Build your Rio 70.3 plan
Your coach opens with the Rio 70.3 set for August 8, 2027, asks about your week and your fitness, then writes every session of your 70.3 triathlon plan. Free, and you can start as a guest. About 41 weeks to go.
Start your Rio 70.3 plan- Formats
- 70.3
- Terrain
- Flat
- Taper starts
- July 27, 2027
Rio 70.3 distances
- 70.3 1.9 km swim, 90 km bike, 21.1 km run
Course
The Rio 70.3 course
The 1.9 km swim is a single lap off Copacabana, the beach that hosted the Rio 2016 open-water events. The 90 km bike leaves Copacabana for downtown through Botafogo and Flamengo, past Santos Dumont Airport and through the Marcello Alencar Tunnel to the Rodoviária Novo Rio at km 15, over two and a half laps with tight but well-marked turns.
Read the full course notes
The 21.1 km run is three flat laps of the Aterro do Flamengo park, with Sugarloaf Mountain on the skyline, finishing at Marina da Glória. It is flat, fast and urban: the challenge is heat, turns and pacing rather than climbing.
- Terrain
- Flat
- Formats
- 70.3
- Race-day conditions
- IRONMAN lists an average water temperature of 23 °C (22 °C was recorded in 2025), so the swim is usually wetsuit-legal under the 24.5 °C rule. Air temperatures typically run from about 21 °C at dawn to 29 °C by the run, with strong sun and humidity even in Rio's dry season. Plan your run hydration for heat: aid stations come roughly every 1.2 km, so take fluids and ice at most of them.
What to train for
With a flat bike full of turns and tunnel ramps, practise cornering and getting back to target power quickly: a weekly ride with 20–30 hard 10-second re-accelerations pays off here.
Build ocean confidence with open-water sessions in chop and sighting every 6–8 strokes.
Run bricks off the bike in the warmest part of the day, building to 60 minutes at 70.3 effort, and rehearse drinking every few minutes because the run comes in the hottest part of the morning.
Sample week
A sample Rio 70.3 training week
A week from the middle of the build, about six weeks out. Your plan sets the real distances and paces from your own fitness and adjusts them every week as you train.
- Monday
- Swim, 1 h: drills and technique
- Tuesday Key session
- Bike, 1 h 15 min with threshold intervals
- Wednesday
- Swim, 1 h: steady intervals at race effort
- Easy run, 50 min
- Thursday Key session
- Run, 50 min with tempo segments
- Friday
- Rest, or 20 minutes of mobility
- Saturday Key session
- Long ride, 3 h, then a 30 min run off the bike
- Sunday
- Long run, 1 h 30 min easy
Your build to race day
Taper
Tapering for the Rio 70.3
Start the taper ten to fourteen days before race day. Trim the volume in all three sports, keep short race-pace efforts in each, and do one last short brick so running off the bike still feels familiar. The course is flat, so pacing decides the day: rehearse your goal pace in short segments during race week. With the race on August 8, 2027, your taper starts around July 27, 2027.
Also in Claude
Ask Claude for this plan
Add AthleteSpace to Claude once, then paste this prompt and put in your own numbers.
Build me a 70.3 triathlon season for the IRONMAN 70.3 Rio de Janeiro on August 8, 2027. I train about [hours] hours a week, [days] days a week.
Rio 70.3 training questions
How long should I train for the Rio 70.3?
Most athletes give a 70.3 triathlon sixteen to twenty weeks of focused training on top of an existing base. The coach counts back from your actual race date, so if you have less time than that it builds the best plan the remaining weeks allow rather than pretending you have longer.
What is the Rio 70.3 course like?
Flat. The 1.9 km swim is a single lap off Copacabana, the beach that hosted the Rio 2016 open-water events.
How cold is the water at the Rio 70.3?
IRONMAN lists an average water temperature of 23 °C (22 °C was recorded in 2025), so the swim is usually wetsuit-legal under the 24.5 °C rule. Air temperatures typically run from about 21 °C at dawn to 29 °C by the run, with strong sun and humidity even in Rio's dry season. Plan your run hydration for heat: aid stations come roughly every 1.2 km, so take fluids and ice at most of them.
When should I start tapering for the Rio 70.3?
Start the taper ten to fourteen days before race day. Trim the volume in all three sports, keep short race-pace efforts in each, and do one last short brick so running off the bike still feels familiar. The course is flat, so pacing decides the day: rehearse your goal pace in short segments during race week. With the race on August 8, 2027, your taper starts around July 27, 2027.
Do I need an account to get a Rio 70.3 training plan?
Start as a guest and save a free account later. Your coach writes your 70.3 triathlon plan and adapts it every week as you log your training. No card.