I broke 5 hours in my early to mid 50s several times going as fast as 4:35 at the Clearwater WC.

My key workout leading up to the race was six weeks in a row of Saturday bike 50 to 55 miles at a good pace followed by a 6 mile run off the bike. The first week the run sucked the entire distance, the second week the last mile felt pretty good, the third week the last two miles felt good until the last week I knew the first half mile would suck but after that I would feel good. When that happened I was ready to race.

Along with that key workout I swam three times per week up to 3k each workout and ran 4 to 5 times per week for up to 45 miles (including my Saturday bricks) and biked 3 times per week which included 2 hard spin classes (no Zwift at that time) and the brick.

It’s not easy for people who are at 5:40 to go under 5. I’ve done several 70.3s and I was able to shave off 5-10 min if I get lucky. I’m one of those 5:40 people. Ideal goal would be hitting 5:20 and 5:30 first. I would kill to finish under 5:30.

From my perspective the best tips I have for targeting sub 5 is aiming for an efficient swim - come out the water feeling good rather than knackered, whether that's in 25 or 35 mins. Aim to be smooth through transitions; you don't need to rush but just relax and get through at a decent pace. On the bike avoid overbiking; gaining 5 mins on the bike but losing 15 mins on the run as you cooked yourself will ultimately make it a hell of a lot harder to dip under. On the run it's being able to have maybe 10s/km quicker than the pace required in your locker fresh; and being prepared mentally to tough it out as all you want to do is to slow down but you simply need to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you cross that line no matter what your legs are saying.
Nutrition and having it practiced and dialled in (from pre race all the way through) will also play a massive part; a bonk can cost you a massive amount of time, and it's better to lose 30s at aid stations than 10 minutes of bonk.
Ultimately work on your weaknesses, become as efficient as possible across the board and be ready to suffer like hell to make it count on race day. The aim is it'll be less than 5 hours of suffering, so it's bearable haha

And all of this applies no matter what your target time, it's getting the most out of you through the race that'll beat a realistic target time, whatever that target is imo.

Oh gimme a break with this. Go to the start line of any tri, running race, group ride, or lower category bike race and tell me how many people you see that are anywhere near being underweight. Maybe if it's a big race you'll see one. Compare that to the crowds of overweight and obese people. Furthermore, look at this specific crowd of 5h 70.3 hopefuls and tell me what weight demographics you see most prevalent.

The issue of being underweight at very very high level endurance sport is notable, but you would expect that in a sport where weight is almost directly linked to speed. This is a non-issue at the level of 5h 70.3's. It's not that people ED'ing their way to being grossly underweight should be ignored, it's the scale of the issue. Half of the field is overweight and one person is underweight, but we can't point out the biggest thing that would help half the field since it maybe possibly could increase the risk for one person?

"In a world where ED's are a real issue wording it as above that lighter will always be better no matter what seems irresponsible." I contend that in a world where obesity/overweight is a real issue for >60% of the population it's irresponsible to suggest that losing weight is not the right answer, especially in the context of how fast you can complete a footrace.

Nobody ever gets hung up on any other sports performance issue the way they do with weight. Another great performance indicator is training volume. I've never heard 'it's irresponsible to say 'train more' as a blanket statement in a world where plantar fasciitis is a real issue'.

Furthermore, losing weight in an unhealthy, unsustainable manner can still make you run faster. Runners do this before races all the time. Cyclist do this every year into the TdF. You eat unsustainably low calories and have slightly worse training performance for a few weeks, then start eating carbs normally again and your watts go right back up and your weight stays lower than it was before. I am absolutely not recommending people do this, especially for a 5h half. Just pointing out that it's such a powerful performance enhancer.

This first post nailed it. Sub-5 is doable with consistent training. 10-12 hours is fine versus the 12-15 that could get you into the mid-4hr range. If you can get into 35ish +/- swim shape with 2-3 days in the pool, you're probably good there. It helps that the 70.3 swim is just an extension of the Olympic swim. Not a ton of bang for your buck with a sub-5 goal to go to the pool 4-5 days/week to inch closer to 30. You can make up that time on the bike & run. The bike is all about making 2:30-2:40 as comfortable as possible & then being able to run 8:00 pace or faster. Sub-5 is a goal where you should include some brick sessions in training. It doesn't have to be weekly but every other week would be a good start. Sub-5 training means some bigger weekends. You want to be doing a weekly long ride & long run. Get in some good volume & give it a go.

No issue with losing weight being a way to get faster if you can lose weight sustainably and healthily - up to a point. Maybe I've been too strong in my response, but I stand by the fact that simply not acknowledging there is a caveat to 'lose weight, get quicker' is, in my opinion, irresponsible to post.

If I were to rewrite my intial response I would better acknowledge that yes, being lighter will generally make you faster, but it should be caveated that chasing weight loss as the be all and end all/being driven by constantly getting lighter will have a negative impact on performance/health.

You are correct about weight being a far more prevalent topic than overtraining, likely due to being a more prevalent issue in society (in both obesity and in terms of body image). As someone who's grown up in (and now goes to uni within) a sporting environment relatively frequently exposed to the issues of undereating/ED's my view is skewed by my background and lived experience, hence my strong views on the subject. Obesity is of course a larger issue in society on the whole; and encouraging participation in physical activity and healthy eating for weight loss for health is for certain something I agree with and advocate.

On within elite sport unsustainable weight loss being practiced in short bursts with knowledge of the risks to achieve maximum race day performance; I am aware it happens and helps performance when done well (take cutting weight for a grand tour as a GC rider). It is a principle about the sport I love that makes me uncomfortable to be honest. However, I also appreciate it is a part of the sport and ultimately when done for a short period for a specific event, with care and supervision to aim to mitigate issues occurring from it, is very effective and often has no long term issues associated I am aware of.

So I apologise for the strength of my response, but stand by the fact that I disagree with your post without any acknowledgement of the caveats and dangers of focusing on just losing weight no matter what.

I will also add that anyone with better knowledge on the topic or if I have said anything incorrect, I am open to learning, so please do correct me so I can better understand/appreciate the issue!

It's all good man and I appreciate the well-thought out reply. I still disagree, but there is a middle ground.

I was a bit provocative/blunt with the initial 'think you're light, get lighter' phrasing. It's good advice for 99% of athletes. We don't pull punches on volume, aero, fueling, intensity, but for weight we decided this <1% warrants such coddling that we can't speak truth to the majority. If there was a pair of socks that made 99% of people run faster then phrases like "guaranteed to make you faster", "leaving time on the table", and "think your socks are fast? these are faster" would be perfectly valid.

IMO the reason we mollycoddle underweight athletes (and people in general) is because of the excuses and rationalizing of overweight/obese people. There's a multibillion dollar industry set up to tell people that losing weight HAS to be done in a certain way that's only possible through their specific program, as opposed to just eating less and moving more. It's amazing that every single overweight person is the exception, they actually go faster when they're heavier, they can't lose weight because of ED's, they know the dangers of being underweight. Nobody extols the dangers of being underweight quite like people who are overweight. Every caveat given for losing weight gives fuel to these excuses---it exonerates the majority who have a problem to spare the very few who may develop a problem. It's an exceedingly silly way to address an issue.

I can see how being relatively isolated into a high level sport environment increases exposure to undereating as opposed to overeating. The good news is that those environments are (usually) accompanied by coaches and mentors who can help with these issues before they go too far. Although some coaches have the opposite effect, but that's a whole other thread.

All that said, if there's a graph of weight v. race time it's going to be a J-shaped curve, where when you are extremely light you can slow down, then there's a minimum time at a still very light weight, and then the graph goes up linearly with weight. Almost everybody (>99%) is to the right of this minimum, especially people in the 5h 70.3 range.

i think this is a GREAT point if you've got weight to lose. When done correctly weight lose typically yields huge fitness gains which yields huge performance improvement gains.

most people though don't want to do the training to lose the weight. Or they may not have the time etc

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I think the #1 thing to think about is consistency. Day in day out, week in week out, month in month out, year in year out. You don't need huge weeks or epic workouts if you're being consistent. Being consistent also makes those huge and epic workouts more productive. This also bleeds over to diet, daily routine, how you structure your life etc. If you're haphazard about everything or even some things in your life, it makes being consistent harder.

I once coached a former pro who is a self proclaimed train wreck. They made a lot of decisions that inhibited their development as an athlete, as an individual, as a person. The bad decisions often undid a lot of the positive development stuff they did for themselves. You can want something but if you're in chaos all the time it's hard to be consistent.........in anything.

Are you consistent?

The second thing to think about is your training. How is it structured? Where are you lagging, where are you winning in your race to break 5h? Weaknesses and strengths. What do you need to do to shore up your weak areas and then when are you going to do that?

The third thing is how are you going to structure training during the early season, the racing season the post season the pre season? when are you racing? which races are not that important and which are? Are you racing sprints and olys or not? If you're racing USAT Age group nationals that's an oly race worth tapering for. If you're racing the oly race 2h away on Sunday then maybe you still do a 5h Saturday training day.

If you sort out those 3 things that's the 90% solution. The other 10% then becomes equipment optimization, zwift or trainer road, which running shoes for training

A little secret I've learned in 25+ years of coaching. Doing all 3 of the above is harder than it sounds. Yet, if you can be consistent, figure out what really needs to be done and when to do it and then structure your training around that, your odds of success increase many, many times over someone who can only do 1 or 2 of the above.

Hope that helps

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'm not sure you've thought this through. If 20lbs extra weight helps slow your deceleration into the wind then surely it slows your acceleration with a tailwind. There's also the fact that extra weight=extra volume=extra frontal area.

Extra body fat doesn't help your muscles hold more carbs or fluid. Frodeno and Ditlev are stick figures and somehow manage to have enough fuel.

What this sounds like to me (dead on the bike, not enough nutrition/water) is that you're stretching your diet too close to a race. You'll always be a bit slower when you're in a prolonged caloric deficit. That's why you lose weight before the race and bring back calories a few weeks before the race and even surplus calories leading into it. Best of both worlds.

Start by using the search button and search for everything by Desert Dude. lol. He didn't add his run 200 miles a month theory in his post.

Daytona will be my 20th 70.3s and my slowest 70.3 is 4:50. Like Brian says, consistency is key. I pretty much train year around for a 70.3. If I signed up for a race in my 1st year, no way I'd gone sub 5. But putting years of training together I'm pretty much around a 4:30 give or take 10 minutes. The other factor is the bike. A good bike will bleed over to a decent run. If you feel fresh coming off the bike, you'll most likely have a good run.

For me, I typically train 15-20 hours a week (10k swam, 10+ hours biked, and 5ish hours ran) Oh and the 3rd key is staying injury free. So a lot of my training is on the treadmill or the trainer. And I don't do nearly as much speed work as I should. Can't be consistent if you're always hurt.

Also, I'm old as dirt *48* and weigh too much to be really fast. lol

Good for you in building the community and encouraging others!

I do think it is possible to have folks go from 5:40 to sub 5:00. But it takes time (as others have said) and an investment in every discipline and aspect.

• If they are swimming >35 minutes in a 70.3, I recommend finding a swim coach in the Fall and spend 4-6 months focusing on improving technique and not worrying about banging out volume. For a summer 70.3, they can start to focus on swim fitness in March and build from there.
• If their bike split is >2:30, strength train and spend the Winter working the Flanagan plan to build power and improved aerobic conditioning (do a search on the forum to find Flanagan's plan that he posted/shared years ago).
• If their run split is >1:45, build consistent miles so that they have a good mileage base. You don't have to run "fast" to run a sub 1:35 half marathon, but you have to run. The BarryP plan provides a great structure for building a base. Higher frequency, shorter runs to start works great because the training load isn't huge but helps the body adapt to handle more running. Build weekly mileage slowly. Once there's a solid base (I'll say 4+ months...I'll let the experts weigh in) incorporating tempo and speedwork. I think I read this on the forum years ago and it has always stuck with me in regards to someone trying to build run fitness: "Speedwork is icing on the cake. You don't have a cake yet." Running is the discipline that causes the most injuries so it is always about building and proceeding with caution to avoid/prevent injuries.
• Listen to Desert Dude
• Have fun with the training and journey.

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Tad

It took awhile, but I finally discovered that its not the destination that's important, but rather the journey.

Lots of good responses to this. I would say that my advice would really depend on how much time you need to shave to hit that sub 5. If you are <10' off then just hit all the low hanging fruit. Find free speed in you position and equipment, lean into your strengths and focus on a block of consistent 10-12 hours of training. If you are 30' off this goal, you will need to dig deeper to work on weaknesses. at 54, I was able to break 5 at Santa Cruz, 33, 2:39, 1:36. but i was close to this goal for years with exactly 5 hours at STG, 5:04 at OC. for me it was focusing on improving position on bike, that probably got me a few min alone. and then just getting faster running off bike. Not my PR run but was able to negative split and finish race really strong. I way under biked knowing that my strength was the run.

Not to you necessarily, but what are the blocks you’d use for bike training for that year? How would you plan out the macro cycles?

I am pretty certain that you are actually new to the sport.

All good, but just remember when you argue with folks based on stuff you read online: you try to impose an authority that you clearly don't have compared to someone like, say, Desert Dude. There are tons of things you will only learn as you go along your journey and you will not read anywhere. e.g. what kind of volume works for you, how long is too long a build cycle, etc. Someone like Desert Dude has this knowledge x 10,000 based on the fact that he has coached hundreds of successful athletes.

You'll never, or rarely make up with a tailwind what you lose with the headwind. If you do make up that time then the tailwind section is going to have to be much longer than the headwind section, much, much longer. Same with hills.


Allometric scaling.
20 pounds doesn't really = that much extra A in one's CdA. Maybe .001, maybe. (anyone want to come test, gain 20# and then test again?)

Losing 20 pounds and any associated size that went with it would help out much, much more on any course that had hills vs one that was dead flat.

On flat courses power/drag ratio, p/CdA is very important. On rolling/hill courses p/wt ratio plays an important part, the steeper the hill, the longer the hill then the more important this is. The world has yet to see the rider who had to much power in either of those equations.

Most triathlon courses are skewed to favor p/CdA with parts being skewed to p/wt ratio.

Hope that helps

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

If this a serious question I could probably pull this off.

I'm about 20 pounds heavier than I was when I did my last 70.3...little did I know I was "training" for this moment! 😂

I'm not unserious about this. Wouldn't be a full on field test, just a few baselines runs, maybe 1 position tweak then send you off to the all you can eat ice cream buffet. Gain 20, then let's test again

problem is this puts you much further from optimal race weight

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I think your original point is spot on... lose some lbs you phat b*stsrd (he screams to the mirror)! My best racing and fitness came when I really focused on a clean diet for 6-8 months

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In search of the righteous life... we all fall down

I volunteer as tribute, Please assign cookie sessions in training peaks as needed.

^ This. 100%
I never get it right. Since I'm good at swimming and cycling, I feel great in the water, through transition and love flying on the bike. Yet I figure (wrongly) each time that I need to 'bank' some minutes on the swim and bike legs because I'm a s**tty runner.

Getting to a point where you're over-confident of your run will benefit you much more than loving your bike speed.

Consistency, consistency, and then more consistency. Get aero as f@ck and don't over bike. Nail nutrition, hydration, and electrolytes.

Get decently fit for swimming, so you can come out of the water in under 35 minutes, but have not burned any matches in doing so. This can probably be done on 2-3 swims a week and also adding in some band/paddle work and strength training at the gym or home.

I guess that is a big list, but number one should be consistent, year-round training. There isn't an offseason, but more of a focus season to improve any weakness, and taking time off or doing minimal training during the winter months will only put you in the backseat and chasing fitness.

Honing your aero position is super important and you can gain a huge chunk of time if you optimize everything. I have gotten quite a bit faster in my mid 40's on lower watts than I was pushing ten years ago. As an example, earlier this year I averaged a bit over 27 mph in an Olympic distance race on 292 watts. Eight years ago, on the same exact course I averaged 26.2 mph on 310 watts.

The actual bike you ride matters a bit, but how the bike is setup and how aero you are matter A LOT more than what bike you are riding. I don't mean that a beach cruiser will be fast, but you don't need to drop 10k or more on a bike to be fast. My current bike cost me under 4k (bought used on classifieds here) - I already had decent wheels - and I had the top bike split in 3 of the 5 races I did this season. Snooping around, I know my power was quite a bit lower than those who were quite a bit slower because I focus on the small details, but all those small details add up to quite a bit.

On the run, I'd recommend building up to 5 runs per week and up to 35 or so mpw. Include strides in two weekly runs, and add in one run a week with paces that are at tempo or quicker. At the 70.3 distance I also do and recommend over distance long runs. So for a 70.3 you would probably want to do a few runs in the 14-15 mile range to be able to execute a strong run on race day. This long run should be built up to, and in the last 3 months leading into a race, a long run of 10+ miles every week goes a long way. Super shoes will certainly help, come race day, and could take up to 2 minutes off racing with more 'training' shoes.

That was probably a bit long winded, but hopefully helpful.

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Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
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Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

Depending on your age and height, you may actually be somewhat "exceptional" in terms of running ability. Studies consistently show 2-3 seconds / pound / mile. Let's say you're 5'10". If you dropped your BMI to to 20, that's 140 pounds. That's roughly 50 pounds lighter than your current weight. You could expect to speed up around 100 seconds per mile. For a half marathon, you're now at 1:03.

Would you really run 1:03 if you dropped 50 pounds (and ran 80 mpw)? Who knows, but if you really are around 5'10" / 190 pounds, running 1:25 is quite impressive, and you might find yourself very speedy if you dropped the weight.

Re-reading your post, I see you ran 1:25 at the end of a 70.3. If you're sure the course wasn't short, I'd be getting out of the tri game, dropping weight, and winning some running races.

My BMI is around 20. When I was carrying more weight after my pregnancies, I found running absolutely brutal and was much slower than normal, more so than when returning to running after injury.

On the flip side, heavier people I can run circles around have no problem keeping up with me on the bike if it's flat.