Ironman 70.3 training - 5 hours bike ride vs 3 hours bike ride and 2 hours run

neither!

Why 5 hours?  That seems really long.

(I'm probably not much help - but my training plan didn't call for anything over 100k on the bike, runs longer than 90 mins or for any bricks...)

Definately NOT the 3 hour bike, 2 hour run. I think a four hour ride or a ride of 65-70 miles should be the longest overdistance ride you should do for a 70.3, and then only towards the end of your training build.

Ouch! That is a very hard session to prep for a half iron distance. How long will the recovery time be after that? My guess is a few days- days when you can't really do any benificial training because you are still recovering from that mega session. I like what BryanCD suggested. Or alternatively, how about breaking it up into a 3-3.5hr bike one day, and a 90-120min run the next? That still seems like a tough couple of days but the recovery won't be as tough. Or leave a day in between the long sessions. Definitely wouldn't do option 2 though!

..and I like what you have suggested! A long bike of 3.5 hours on a Saturday followed by a 90min run on a Sunday. if you want to make it very race specific, run the last 2 miles at your anticipated race pace. I did that workout and it was good stuff.

Totally agree with this.  I did my first HIM last year and longest bike was 4 hours (70 miles), done once about 3 weeks out, and the only "bricks" I did were races.

I think it's foolish to disagree with BryanCD about anything triathlon related, and hopefully I'm not when I say...

I think it depends on why you're doing that long workout. If it's for training purposes (Ie. a significantly longer session than your body is accustomed to doing), then I wouldn't you do either unless you're very careful and you're WAY out from the race with plenty of time to recover from both fatique and possibly a minor injury.

On the other hand (and I don't think this is the case or you wouldn't be asking the question), if you've ramped up your fitness level to where these workouts are not a stretch for you (like almost zero chance of injury and 100% chance of not requiring more than one rest day afterwards to be fully recovered), then do whatever you feel like doing. In my personal opinion, I'd think the 3h/2h would be better but the last thing I want to do is participate in another BT debate on the value of bricks.

FWIW, I plan on doing the Bike/Run courses of my next HIM this week as a brick at a comfortable effort (hopefully around 4.5 hours of effort). But I think/hope that my fitness level is now to a point where this session won't be all that difficult for me as I've done many 4-7 hour bike rides in the mountains at altitude and quite a few 13.1 mile runs (at harder than "easy effort"), including two in a week with little to no recovery required.

The main reason that I want to do this brick session is for pacing. Because I live a mile above the race course in altitude, I get almost zero RPE feedback from my level of being out-of-breath during a race. (All I really know is that if I'm out-of-breath, I'm definitely pushing way too hard for a HIM). So I want to do the distance at a comfortable effort which will end up being some pace. And then during the race I can use that pace as my basis that I can improve upon if I'm feeling good. I'm also going to test my nutrtition plan since I've never done well with that during a HIM race.

I'll jump on the bandwagon and say neither. Over-distance rides definitely have value, but you're talking at least 50% farther than your 1/2 distance if you do the 5 hour ride. For the 3-hour ride and 2-hour run, even if you're not all that speedy, you're talking about near race distances as a brick.

These are closer to full IM distance workouts.

Hey, listening to (and copying) people who are better and know more than me is the main reason I've had any success at anything in my life.

Based on your general contribution to the community at large, I ceratinly don't know more than you! I just have had different experiences I share and I too learn here everyday.

Well, my HIM training plan does have one 5 hour bike ride in it. So it's not unheard of.

Most of my long rides range in the 4:00-4:30 range though.

Right... good job clarifying that a 65-70 mile ride should be the longest. Some of us are slow man... it takes us 4.5-5.0 hours to get in 60-70 miles!

"hijack"...The Silver HIM plan from BT has me doing a few 4:30 rides which thus far has ended up being 87-90 miles if I stay in zone 2. Is this just over kill? I recover fine from these rides so I don't see much of a problem but I don't want to waste my time either....Jason "end hijack"