Barry P and biking plan.

What do you mean, total? Runs are easy cause they are short and I can do team on lunch. On the bike that's what I was looking at 1.5/2.5/3.5 hours for the short med long, so that is 7.5 hours. 5 for runs and then another 3-4 for swim puts me at 15.5-16.5 hours per week. A lot. But I have a pretty ambitious Summer and building off last year.

But of course the bike can be interrupted by weather, and 2.5-3.5 hour ride after work is a bit of a stretch. I think I can do 2.5 threshold ride and that would be about it. Cause then it's off to bed and up at the butt crack of dawn for Masters class the next day.

The weekday limit you put is what I was looking for. You don't necessarily have to go short, med, long with the bike distances. It more depends on the workout you need to get in. With that I'm looking at the 1.5 hr ride. If that's the time you have, then that's the time you have. Put the intervals in here, the shorter ones over 100%, or 2 x 20 at 95% or so could be here too.

The 2.5 hr ride can have intervals as well, but I tend to do them near or just under threshold with attacks within them going well up there. The recoveries are still going to be 70-80%. I'll also do longer ones, 15-30 min in here as well. Usually 85-90% depending on how the whole thing looks. You may start a little under to get the hang of it, but work yourself up to this range. Sometimes I put in the bigger and smaller ones. I usually put ~10 min between the longer blocks at 70-80%, or between Sufferfest videos. The 2 x 20 can be done here, riding out the rest at 70-80%, but it takes some effort to do. It would likely affect your workouts the next day as well.

Be careful thinking of the Long Ride as LSD. They're not slow, and really shouldn't be with this volume. They also shouldn't really be that steady either. If you're really expanding your range, you can go under 70% to start, but you really want to get up in the 70-80% to work on the aerobic system more. Indoors, I do more of the same as the 2.5 hr recommendations. Outdoor, find places to push yourself. Hills are the most obvious answer to that. It's easier to work yourself up for it and it works. You can do this wherever you like though. Don't be afraid to break FTP on these. It's a training ride, so push yourself. You want to know how to manage your effort for the races, but in training you want to push yourself to build the power.

And make sure you are hitting those harder efforts (like in the 1.5 hr recommendations). Adjust your riding to hit those as opposed to just getting something in every day. It's not quite like running where you do want to run often. I backed down my volume to get used to how to hit those well first, and then built it back up as I became more used to it.

And for the long run, how far are you going? You could do it Sunday, where it seems most common, but you can also do it during the week, so it's away from the long ride. As far as scheduling your time goes, shouldn't matter if it's running or riding if you have 1.5-2 hrs  to get a workout in. With some work, I've actually been ok with a 90 min long run the day after the long ride, and still do 2 x 20 the next day. This doesn't always work best for everyone though.

Wow... thanks a ton.

So ya, not really LSD bike, I just said that to get the point of less intensity form the others. I was thinking more like high med low intensity for the short med and long... but I could make two rides of 2 hours and do a 3.5-4 hour ride on the weekend. But I do realize the intensity is much higher on the bike than what I'm doing with my running right now.

Is what we are talking about enough???

Yes I know that depends... but with some higer intensity and volume, is 3 times a weeks enough frequency wise? Obviously if I was on a bike focus it would be more. I am sort of because from last year I know now I was not riding nearly enough, and this year I wanted to improve my biking, but also signed up for a couple hard centuries... so more or less that turns into a bike focus by default.

The run is what it is. I did my run focus at the end of last year withno riding, and being a complete newbi to running volume is just where it is at for me right now. So Barry P works good for me and even right now if I stay at 30 mpw 6x/wk that is so much better than last year. Basically I will be wher eI need to be on the bike and then at that time I will see if I can go back to 40 mpw with 4/8/12 like I was at the end of the year. I can't do the long at the begininning of the week cause that throws off other stuff, but I could easily do my long in the middle of the week at 1.5-2 hours.

If I needed to do 4 times a week on the bike it would look like

easy run(ER)1.5hr bike Tue

med run/swim Wed,

ER/1.5 Thur,

Long run/swim Fri,

ER/2.5 bike/swim Sat

Med run/3.5 ride Sun... Mon off.

If I just stayed at 3x a wk on the bike then ya, I could work it out. Either way just keep it up and if need be throw in a recovery week to keep me going.

I just got back from my century, so taking in every single word right now may be a bit much.

What rides exactly were you looking at for these centuries? I know if I did 3 times a week and went easy on the 70 and it was very flat (say 500 ft or so), then I'd be in for a very long day if I went to the Kickapoo Kicker (sort of) near me. 96 miles with 12 Cat 4 hills & more smaller or spaced out things, totaling ~7,800 ft. But if I'm riding it aggressively and putting in the hills, I'd be much better off. I'm getting 10-11 hrs out of the 4 rides and am doing rather well on the weekend centuries. I'd be doing just fine in the KK ride.

And yes, I think you get it with the question after the first paragraph. You want the ups and downs in the power levels of your ride as you are trying to promote a training stimulus. You want to hit into zone 4 & 5 at times to get a stronger response. How much and how often depends on the ride. Today I was only doing that briefly as the hills aren't very long, but it was often as there are a number of these smaller hills that are good to hit. I could change that to extend out for several minutes after the hill next ride.

What I do for running isn't really BarryP, but does have different levels. 4 times a week are easier 30-50 min runs. May or may not involve hills, but I don't push on them. These are the post ride runs. Two of the other days will be hills runs. Nothing more intense than a few strides with these.  I need a treadmill since I don't have enough hills for what I'd like to do (Chicagoland). I'll go 65-70 min for these with 40-45 minutes of hill intervals and shorter flats. If I have time, I'll extend out to 80 min or so. These are on also on swim days. The first interval is usually awful trying to get going, but the rest will be solid. The long run varies in what I do. Most always run outside. Sometimes I'll use hills, sometimes not. Usually tends to be a progression. Done on Sunday, and I may swim morning, run afternoon, or vice versa. Whatever I feel like that day. ~90 min has been long enough for me. I'm expecting race times to be about that or better. And I just don't feel like running farther.

I see. I will be doing a metric century June 5, but will do a full if the wife does not go. July 15 is 120 miles with 10K feet. HIM Aug 5. Aug 19th 100 mi/12K feet. Sept 9th HIM.

Since my centuries are so close to my HIM, they will just be rides and not races and I will just go into taper. Talking to some locals they said I should be fine as long as I don't go kill it. I have not done these centuries before and just want to do it for the experience. I live in Colorado so nothing is flat. I like to climb. We'll see after 10K.

So my focus is to do good in the HIMs and the milage to do a couple hard centuries will help.

Thanks Nate. I don't have a power meter, so I was going to use HR outdoors with the longer setts. If I can dial in what I'm doing on the trainer enough I should have a good idea out doors. Then just look at my data and see that I actually held it.

The Barry P is pretty specific as far as increasing my volume with low intensity. Obviously later you need intensity but I am a beginner. I felt good doing 30 mpw and then 40 mpw was not a problem. But I was not biking. Right now I feel good at 30. So cutting out easy runs is not good because it cuts out volume and then you have to work harder which puts me back to where I was last year.

I think I am comfortable running where I'm at and working on increasing my bike. I think I have it sorted out of Doing hard stuff on my easy run days and doubling up on Sunday. Push it on Tue/Thur and then long on Saturday with easy on Sunday or visa versa as long as I get a good long run in. I really like having Monday off and I always feel ready to go on Tue.

If that does not work I can play with intensity a bit and do my long run on Thursday and load up on the bike on the weekend.

See how what you have in mind goes, and remember Nate's suggestions. You may be able to put it in every other week, or something like that. It will help out with cycling, but it could come at the expense of a little running. I know it's convenient to have a set pattern for a week, but it may not always be best.

That ride you have planned is a beast. 120 with 10k climbing is definitely more than just saying you're doing a century. I would guess it takes almost twice as long as what you'll do on the 70 mile rides. That's another reason why the intensity is important. You can do it if you back down for that ride and have been riding 70 above an "easy" effort and include some work in there. You'll also be used to stepping up the effort significantly for short periods of time and being able to recover well. That served me well on the Kickapoo ride, where i needed 380-400 watts to go ~5.5 mph for very short sections on some of the climbs.

I have a couple like yours planned, so maybe after doing them I'll have a better idea on tweaking the approach too.

Ya... it's going to be a long day. Not a lot of steep climbs though. Long gradual ones all day, and long descents. Even the "20" sounds sucky, but I'm pretty sure most of it is down hill after the last pass. And I am slightly concerned because my first HIM is only 3 weeks later. But I have a plan.

Every other week is a good idea too.

I think I am a little more comfortable now. You guys filled in a lot of grey areas.

Anyone else do Bary P without sacrificing the bike?

Thanks Kathy... somehow I missed this the other day. That seems to be how it looks like it is going to shake out for me too. Right now I have enough work to do to increase my 3 bikes, but seems adding a 4th on Sat and Sun would make the most sense.

the short answer is I need work on both. I have always cycled and yes it's a strength, but not if I am not putting in the miles and I have other ambitious cycling goals. My run needs the work so I really don't want to scrifice too much. It's had to run less than 3 miles... even if I do "sacrifice" and stay at 30 mpw, I still want to stick to the plan.

And doing bricks is a good way to crunch time and I might very well do that from time to time. right now at least I do my short runs during lunch. so it does not take much out of my day and I go home and do my bike. But I did a brick just the other day because that is what my day dictated. It was kind of nice.

I am doing a run 6 days per week and riding 3.  You can say I do a BarryP type plan but it is modified.

My long ride is Saturday with that being my non-run day.  My long run in Sunday. 

You can do that too, but will have to do a short run on your Mondays rather than making that your off day.  You probably don't want to mess with a run on your long ride day.

As for the cycling advice, I think everyone is stuck making a common mistake.  Most people make the mistake of picking a running plan borrowed from elite runners.  It has intervals, tempo, threshold and long runs all packed in to each week.  Going from elite to novice, they just scale down the speeds and distance.  In truth a novice should just do slow miles.

Similarly in cycling we are just time trialists.  No need for intervals at all.  Each ride should seek to maximize your average speed, or your average watts, or your average heart rate.  Consistent threshold power output.

My 2 weekday rides are 90 minutes each and I push for the highest average HR I can sustain.

on the weekend ride it's a long ride with lots of hills, but I try to take the lead and pull my riding buddies as much of the ride as they let me and when I'm not pulling I'm trying to ride abreast someone taking the wind.  I don't want any rest on these rides.

In addition, I do throw in mtn bike rides that are icing on the cake and not part of my formal structure.  So I might mtn bike in addition to the long road ride on Saturdays.  I might also mtn bike on Sundays before or after the long run and I like to try to sneak out for an hour on Monday nights.  But I only recently have built my fitness to the point I can do this after all the regularly scheduled training.