Your Endurance Lifestyle. Redesigned.

Deciding to do a big week takes more than simply clearing out your schedule…don’t be like everyone else and do miles just for the sake of doing them. Your goal as a time-focused triathlon ninja master is to make the most of those extra hours. If you just like to train a lot just to train, you are on the wrong site!

There are two particular types of Big Weeks, and once you have a better understanding of what you want to get out of the Big Week (#1 and #2), you can decide which to choose: Sport Specific or Big Tri. A Sport-Specific week means you will devote the bulk of your time to training in that one sport. A Big Tri week means you will go bigger in all three disciplines.

Sport-Specific Week
Most folks can really benefit from a week focused on cycling only. Most of use just don’t spend the amount of time on the bike that is required to get good at it. And if you overdo it on the bike, you can coast, shift gears, stop to eat, call a cab, etc. Worst case is your butt hurts. Overdo it on the run or the swim and you are in serious trouble…overuse injuries are so common in our sport and pushing your run and swim limits are an easy way to cross the line and get injured.

A sample week Bike Bike Week would have a 10Hours athlete doubling their bike hours, going from 4-5 hours of cycling in a week to 8-10 hours (of just cycling!). This could be 2 x 1h rides and 2 x 1.5h rides during the week, and 1x2h and 1x3h rides on the weekend. During this week, I suggest only one session each of swim and run…both being very light / technique oriented. Do your best to avoid the urge to keep your training up in every aspect…you will come back stronger!

Big Tri Week
Done closer to your actual event, a Big Tri Week is just what it sounds like: a whole lotta swim, bike, and run. Scheduling here is much trickier as you are attempting to keep things up with all three sports. I advise that the biggest gains should be made on the bike, with swim and run gains made through increased frequency. In other words, you can ride 5 hours in one session, but I’d suggest swimming 4-5 times for 45 mins each instead of 2 x 90min swim sessions. Believe me, you’ll still be tired! A typical Big Tri Week could be as follows:

M: Swim 1h, Bike 1.5h

T: Run 1h, Bike 1.5h

W: Swim 1h, Run 1h

Th: OFF

F: Swim 1h, Bike 1.5h

Sa: Swim 1h, Bike 3.5h, Run .5h.

Su: Run 1.5h, Bike 1h

Fortunately as a 10Hours athelte, you won’t be carrying a lot of fatigue into your training week…that’s what usually sidelines most triathletes. It’s the fatigue they bring with them that does them in, not the fatigue they earn during the week.

How To Choose
If you are 10+ weeks away from your race, I’d recommend a sport-specific Big Week. If you are sub-10 weeks away from your race, then I’d look at a Big Tri Week. Interested to hear what folks think of adapting this methodology for their own training…feel free to post Q+A in the 10Hours Forum!

Tweet This Post 

This entry was posted and is filed under Bigweek, Bike, Methodology, Planning, Run, Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.