey. I am fully accepting that I am not on the normal “race peak” tradjectory.
well, @simon-trimon a lot of athletes seem to follow the train-really-hard-have-one-big-event-and-one-big-injury-per-year. I bet over the course of a few years your approach will put you way ahead of them.
I talked to a coach earlier this year who said he was getting out of the business because 80% of his client base over the past 5 years were one-event clients. In other words, clients who trained for one event and either never came back or just stopped training. So, there again, finding a way to continue enjoying the process long term is going to put you way ahead of those athletes.
It’ll definitely keep me in the sport for a long time. The reason I am doing it is twofold, one; interest in fitness is greater than interest in performance, two; I have two kids and they are masters at knocking a training plan off schedule. So if I have no “goal” other than “be fit” then there isnt a lot that can knock that off course 
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Ditto!! Also why I’m focussing on sprint distance - most workouts are <1 hour and can be squeezed into the day
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I did sprint distance before I had the kids. I have never ever wanted to do long distance. I did a half distance once and it was the biggest mistake of my life.