Olympic Triathlon — Training plan
Double the sprint, and a genuinely different race: long enough that pacing and fuelling start to decide the day, short enough that nothing is ever comfortable.
Swim
1.5 km
Bike
40 km
Run
10 km
Sessions / week
6–10
The short answer
At least two swims and two rides a week, alongside the runs your history says you actually do — between two and four. Every one of those sessions counts toward a single training load across the three sports, so a big week on the bike reads as a big week and the run plan eases accordingly instead of stacking on top.
The legs of the race
These are the standard distances of the format. When the event you name has a course of its own, Leo reads its legs instead and sizes the plan on those — the standard distances are the fallback, not the rule.
| Leg | Standard distance |
|---|---|
| Swim | 1.5 km |
| Bike | 40 km |
| Run | 10 km |
Sessions per discipline
| Discipline | Per week | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Swim | 2+ | The floor this format owes you. More if you already swim more. |
| Bike | 2+ | The floor this format owes you. More if you already ride more. |
| Run | 2–4 | Read from your own running history, not from a box you tick. |
No discipline goes beyond 4 sessions a week and the week never exceeds 10. If you tell Leo how many sessions your life allows, that number wins over everything above: the disciplines your race actually contains are simply served first.
Who this format is for
Runners moving up from a sprint, and swimmers or cyclists who want the classic distance. A 10 km run leg rewards people who already run, which is why this format suits the runner-turned-triathlete better than any other.
How the bike is written
The olympic bike leg is ridden just under threshold, so the key ride is written at sweet spot: hard enough to hurt the following run if you overcook it, sustainable enough to hold for the whole leg. Learning where that line sits is most of what this format asks of you.
The long ride
The long ride grows toward a ceiling the format sets, not toward whatever you feel like doing on a good Sunday. It rises from the longest ride already in your history, in steps, and stops where an olympic block has nothing more to gain from it.
Where the bricks sit
Bricks land on the long-ride day, every other week through the block and then every week across the closing eight. The run leg is prescribed at the easy end of its pace band, never faster: running hard off the bike in training buys fatigue, not speed.
The swim, in metres
Two swims a week. With a critical swim speed on file, one of them carries real intensity and the other stays aerobic; without one, both are steady and Leo schedules the two-distance test that unlocks the paces.
The last weeks
One to two weeks, volume down, intensity kept. The long ride loses its length like the long run does, the bricks stop, and race week is deliberately quiet except for short, sharp touches in each discipline.
What you need
A watch that records the three sports, pool access, and a bike. A power meter is optional and changes only the unit your rides are written in — watts instead of heart-rate zones.
What this plan will not tell you
Leo does not estimate an overall triathlon time, and it will not on this page either. Projecting a finish across three disciplines, two transitions, a course profile and the conditions of the day is a different job, and we would rather leave the box empty than hand you a number you would pace your race off. Leo also does not model your cycling power without a power meter, and does not coach your swim technique from a video.
Frequently asked questions
What are the distances of a olympic triathlon?
1.5 km / 40 km / 10 km: 1.5 km of swimming, 40 km on the bike and 10 km of running. If your event has a course of its own, Leo sizes the plan on its real legs rather than on these.
How many sessions a week does Leo plan?
At least 2 swims and 2 rides, plus 2–4 runs taken from your history. No discipline goes beyond 4 sessions and the week never exceeds 10.
Do I need a power meter?
No. Without an FTP your rides are prescribed by heart-rate zone and effort, accounting for the fact that cycling heart rates run lower than running ones. Give Leo an FTP and the same sessions come back in watts.
Does Leo give a predicted finish time?
No. Race projections exist for running distances only. Leo projects neither an overall triathlon time nor per-leg splits.
Is my 10 km time my olympic run time?
No, and the gap is usually bigger than people expect. You run the last leg on legs that have already swum and ridden, and how much slower depends on how hard you rode. That is exactly what the bricks are for.
How many hours a week does this take?
That is your call, not ours, and Leo treats it as a constraint rather than a preference: tell it how many sessions a week your life allows and it will never plan more, even if the format would like more. What it protects first are the disciplines your race actually contains.
There is no generic plan to download here
Everything above describes how Leo builds the block, not a fixed grid of weeks. The long ride starts from your own longest recent ride, the run frequency comes from your history, and the swim targets appear once you have a critical speed on file. A grid printed on a web page would know none of that.
Put your race in the calendar
Connect your training, name the race, and Leo sizes the block on its legs and writes the swims, the rides and the runs around it — then adjusts every week from what you actually did.
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Other triathlon formats
Keep going
General information, not medical advice. Consult a sports physician for injury or health concerns.