High intensity low volume training plans

x2, first thing that came to mind for me too

I used the Endurance Nation plans for some races the last two years.

I didn't get in all of the workout. Probably followed about 75-85% of the guidelines.

That being said, I was happy and fairly well prepared for the races I used it for.

You can look at my logs from 2010. I did an HIM in September and an IM in November that year, using their plan.

It is still 10-15 hours a week if you are following their plan closely.

This should be answered first, and then really take a look at how much training is modified, or possibly overhauled. Make sure you want to do that 2 months out from the event.

I'll check out Endurance Nation, thanks for the pointers.

There is endless debate about whether "lower volume high intensity" or "high volume lower intensity" is better. Having done a high volume lower intensity program, I want to check out the alternative. This is not about trying to get through an IM with the smallest time investment - it's about trying both types of program to see what works best for me, and as a secondary goal to see if the required hours will allow me to do a full IM without compromising on fitness. If I do another full IM I will be trying to set a PR, not just finish. Otherwise I'll be trying to get to Vegas at the HIM distance (may take a couple years but I've got time).

This is not for the current race, it's for the next one. I know enough not to bail on my plan 2 months before the race, and I've had pretty good success with it. But who knows if I'd have done better on another plan? That's what I want to find out by trying another plan next.

If the Endurance Nation plans or approach still call for about 10-15 hrs/wk, that's not what I'd consider low volume.

You might take a look at CrossFit Endurance. I am by no means advocating their approach, in fact, I find ... well, I better not state my opinion here, but they do make some big claims for some low-volume plans, so it may, for you, warrant a look ... and then you can decide if you're willing to put your body on the line for it.

I guess it also depends on what you'd consider "low volume."

Another thing to take in mind is the number of workouts and pre/post time they take (e.g., going to the pool, if you need to drive to a bikeable place, showering, etc. ... that's not going to change.) And higher intensity will also demand both more and higher quality of recovery.

Another question, out of curiosity: how skin-tight was your time management this training round? There are definitely ways to manage your time and training so that you're not "busy all weekend." You shouldn't be, even for IM training. If you want to improve performance by a fair bit (since simply training again and doing another IM, provided it's on similar course and conditions, will likely improve your performance), you probably can't skimp on (total ballpark figure, just saying) five long rides of 5+ hours. But that's not remotely going to take all weekend, every weekend. That's dawn to noon on one of the days only.

And you don't need to do a long run on the other weekend day; in fact, you shouldn't be doing very many long runs in the first place (depending on how the running is structured, an occasional 2-hour run will do), and if at all possible not on back-to-back days.

What I'm saying is, if you're willing to put the money/effort into a good coach, personalized plan, and economizing your time to the utmost, you could probably get faster on less volume, structured differently than you've been doing.

Maybe IM training and racing doesn't fit into your life as it is now. There are other races that you could focus on that may fit into your life, family and other obligations.

For many IM is the ultimate race and that distance race is the only one they want to focus on even if it isn't very practically.

I'm less interested in trying to "make IM fit in my life" than to listen to the folks who say "even if time is no object it's best to work out less but harder". I've never heard anyone say that CFE worked for them, though, so I'm pretty reluctant to try it. I think most people on the high intensity side are still one notch up from CFE. With EN, it looks like you have to pay to see their plans, so I signed up for the free seminar and hopefully that will give me the basic idea. Eli I tried trolling your logs but it was hard to get the big picture of the plan from that.

That said I absolutely do not have room in my life to do 20+ hours a week again for a long time.  I have no specific attachment to long course. I have enjoyed this go-around and will be glad I did it, but if time restrictions mean I need to step down to half or even Oly/sprint next year, that's fine with me. But this is a secondary consideration. I want to try a high-intensity plan, and then based on the time requirements I'll select a race distance.

My time management is very good, that's not the issue. I run and bike from home and work, and I do many rides as bike commutes (saves a shower too). The only major overhead is driving to the pool for weekend swims, that adds ~1 hour of overhead. I think most of the pain is that my plan had me doing 12 6 hour bike rides, and 4+ hour rides started 6 months before the race. I also need my sleep so it winds up being 9 am wakeup, 10-4 bike, eat, shower, and I'm only ready to hang out around 5.

I'm curious when you say that you only recommend a 2-hour long run every other week. Do you have more background on this? Most plans I've seen have 2+ hours every week with stepback weeks every 3-4 weeks.

I'm considering hiring a coach, and I know it will be better for my performance, but I really enjoy being a student of the sport and I'm loath to give that up. Hence all the questions .

Not a recommendation, just a ballpark figure, and not even every other week necessary. (Of course, if you run 15-minute miles, that would change my recommendation. Somewhat.)

Remember that stock plans are exactly that--stock, and generic. They HAVE to have wide appeal and applicability, but there's just an enormous amount of wiggle room in there that you can play with/cut out/do differently.

Provided your weekly running volume is considerable, you don't need to be doing LONG long runs every weekend, nor even every other weekend. People, and I mean some pretty advanced people, effectively train for stand-alone marathons without ever doing a long run more than 13-15 miles (and these folks are doing that, even at training pace, in significantly less than 2 hours). But their running week is pretty solid and tightly structured. You can't cut too many hours from running--but you can spread them out and structure them in a way that's more manageable for you and acceptable to your house.

If I had to do 20 hours of training for more than a week or two, never mind 20+, I don't think I'd ever do an iron race.

Just for fun, take a look at Don Fink's Competitive Plan in his book Be Iron Fit. It's a 30-week program (the first 10, Base, are pretty much what you'd need to START any other iron training program, and it's just that ... base fitness, base training, all in Z1/Z2). The following 10-week Build phase begins incorporating high-intensity training, and averages 13 hrs/wk. The final 10-week Peak phase averages 15 hours/wk and has some significant stretches or intervals of Z4 in nearly every workout.

Most folks here on BT don't do 20 hours a week long term for IM. 

I'd say most do 8-11 hours a week and build up a bit in last couple of months.

Endurance Nation is place to look at higher intensity type training plan. They allow you to join for a 2 week trial and check things out from time to time.

Good luck on your last 2 months of IM training. Are you doing CdA?

This is really good to know, thanks everyone! I'll check out the Fink plan as well. I think part of the reason my plan has been so crazy is that it's from Joe Friel's Your Best Triathlon which is aimed at folks trying to win races, and because Friel tends to favor volume over intensity. But that plus Jorge's offseason program have me in by far the best shape of my life. I didn't realize the difference was that intense, though - it sounds like it's way way more time than other plans.

Spreading the hours out sounds perfect - I can get a lot of free time during the week, it's mainly the weekends that are crunched. I bike commute so I will put up 10 hours of bike time M-F without even trying , and I can run for 1+ hours every weekday (and would love to, and run fast if possible).

Yep, I'm doing CDA, and very very excited about it . Hoping to go sub-11 if I can squeeze out the last few minutes (this run is gonna hurt ). Thanks everyone for the helpful advice!

I used a CFE coach for Austin 70.3 in 2011 and prior for cowtown 26.2 in 2010. It can work. But I am not sure that it is a time saver. I was about 8 to11 hrs per week for the 70.3 and 7 to 8 hrs per week for the 26.2. The time was just spent differently. And I was still as prone to little injuries. They were just different ones.

Still, I train that way now because I enjoy it. Good luck in your IM. I am threatening to sign up for one for 2013.

I'm signed up for IM Canada this August.  My logs right now are bad for health reasons but even when I'm gtg, I put in less hours than most.

I worked hard over this past winter doing mainly 1 hour workouts on the bike and my watts are up from last year (250 FTP, up from 210).  Could I do an IM right now?  Sure.  Would it be optimal without the longer workouts?  No way.

The next few months will be building up time on the bike/run and getting closer and closer to race effort level.  That's what works for me.

I agree with the comments on time management.  I think almost everyone can *make* time for 1 long bike ride a week, especially in the summer months.  Get up early and get it out of the way.  5am - 10am, for example.  I think there's also benefit to moderately long rides during the week.  My bike commute is about an hour 1-way.  But I can tack on an extra loop around my lake to make that 2 hours without much extra planning.

In my opinion, if you need to limit your training hours, evaluate how well you do in each of S/B/R.  Figure out your bare minimum to maintain your performance in each.  Then add in your available hours on the ones you can improve the most.  It'll come out looking suspiciously like a plan

Well, if I got up at 5 am, I'd have to go to bed a lot earlier - like 8-9 pm. That'd also cause some issues. Unfortunately my body really needs 8+ hours of sleep a night and I suffer badly in all aspects of my life if I don't get it.

It sounds like the consensus is that my current plan has very high volume, so just dropping back to a normal plan would be a substantial time savings. It may still not get me to IM distance, but maybe competing at HIM is possible. (Although lately I've been finding the idea of doing a sprint every weekend to be pretty appealing.) Thanks everyone!

Actually my ideal sleep with training is 10-11 hours. Without, it's 8. It's annoying.

I definitely believe I can get to IM distance with much less volume. But I don't want to just go the distance, I want to make substantial improvements and turn in the best performance I can. That probably sounds like I want to have it all without making any sacrifices, but since people on here often say that low volume/high intensity is more effective than high volume, I thought I'd give it a try. It looks like EN may work for me for this purpose.

Those were sleep hours not training hours . Training hours have been 20+ for 3 months. Which I'm now hearing are ridiculously high - I knew they were high but not how high. Definitely not doing that again unless I take a shot at Kona, which wouldn't be anytime soon. I think for me if I dropped below 8hours I'd be passing up gains because I can do 8 hours all at high intensity (e.g. 3 bike workouts, 2 run workouts, 3 swim workouts).

Maybe a better way to put my situation is: I can do 3-4 hours of training per weekday with a max workout length of 2 hours. I don't want to do more than 2-3 hours of training on any weekend day more than once every two weeks, except in the last month or two of training. Also, I can hike aggressively all day every weekend too. After that, I want to maximize my performance as priority 1, and priority 2 is doing the longest distance.

Some N=1 data for you.  I trained with EN last year for IMLP using their "intermediate" program. Here were my total hours in the six months build:

• Jan: 20
• Feb: 27
• March: 31
• April: 36
• May:  51
• June: 60
• July: 46 (which includes the race)

First IM.  Stretch goal was 12 hours and i came in @ 11:49 so i was very pleased.  

I did swim more than they recommend, though, so these hours are probably a bit high than if you follow their (no-swim-in-winter) plan exactly.

Good luck!

This just became my sales pitch to my wife - thanks!