minutes vs miles

the reason for minutes versus distance is something that made a lot of sense to me when training from 'triathlons for ordinary mortals'...if u train in distance and u feel tired or worn out on a certain day, your pace will be slower and u will end up training your longest minutes...

i feel if your not feeeling 'great' on any day, training in minutes at a slower pace will 'save' u so to speak so u don't end up killing yourself to meet the mileage at a reduced pace.  face it, if your not feeling well on any day, u should be taking it easy SO a slower pace and sticking to minutes will allow u to do that.

I train my run in minutes (swim in yds, bike in mi), because I am adding 10% distance per week, which is a heck of a lot easier for me to think of... 4 extra minutes per run, rather than .32 miles or w/e.  For me it could have gone either way, I'm just lazy.  

-Trev

I'm all over the place. I use miles for bike since I have to choose one of my routes. I use miles for swimming actually too, i.e. 1 mile, 1.25, etc. most of the time and sometimes meters.

Runs I try to stick to minutes because I had been battling some injuries and minutes keeps me in check. When I increase, I increase by minutes and I don't need to increase a whole mile so I increase more gradually.

Then again, I have been doing a 3 mile route recently and I've been trying to (and getting better at) keeping the whole time trial tendency in check.

Minutes are great for making your weekly plan, you schedule time for the workout. Minutes works great for workouts at the gym, on the trainer, the treadmill or in the pool where after all you haven't really moved.

But when doing outdoor activities, distance is easier to plan because, after all you have to get home too. You make a route and know the approximate time needed. If time is limited you plan your route to be realistic within that time, but you might get home early on a good day.

Distance and in particular routes are great for comparing and monitoring progress. If I do the same bike route I can compare and see how well I do on the hills and each 5km split. The same thing on the run or swimming, whether in the pool or OWS. Then workouts becomes more like TTs.

By distance, unless it's coming up on closing time at the pool. Even then I usually just end up going a little harder/faster to squeeze in my 'usual' distance.

Most of my runs these days are on a 5k loop.  Sometimes I do 4 miles or so instead, and sometimes I have another route that will take me around 7. What I tend to change more is the frequency of how often I run.

For biking it's usually about 12 to 25 miles. On the short end I kinda wander around close to home, on longer rides I plan out a route.

My swims are pretty much always 1.5 miles. Deviations skew towards 1600m or 2000m when I show up with less time, and sometimes as much as three miles.  Unless I get kicked out for lightening or something random, I always end a swim in a quarter mile increment. (Easier to mark on the 100 mile swim chart on the wall...)

Most triathlons are about doing X distance in the best time you can, so it makes sense to train the same way for the most part. (Speedwork/intervals are different.)

They're trying to bring back that old BT feeling . 

Yes, someone who actually used the search function.

I know...  And in other threads we complain they don't use the search function...  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

BUT, I guess if you are getting a answer, search.  If you are answering, it is probably better to provide an answer to a question that was asked in this decade. 

The question is relevent though.  It get's asked at least a dozen times a year.

I don't see a question in the post that bumped this.

I started the HIM training program which goes by minutes.  But because im a painfully slow rider the bike training wasnt working for me- it just wasnt enough bike training... So i uped the milage on the bike and use (more or less) minutes for the swim & run.   

I think when you begin training you will figure out where you need to tweek the workouts to fit YOU.