Cycling
For the sprint event, there's a good chance you rode around 15 to 20 miles for your longest training ride. This ride time was likely near the same duration as your entire sprint event. We will use that principle again. Here are some recommendations for your cycling:
? Similar to the swimming recommendations, make one bike workout an aerobic maintenance (Zone 1 to 2 effort) ride. If you are riding two days per week, change this workout the following week to include tempo intervals (Zone 3). Begin with an accumulated total of 15 minutes of Zone 3 time and build from there.
More: Training Zones Explained
? Your second cycling workout, likely done on the weekend, is the long ride. This ride begins from a baseline of 60 to 90 minutes and should build to some 3.0 to 3.5 hours over the course of several weeks. I prefer the long ride not increase in time of over 30 minutes per week to reduce injury and illness risk. On the weeks you include tempo intervals mid-week, keep this ride all Zone 1 to 2 intensity. On the weeks your mid-week ride is aerobic, include Zone 3 efforts in this long ride.
? If you ride a third day, make it 30 to 60 minutes of primarily aerobic maintenance effort. You can include form work (spin-ups, isolated leg work, accelerations, etc.)
Running
Training for a sprint triathlon, it is common to have the longest run be in the 3- to 4-mile range. We will build on this base for the Olympic race.
Similar to swimming and cycling, how much time it takes you to complete any given distance may be different than the athlete that lives next door. This is one reason using time rather than distance when assigning workouts makes it easier for many athletes to use the same guidelines.
Over many years of coaching, I've found that if an athlete's training plan includes completion of some 50- to 80-percent of the distance (or time) of estimated race day time (or actual distance) they can successfully complete the race.
Generally, I use cycling to generate the aerobic fitness for overall race completion. This means the ride of 3 to 3.5 hours is meant to give you the aerobic fitness to be successful on race day.
For run training, since you've already completed a 5K run in your sprint event (50 percent of the Olympic distance) you're well on your way to securing solid run endurance.
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