Build your IRONMAN Cascais plan
Your coach opens with the IRONMAN Cascais set for October 23, 2027, asks about your week and your fitness, then writes every session of your full-distance (140.6) triathlon plan. Free, and you can start as a guest. About 52 weeks to go.
Start your IRONMAN Cascais plan- Formats
- Full
- Terrain
- Rolling
- Taper starts
- October 5, 2027
IRONMAN Cascais distances
- Full 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike, 42.2 km run
Course
The IRONMAN Cascais course
The single-loop 3.8 km swim uses a rolling start from Praia da Ribeira and runs along the protected Cascais bay to finish in front of the fortress at the Clube Naval, followed by a 600 m run to transition at the Hipódromo. The 180 km bike is two 90 km laps: the Guincho coast road, the main climb to Malveira da Serra (4.75 km at about 4.8 %), the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, a lap of the Estoril Formula 1 circuit and a coastal run to a turnaround in Lisbon past Belém and under the 25 de Abril Bridge.
Read the full course notes
The athlete guide lists 1,529 m of climbing, concentrated in the first 20–30 km of each lap, with the last 57.5 km of each lap essentially flat apart from two small rises. The three-lap marathon follows the Guincho road out along the coast toward Cabo Raso and back through Cascais marina, with 236 m of climbing and crowds all the way to the finish in Cascais bay.
- Terrain
- Rolling
- Formats
- Full
- Race-day conditions
- IRONMAN expects the water in Cascais bay to be 17–19 °C in October, and recent race days measured 17–18 °C, so this is a wetsuit swim: wetsuits are mandatory below 16 °C and legal up to 24.5 °C. Air usually runs from about 15–16 °C at dawn to the low 20s °C in the afternoon, cooling again for the evening part of the marathon. Wind on the Guincho coast is the variable to plan for on both the bike and the run.
What to train for
You ride two very different courses in one: the climb to Malveira da Serra and the roads through Sintra twice, then long flat stretches along the coast.
Build long rides of 5–6 hours that include two sustained 20–25 minute climbs at Ironman effort, practise steep descending, and get comfortable holding the aero position into wind for an hour or more.
The three-lap run on the exposed Guincho road means a headwind on part of every lap, so do long runs on exposed routes and pace by heart rate. Rehearse your full fueling plan on long bricks, since the flat second half of each bike lap is where you can eat and drink most easily.
Sample week
A sample IRONMAN Cascais 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 15 min: drills and technique
- Tuesday Key session
- Bike, 1 h 30 min with threshold intervals
- Wednesday
- Swim, 1 h 15 min: steady intervals at race effort
- Easy run, 1 h
- Thursday Key session
- Run, 1 h with tempo segments
- Friday
- Rest, or 20 minutes of mobility
- Saturday Key session
- Long ride, 5 h, then a 45 min run off the bike
- Sunday
- Long run, 2 h 15 min easy
Your build to race day
Taper
Tapering for the IRONMAN Cascais
Start the taper two to three weeks 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 rolls, so keep one short session on undulating ground in the first taper week. With the race on October 23, 2027, your taper starts around October 5, 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 full-distance (140.6) triathlon season for the IRONMAN Portugal-Cascais on October 23, 2027. I train about [hours] hours a week, [days] days a week.
IRONMAN Cascais training questions
How long should I train for the IRONMAN Cascais?
Most athletes give a full-distance (140.6) triathlon twenty-four to thirty 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 IRONMAN Cascais course like?
Rolling. The single-loop 3.8 km swim uses a rolling start from Praia da Ribeira and runs along the protected Cascais bay to finish in front of the fortress at the Clube Naval, followed by a 600 m run to transition at the Hipódromo.
How cold is the water at the IRONMAN Cascais?
IRONMAN expects the water in Cascais bay to be 17–19 °C in October, and recent race days measured 17–18 °C, so this is a wetsuit swim: wetsuits are mandatory below 16 °C and legal up to 24.5 °C. Air usually runs from about 15–16 °C at dawn to the low 20s °C in the afternoon, cooling again for the evening part of the marathon. Wind on the Guincho coast is the variable to plan for on both the bike and the run.
When should I start tapering for the IRONMAN Cascais?
Start the taper two to three weeks 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 rolls, so keep one short session on undulating ground in the first taper week. With the race on October 23, 2027, your taper starts around October 5, 2027.
Do I need an account to get a IRONMAN Cascais training plan?
Start as a guest and save a free account later. Your coach writes your full-distance (140.6) triathlon plan and adapts it every week as you log your training. No card.