BUILD VS BASE? Whats the difference

Steve's progression is correct. In my experience, this method of building a season works well for distances up to about half Ironman: The line in the sand, so to speak, between Base and Build is when you move to the goal of building Muscular Endurance (the ability to push the pedals for a long time + the ability to push hard on those pedals, for example). The TTB method is to begin incorporating sessions with training time at or near lactate threshold. The classics are LT intervals on the bike (for example, 3 x 15' with 4-5' rest), tempo running, some track work, etc.

However, in my experience this structure begins to fall apart for the IM distance, especially for the self-coached athlete. I learned this hard way in my first two years of IM training. I extended the TTB progression straight through my season and was doing a LOT of LT work in addition to IM-flavor training volume. For the self-coached athlete who might not have the experience of managing their volume and intensity, this TTB prescribed intensity combined with IM-flavor volume is a dangerous combination.

I break the season into General Preparation, the It's On Day, and Race Preparation, as I feel these are more descriptive:

• General Prep: "training to train," building the basic endurance systems required for IM success. Address critical limiters but also establish habit patterns that address the "little details" of stretching, core strength, nutrition, etc. Most important, the athlete is training to train, NOT training for the Ironman. There must be an element of mental relaxation, otherwise you'll go nuts. With athletes registering for IM's 364 days in advance, I find my job is more managing their heads than their bodies.
• It's On Day: the day on the calendar when we finally begin to train for the race. We shift the head and take on a....greater sense of urgency, I suppose. This date is a largely a function of the athletes support systems: first, for how long can the athlete's work and personal lives sustain a high level of mental focus and committment to training volume? Second, what kind of endurance base have we built and can we sustain that volume?
• Race Prep: we've done all of our homework (reduced body comp, flexible, fixed our bike fit, etc) and now focus on the requirements for IM success: cycling endurance, running strength, mental strength and solid execution shills. Key workouts are what I call "epic" cycling sessions, frequent long runs of 1:45-2:00, and race rehearsals (100-112 bike/30' run, exactly like race day). During this period I use the tool of Bike Weeks and Run Weeks, where we push the volume and frequency envelope of one sport and simply maintain the other sport. This is a good tool for managing the volume and recovery cost.

More detail here: http://www.cruciblefitness.com/coaching/TrainingPlans/preview.htm

If this is stuff that's counter to some books you've read, that's because I've made much of it up   I've taken some stuff from here, other stuff from someplace else, and honed it through experience, trial and error. I've been working very closely with Joe and Gordo for about 3 years now and I wrote a swimming catch article for the book. However, the template for the seasonal structure of GL is based on the TTB. If you were to talk to Gordo he'd probably have similar ideas as mine, with regards to naming or structuring a season. We're both IM-specific coaches, though I focus on applying the ideas to more....real world situations, I guess. My focus is on doing what I can with the hours the athlete has given me to train. I spend a huge amount of time tricking the athlete into not thinking he's training, coming up with whacked out stuff for them to do, to keep it fun and expand their experience with volume and distance, etc.

Crap, gotta get to work! We've had a break in the weather and I'm hopping on the motorcycle today for a run in the mountains.

Cheers,

Thanks for the clarification and tips Rich.  Great article too!

Another question though,  its stated in Going Long that one should aim to build Base till he can comfortably complete at 5 hour ride. But it didnt say HOW FAST this ride should be done at?  I mean,  a person could probably go at 14-15 mph and do a 5 hour ride,  but does that mean he's ready for the Build phase?

Thanks

I do things differently and you might call it reverse periodization, in that I prescribe Build-type stuff early in the season and Base-type stuff (higher volume) closer to the race.

Sketch ATP, for CDA

January-March: run focus period (4-5+ runs per week, lots of road races on the calendar, especially half marys). Swim is technique focused. Don't worry about cycling volume. Shoot for 1 x LT interval session, 1 x long (2-4hrs consistently, for IM athletes) per week, short 1-2 hr ride in there somewhere as well. If the athlete is chained to trainer I usually just have them ride twice per week, but they are runnin' fools.

April-May: run continues as per Jan-March but increase long run volume to 2+hrs. Turn down the intensity of that bike LT session and begin to apply more cycling volume. Here is where I want the athlete to ahve some 'epic' cycling weekends on the calendar: double long rides, point to point rides, etc. Really push the distance envelope.  Race rehearsal end of April, end of May. June is lots of bricks and race pace stuff.

In summary, I've found there is not much place at all for build-type run training in the context of Ironman training. Track, for about 90% of the athletes out there, is a waste of time. However, LT interval stuff on the bike is very usuful, all year round. We use the low volume period of Jan-March as an opportunity to hit the LT stuff. However, when the cycling volume increase, the LT stuff gets turn down. The net is I want the athlete to exit March with EXCELLENT run fitness, of a half-marathon flavor, excellent swim technique, body comp, flexibility, and high watts at lactate threshold. All the limiters have been addressed. Then we turn the heat down, turn the volume up and keep it rolling through about 3 weeks out from the race.

Lots of ideas in here I can talk about but I've got to get a ton of work done before I go to Hong Kong next week. I did a lot of riding around yesterday and I think my mission for the next 2-3 months is to make people see that it doesn't always have to be spreadsheets and geeked-out workouts. I've developed a pretty good system of using cool events to build fitness and keep it fun. I don't really train so much as I use my body as a vehicle to do cool stuff. Climbing TT's with my tri club, fun hammer rides down the beach with my friends, a run to the top of a mountain, a fun,.annual training camp on the Wildflower course with my buds, a killer double century here, an epic cycling weekend there, stuff like that. I think we get too geeked out over stuff and miss an opportunity to something really cool and fun with our fitness. To me, IM is just one day. But in May I'm going to ride solo 800-900 miles through the parks in southern Utah. That's an adventure that is far better than IM, in my mind.

Crap, gotta work. Cheers.

Thanks for the great post Rich.

I'm doing IMCDA,  so your sample ATP was perfect!  And your ATP does go against some of the principals of TTB,  with regards to the reverse periodization.  I personally think your ATP will work for someone more experienced, someone who has in the previous seasons already built up a sufficient amount of base in order to handle the LT straight away.

But I do agree that LT/ track work for IM athletes is NOT very beneficial as ME is the limiter for most long distance athletes.

Thanks again for the great long post and have fun in Hong Kong.

My Beginner training plans that I'm offering on trainingpeaks.com don't have any LT work at all on the bike. For the intermediates I don't start it up until about week 8, I think. Advanced hit is pretty much out of the gate. Regardless, we're only talking about 25-45 minutes of total work interval time within an entire training plan and the week is scheduled to manage the recovery cost of that session.

I've shifted my training ideas back and forth between a few schools of thought. At first, I followed the TTB progression, until I figured out it just didn't work when applied to IM volume, particularly the run intensity. Or, rather, it did work but it was very difficult to manage. Then I moved over to a....higher volume approach, with lots of Zone 2-3/Steady time and almost no intensity. Now I guess you could say that I'm back in the intensity camp, but very, very tightly controlled and managed. LT work is very, very time efficient training. A 60', highly structured session per week can get you much faster in a very short period of time. You just have to manage the risk. I manage bike and running intensity by doing it, if any, relatively early in the season and far away from the high volume stuff. More importantly, I pay a great deal of attention to how to schedule the athletes training week, so that the high risk sessions are separated by 36 to 48 hours.

If you agree with my assessment that "its not about how goes the fastest, but rather who slows down the least," then that description will largely guide your training. 3:20 marathoners don't run 4:30's off the bike because they're slow runners. They fall off the pace because they've training for a marathon, not an Ironman. Likewise, 4:10 marathoners don't run 4:30's because they're fast. They've just trained correctly, raced correctly and the two combine to help them simply not slow down.

Crazy jet-lagged,