Should you train by distance or time?

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At the end of 2019, you probably saw a lot of "year in review" stats floating around social media from your fitness-fanatic friends. While a great way to celebrate all that your body has accomplished over the course of a year, it's not uncommon to hear things like “I only need 50 more miles to make it to 5000 miles of biking for the year, I need to run 8.37 more miles to reach my yearly goal or I didn't reach my swimming goals."

Not too long ago, GPS watches didn't exist. The website MapMyRide.com (or run) didnt exist until around in 2005. Unless you measured a distance by a bike computer, ran around a track (or marked course) or drove a specific distance in your car, there was no easy way to know your running miles. To track your workouts, you kept a written log in a journal. There was no Strava or Training Peaks to  accumulate your swim, bike or run total distance.  In many ways, life was actually a lot more simple without all of these gadgets. You start a workout, go by feel and finish by time. And there was no social comparison to validate your athletic worthiness. 

Today, people obsessively analyze over data. While data can be beneficial (when used properly), it can often lead to injuries, burnout and body image issues. Are you guilty of running back and forth by the front of your house just to make sure your run distance had two zeros at the end? Do you get anxious if you can't complete a given number of miles for the day/week? Whether it's swimming, biking or running, it's easy to obsess over even numbers - something in you tells you that you just have to get to x-miles to feel satisfied and accomplished.

As an athlete, you may be tied to training by distance for you believe that completing a certain number of miles (either over the course of several months or within one workout or week) will help you feel more physically prepared. Or, maybe you are using certain metrics to give you confidence in your abilities to complete a certain distance on race day. It's not uncommon for athletes to believe that completing a set number of miles/distance is the only way to prepare for a long distance event. At Trimarni, we prescribe all of our workouts by time for our athletes. As for me and Karel, we never go by miles when we train. Here's why.

More enjoyable workouts
When it comes to training, in my opinion (athlete/coach), completing a structured workout as planned is much more enjoyable when you can do what you need to get done, in a certain allotted amount of time, and then go on with the rest of your day. There's no chasing an outcome but focusing on the present moment. Even if you have a general idea of how much distance you will be covering within the workout, the focus is on the workout itself - not the outcome.

For example, a few weeks ago Karel and I had the exact same long run workout. We started off on the same route, did the exact same workout and Karel’s workout lasted 1:29.07 and my run was 1:37.07. Even though we did the same workout, it's obvious we differ in speed, ability and experience. So why would I go out and run 13 miles when Karel "only" runs 12 miles. Or should Karel run 14 miles just so he can run the same time as me? These are all things to consider with time vs. distance based training. When our assistant coach Joe rides for 3 hours in Jacksonville, FL, he can easily cover 60+ miles. For us in Greenville, we are lucky to get in 50 miles (so.many.hills). Training by time - with a specific workout focus to adhere to - removes a lot of pressure and expectation that can suck the fun out of training.

You are on your own journey
Ten running miles, 20 biking miles or 3000 swimming yards. To complete this distance, every athlete will require a different amount of time. But increase the intensity and you may cover a little more distance. On a day when you are tired or asked to run easy, you may cover a little less distance. If the workout is more skill focused, it may take you a bitl longer. If it's an easy day, you have the liberty to go easy. Focus on the getting through the minutes you have assigned. Try to focus on successfully accomplishing what's planned for you without comparing yourself to others or feeling like you always need to do more.

Be respectful of your body
Your workout should be based on your ability to complete a given workout within a time that makes sense for you (work/family/fitness), in your current fitness journey. Every individual handles training stress differently. There are many different ways to achieve similar physiological outcomes. And at some point, there will be little return on your training investment if miles is the only marker of a successful workout. Remind yourself that no one workout stands alone. When your training adds up and you bring fatigue to future training sessions, your fitness carries over. There are easy workouts and hard workouts. Don't worry if you don't cover the proverbial 20 mile run while training for a marathon, a 3 hour run when training for an Ironman or a 112 mile bike ride. Many injuries (and burnout) occur from the ongoing need to chase miles at any cost. Don't compare your pace to anyone else (or a past version of yourself).

New perspective
When a workout is assigned by distance, a few things can happen. You may look for the easiest (or quickest) way to accomplish the distance instead of selecting a terrain or course that works on your weaknesses. You may feel judged by others seeing your stats and feeling like you are "too slow." You may end up going too hard or you speed up to try to get in the assigned distance when you are crunched for time. Not worrying about the distance completed can bring less pressure to the workout, which means that you give your best but also listen to your body.  By going by time, you bring a new perspective to your training, you gain confidence from consistent training (less risk for injury/burnout) and you have more joy for what you get to do with your amazing body. 

Because most athletes associate miles to their longest weekly workouts, here's how we do "long workouts" at Trimarni coaching for our Ironman athletes. As a reminder, feeling prepared for a long distance event is so much more than just checking off workouts. Not only do you need to arrive healthy, motivated and injury free to experience success on race day but you also need to have a well planned nutrition strategy, a good understanding of how to manage the given terrain/conditions and great mental fortitude. 

• Swimming: Instead of putting all the focus on distance, we schedule workouts between 45-90 minutes and always focus on frequency swimming - 4-5 times per week. We also include specificity in every workout, strength work (towel, band, agility paddles, tech paddles) and speed within endurance sets. We don't believe in long, slow continuous swimming (ex. 3-4 x 1000's) but instead, swimming well (ex. lots of 25s-100's with short rest to build endurance).
• Biking: We always go by time and the miles are never the focus. There is structure in every long ride (intervals) that we prescribe and we feel the sweet spot duration for Ironman biking volume is between 4-5 hours - with intensity and running off the bike. Rarely do we have athletes riding longer than 5.5-6 hours. We also have our athletes biking a lot, with ~50% of weekly training volume coming from the bike. This biking frequency makes for great overall fitness gains. 
• Run: We never have our athletes run over 2 hours. Most of our Ironman athletes will run for 1:45-2 hours as their longest run. But, we also do a lot of two a day runs, back to back to back run workouts (ex. Fri PM, Sat off the bike, Sat PM, Sun AM), brick runs, strength-based runs (hills and weight vest treadmill walking) and progressive runs. We also really enforce good form running - helping our athletes learn how to run efficiently well. There is little to no physiological benefit from the added work that the body has to endure when running more than 2.5 hours. Most often, form suffers and the risk for an overuse injury increases. Plus, after 2.5 hours of running, your body needs a tremendous amount of time to recover. In the sport of long distance triathlon, it's not about being fast but being great at not slowing down. What preceeds the run greatly impacts how well (or not well) you will run off the bike. 

My new book Athlete to Triathlete will be released on 1/28! There's still time to place your pre-order: Athlete to Triathlete

Train smarter, ride smarter

It's a completely different mindset to go by time instead of by miles.

Just think about the many different outcomes that could occur if a coach tells all his/her athletes:

Workout: Ride 100 miles.

Do you know how long it would take Karel and I to ride 100 miles in Greenville?

Well, we have ridden a century just a few times (2 for me) since we have moved to Greenville in May 2014 and the miles do not go by quickly here!

Regardless of where you live (mountains, hills, flat, by the beach, etc.), it's important that your workout has specificity, especially if you are training for an endurance event.
Seeing that changing your physiology and adapting to training stress is paramount to being physically prepared for race day, if your training plan asks you to complete x-miles and there's minimal structure or purpose to the workout, you are delaying the opportunity to experience significant gains in fitness. Additionally, your training will become monotonous and you'll find yourself going through the motions, week after week with little to no improvements.

 Furthermore, if you aren't comfortable riding your bike due to a poor bike fit, you do not know how to use sport nutrition properly to stay well fueled and hydrated and/or you lack the proper skills (climbing, descending or changing gears) to ride efficiently on your bike, you will struggle to improve your fitness (and you may risk injury or sickness). 

I often hear other athletes talk about how "fast" they rode for x-miles as if the only goal of the workout was to ride as fast as possible. Or athletes will boast about how many miles they accumulated in one ride.
While there's nothing wrong with either of the above statements, athletes should not make the only goal of a workout to see how fast you can go or how far you can go.

Instead, focus on what's happening within those miles and above all, be sure that you can actually absorb the training stress that you are putting on your body. With this comes a responsibility that you are incorporating great lifestyle habits like good daily nutrition, good fueling before/after workouts, great sleep and stress management and the ability to function well in life.

We are very specific with our workouts and within every workout is a main set - even for the long workouts. And for our Trimarni coaching athletes who are in cold conditions and are still on the trainer, they have a very specific trainer option which does not keep them on the trainer for more than 3 hours - ever!

With a time-based approach, you make training fit into your life and not the other way around (and that's how we like to train and coach our busy athletes who balance training, family, work, etc.). And since every triathlete wants to become a better, stronger and faster cyclist since it is the most covered distance in a triathlon, it's very important to train in a way that can help you develop the necessary skills, fitness, endurance and strength to excel on race day.  

Consider the following tips to help you train smarter to reach your cycling performance goals faster.

The tips are not focused on time-based training but instead, they are very important components that will help you ride more efficient and thus, ride stronger so that you can ultimately run fresher off the bike. 

Cycling tipsRather than chasing miles when you ride, consider these tips to help you become a better (strong, faster, more efficient) cyclist.

1) Create a positive training environment for consistent training (note the position of the TV below which is in our workout room which is low to the ground. This is very important to not stress the neck when riding in aero)

2) Create variable cadence so that you can adjust your cadence as needed on variable terrain (incorporate specific cadence drill sets)

3) Learn how to use your gears properly (and anticipate when to change gears) when riding in the wind and on hilly terrain

4) Develop great muscular strength so that you do not tax your cardio system when climbing

5) Learn multiple styles of climbing so that you are not stuck in only one position

6) Learn how to anticipate climbs/descends

7) Get comfortable riding in a group environment so you are comfortable riding around others on race day.

8) Learn how to descend

9) Learn how to descend (especially on windy roads)

10) Get comfortable eating/drinking on the bike when riding (at all speeds)

11) Get comfortable changing bottles around in your cages

12) Practice changing a flat tire - and keep practicing

13) Ride with your race wheels at least 1/2 a dozen times before your upcoming race to ensure that they are appropriate for you to ride as efficiently as possible

14) Don't ride scared on the road. Be comfortable and confident on your bike.

15) Enjoy riding your bike! Ride your bike anytime just for fun (you don't need to turn on your gadget just to ride your bike.)

Time-based cycling training

After two weeks of training in Florida, it was nice to be back by the mountains.

On Saturday morning, a small group of friends joined Karel and I for a long ride, which included almost 90 minutes of intervals on a rolling hill loop near Caesar's head mountain.

Warm-up: ~45 minutes (ride to the start of the loop), constant rollers and a few short steep climbs

MS: 6 x 10 minutes at Z3 mid to upper (odd: heavy gear, slower than normal cadence. Even: high cadence, higher than normal cadence) w/ 4 min EZ in between.

Compared to the ride I did the previous Saturday in Florida (picture below) which included a short warm-up on flat roads, a 40-min TT effort on flat roads (drafting behind our friend Shawn and two other strong girls), a group ride (with about 30 riders) on flat roads, followed by a solo steady effort on flat roads (while the rain was falling) and then a cool-down in the pouring rain with puddles all over the ground (on flat roads), this is evidence that the miles just go by a lot slower here in Greenville as we live near the mountains and we ride near (and on) the mountains. 

And I'm ok with that.

At Trimarni, we are time-based, quality training coaches.

99% of our workouts for our athletes are based on time and not by miles/distance covered.

We realize that all races/events are based on distance (and not by who can cover the most distance in a certain amount of time) but we are more focused on what's going on within those miles (process driven) than the total distance covered (outcome focused).

It's very common for athletes to obsess about miles covered, often forcing athletes to cover more distance than they can tolerate due to poor form and fatigue which accumulates over time.

As you can see from my two rides (just 1 week apart), it sure does look like I am a slower athlete here in Greenville. 

But slow is all relative.

(And in all honesty, the route that we rode on Saturday was a fairly "fast" ride. Karel did his own intervals and averaged around 19mph! We typically average around 16.5-17mph when we ride outside and average around 1000 feet each hour. I also didn't show or tell you what my speed was during my main set so once again, it's all about what's happening within the workout not just the outcome).

For my first 2-3 years of endurance training, I was very obsessed with metrics. 

I didn't like the idea of stopping a run at 6.8  miles so I ran until it reached 7 miles. Same went for cycling. I would think, "why finish a ride at 37 miles when you can ride 3 more miles to get to 40."
40 miles sounds so much better than 37, right?

For swim workouts, I would often swim 100-400 more yards just to finish a workout at 3500 instead of 3100.

Or, I would often find myself counting my total weekly miles as if I had this magic number that I needed to reach to validate my fitness improvements or readiness to race.
As you can see from my ride on Saturay, I rode 59.58 miles. Not 60 miles.
I'm pretty sure I will still be prepared for Rev3 Knoxville in 7 weeks even though I didn't hit 60 miles.

Now, I can't even tell you how many miles I run as I rarely look at my watch (or the treadmill) for total distance covered.
When I swim or bike (and run), I stop when my workout when the main set is over and I cool down - that's when I am done.

Although my fitness, skills and endurance has improved considerably over the past 6+ years since I learned how to train smarter as an endurance triathlete, the terrain in Greenville has provided me with a completely new training stress which I absolutely love.

With this training stress comes a different mindset when it comes to bike and run training.

I invite you to consider time-based workouts instead of constantly chasing the miles when you run and bike.

Now you may be thinking that time-based training is not the way to go as your workouts need to be specific to your upcoming distance.

Well, this is a very old-school way of thinking (ex. that you must get in a 100 mile ride or 20 mile run in order to train for an Ironman) and we know that periodization and specificity within workouts can prepare an athlete for the upcoming demands of training.
Furthermore, if a proper warm-up, good economy, great skills, smart execution, great fueling/hydrating and excellent recovery habits are not enforced, the workout stress is not well-tolerated (and consistent training may be difficult to achieve).

Let's consider four types of athletes training for a half ironman distance triathlon.

Athlete A has a 60 mile ride on his schedule. He is a newer athlete and chooses to ride with a group for his long ride every Saturday. He accumulates 60 miles in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Athlete B has a 60 mile ride on his schedule. He is a newer athlete and rides alone on flat terrain and it takes him 3 hours and 50 minutes to accumulate 60 miles. But on this day, it's not windy. When it's windy, it takes him 4 hours to accumulate 60 miles.

Athlete C has a 60 mile ride on his schedule. He is a newer athlete and rides alone on hilly terrain. It takes him 5 hours to accumulate 60 miles.

Athlete D has a 60 mile ride on his schedule. He is an advanced athlete and rides alone on hilly terrain. It takes him 4 hours to accumulate 60 miles.

Athlete E has a 60 mile ride on his schedule. He is an advanced athlete and rides alone on flat terrain. It takes hims 3 hours and 25 minutes to accumulate 60 miles.

Who's the fitter athlete? 

Who's the stronger athlete?

Which athlete will be most prepared for race day? 

Hopefully, you struggled to select the correct answer because so many factors come into play when it comes to preparing the body and mind for an upcoming race, especially as it relates to cycling.

In my next blog I will discuss a few helpful tips for getting the most out of your cycling training as you prepare for your upcoming endurance event. 

If you are interested in training with us in Greenville to improve your cycling skills, explore our amazing bike-friendly roads and to enjoy our beautiful mountain views, contact us on our website to inquire about one-on-one training and your own personal private "training camp" experience in Greenville. We offer a variety of private camps from 1-3 days, covering all three disciplines - swim, bike and run. We can make your personalized camp as specific as you need based on your individual strengths and weaknesses.