Triathlon training with Coach Leo

Who this is for

Age-group triathletes, from a first sprint to a full distance, and runners who ride and swim without ever having called themselves triathletes. You do not need a power meter, a lab test or a coach's spreadsheet. You need a race in the calendar, a connected account that carries your training, and an honest idea of how many hours a week you can give.

What Leo builds, week by week

The plan is sized on the legs of your race rather than on a distance you typed. A sprint and a full distance do not ask for the same long ride, and Leo sets that ceiling per format. Your bike sessions are built as real sessions, with a warm-up, a set and a cool-down: endurance, tempo, sweet spot, threshold or intervals, in watts when Leo knows your FTP and by heart-rate zone and effort when you ride without a power meter. Your swims are built the same way, in metres, around your critical swim speed. Every session counts toward one training load across all three sports, so a heavy week on the bike shows up as a heavy week, not as a rest week with a bonus.

Three thresholds, one athlete

A triathlete does not have one engine measured three ways, but three reference points. Your profile carries all three: your threshold pace for running, your FTP in watts for cycling, and your critical swim speed per 100 m. Leo derives the running one from your history. The other two you can declare, or unlock with a field test: a cycling effort you tell Leo about, and a two-distance pool test, classically 200 m then 400 m. Until a threshold exists, Leo prescribes that discipline by heart rate and effort rather than inventing a number for you.

Brick sessions, where they belong

A brick is one session with two disciplines in it, and Leo writes it as such: the ride, the transition, then the run leg at the easy end of its pace band, never faster. They appear in the last eight weeks of the block, because running off the bike is a rehearsal and not a way to build fitness. When you come back and your watch has recorded two separate activities, Leo matches both to that one session.

On your watch, not only on your phone

A structured session is useless if you have to memorise it on the pool deck. Bike and swim sessions export to your watch like the runs already did, with their intervals, their targets and their distances in metres for the pool. Your rides and swims come back in automatically from Strava, Suunto, Polar, Apple Health or Health Connect, and your swim and bike records sit next to your running ones.

What Leo does not do

Leo does not estimate your overall triathlon time. Projecting a finish across three disciplines, two transitions, a course profile and a race-day sea state is a different job, and we would rather leave the field empty than fill it with a number you would plan your pacing around. Leo does not model your cycling power without a power meter either, and it does not coach your swim technique from a video. If those are what you are shopping for, say so out loud: there are tools built for them, and this is not one.

Your format, in detail

A sprint and a full distance are not the same sport stretched. Each format has its own leg distances, its own weekly shape, its own bike intensity and its own taper — one page each, saying what Leo builds.

Frequently asked questions