IRONMAN 70.3 · Subic Bay · Last raced 7 Jun 2026
How to train for IRONMAN 70.3 Subic Bay Philippines
The organiser marks the bike as hilly, so athletes arrive at Subic Bay having trained climbs. The climbs are there. They are also over within the first fourteen kilometres and do not come back until the last thirteen. Everything between is flat road inside SCTEX, and above all of it sits the number that shapes the day: 31 C in the air and 29 C in the water, the same readings the organiser logged for three editions running.
The last edition was raced on 2026-06-07, and the organiser has not yet published the date of the next one. This page reads the course as it was last raced and shows how to prepare for it. A Trained athlete finishes in 5:54:44.
By Kian Briel, founder. Analysed by engine 1, updated
What is actually on the road
The organiser's own course files, drawn the way the Event Analyzer draws a member's race.
- Swim1.91 km6 m upCourse file
- Bike90.5 km in 2 laps588 m upCourse file
- Run21.3 km94 m upCourse file
You swim one counterclockwise lap from the Subic Bay Boardwalk beachfront, facing Waterfront Road. It is 650 m out, a left turn at the first red buoy, 600 m across, another left at the second red buoy and 650 m back to the beach, 1.9 km in all. The organiser describes the bay as calm and protected.
The bike leaves from Dewey Blvd and follows Rizal Highway out towards SCTEX. The organiser's overview names Tipo Road and SCTEX as the roads of the day. That opening stretch is where the hills are. The file climbs from the coast to about 160 m by kilometre 8, with the steepest ramp of the day, 1.5 km at 5.7 percent, starting near kilometre 5. Then the road drops again, and the organiser's two loops inside SCTEX read as two flat stretches of about 31 km each. Coming home you climb back to the same height between kilometre 78 and kilometre 84 and descend to transition at the SBECC. 588 m of gain over 90.5 km.
The run is two loops from the SBECC. It crosses Argonaut Highway, passes under the Argonaut Bridge, runs through the industrial park by Hitachi Road and out along Binictican Drive, past the golf cart paths, to turnarounds on Binictican Drive and at Maritan Highway where it meets El Kabayo road. The file measures 94 m of gain over 21.3 km and reads the whole leg as a single flat segment.
The organiser promises spacious roads, in a city that was once home to a U.S. naval base.
Course shape by distance
- Flat 89%
- Climbing 6%
- Descending 6%
The longest stretches
- Bike, climbing1.45 km5% of the bike
- Bike, flat31.4 km33% of the bike
- Run, flat21.3 km100% of the run
Each row is one unbroken stretch of the course that keeps the same shape the whole way. The number is how much of that leg you spend inside it, and it comes out the same whether you are fast or slow.
What this course asks of each leg
Twelve training dimensions scored for each leg against its own course, the way the Event Analyzer scores a member's race.
Heat tolerance, before anything else. Environmental resilience scores 90 on every leg, and on the bike it is the single largest demand on the course once each score is weighted by the share of the day it fills. Aerobic endurance and muscular endurance follow on the bike at 85 and 82, with threshold capacity at 70 and threshold durability at 68. The run's pair reads 85 and 81. So does the swim's.
The swim carries one more. Technical skill scores 67 in the water against 38 on the bike, and the reason is the shape of the lap: two left turns at red buoys in a single loop.
High-intensity capacity reads only 54 on the bike, because the rises are bunched at the two ends. Feed the bike file to the engine and it hands back nine repeats of a minute and a half at Zone 5 flowing without a pause into 45 seconds at Zone 4. That is the climb out to SCTEX in miniature: a ramp, then a road that keeps asking for work after it looks like it has stopped.
Then the bands. A Trained athlete swims 38:21, rides 3:05:32 at 182 W and runs 2:00:51. Roughly 27 minutes of that ride are spent climbing. About two hours are spent on the two SCTEX stretches. The Competitive band, from 4.15 W/kg at 75 kg and 4:20 /km threshold pace, finishes in 5:09:59, 21 minutes faster on the bike and 18 faster on the run. The heat does not care which band you are in.
- Environmental resilience90
- Aerobic endurance85
- Muscular endurance81
- Threshold durability72
- Threshold capacity70
- Technical skill67
- Aerobic durability65
- Fueling resilience55
- High-intensity capacity42
- Strength / force27
- Anaerobic capacity25
- Sprint power5
Nymiva reads what you can already show, from your own data
Connect your training history and the Focus Lab scores the same twelve dimensions this course demands against where you sit today. The gap between the two is what you train.
- MeasuredFrom your thresholds and testsThreshold power, threshold pace, critical swim speed and field tests you have done. The dimensions they can carry are scored directly.
- EstimatedFrom your training historyConnected activities are read for what they prove: long efforts, late-session fade, repeated hard work, fueling on long days. Each score says how it was read.
- ProxyFrom a stand-in, and named as oneWhere only an indirect signal exists, the score carries the proxy it came from and a lower confidence, never a number dressed as a measurement.
- UnmeasuredHonestly blankA dimension nothing in your data can answer stays unmeasured. It is never a zero, and the plan does not pretend to know it.
Every dimension ends in one word
- Develop the course asks more than you can show
- Maintain close enough to hold at the minimum dose
- Covered nothing to build here
- Unmeasured the course needs it, your data cannot say yet
Nymiva reads twelve dimensions for the course, from its file and its conditions, and the same twelve for you, from your thresholds and your connected training history. Each of your scores says what it was built from and how much to trust it. A gap exists only where the course asks for more than you can show, and each gap is weighted by the share of race time it covers. Here that weighting puts the bike first, and environmental resilience at the top of the bike.
Nothing about you is on this page. The season below takes the simplest assumption available, that your gaps sit where the demands are highest, and builds 24 weeks of it: 5 developmental blocks, then a two-week taper. Aerobic endurance leads the first block in all three sports. The second puts threshold capacity first in the water, threshold durability first on the bike and aerobic durability first on the run. The third moves threshold capacity onto the bike and the run and threshold durability into the water. Muscular endurance leads the fourth, and aerobic endurance leads again before the taper. Your season starts from your own numbers and will not look like this one.
Train the bike to protect the run
Which demands matter most across the whole race. A leg's demand counts for as much of the day as that leg takes, so a score of 85 on the bike outweighs the same score on the swim.
- 01Environmental resilienceBike leg, 52% of the day90 × 52%47
- 02Aerobic enduranceBike leg, 52% of the day85 × 52%45
- 03Muscular enduranceBike leg, 52% of the day82 × 52%43
The bike takes 52% of the Trained reference band’s day, so its demands carry the most race weight. What the bike leaves in the legs is what the run gets.
Which demand gets a block, and when
The engine freezes one lead focus per sport on every developmental block, holds the rest at maintenance, and verifies before it reprioritises.
An illustration, not your plan. This page has none of your data, so the season below is the engine’s answer to one stated assumption: that your gaps line up with what IRONMAN 70.3 Subic Bay Philippines demands. Your own season is built from your history, your thresholds, the days you can train and the races you have entered, and it will differ from this in its priorities, its sessions and its load.
- 01Run muscular endurance, a practice block4 weeks
- 02Run aerobic endurance, a development block4 weeks
- 03Bike muscular endurance, a practice block4 weeks
- 04Bike aerobic endurance, a development block4 weeks
In the order the allocator places them, general first, most race-like last.
- Week 1PrepPrep
A lead-in week. It develops nothing by design.
- Weeks 2 to 5Foundation 1Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike aerobic endurance
- PriorityRun aerobic endurance
- PrioritySwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportSwim threshold durability
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun aerobic durability
- Weeks 6 to 9Foundation 2Closes with a recovery week
- PrioritySwim threshold capacity
- PriorityBike threshold durability
- PriorityRun aerobic durability
- SupportBike aerobic endurance
- SupportRun aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportSwim threshold durability
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- Weeks 10 to 13Foundation 3Closes with a recovery week
- PrioritySwim threshold durability
- PriorityBike threshold capacity
- PriorityRun threshold capacity
- SupportBike aerobic endurance
- SupportRun aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun aerobic durability
- Weeks 14 to 17Event shaping 1Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike muscular endurance
- PriorityRun muscular endurance
- PrioritySwim muscular endurance
- SupportBike aerobic endurance
- SupportRun aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim threshold durability
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun aerobic durability
- Weeks 18 to 21Event shaping 2Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike aerobic endurance
- PriorityRun aerobic endurance
- PrioritySwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportSwim threshold durability
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun aerobic durability
- Weeks 22 to 23PeakPeak
The taper. Load comes down toward the race, content stays specific.
- Week 24RaceRace
Race week.
Held at maintenance between blocks
- Runmuscular endurance, aerobic endurance, aerobic durability, threshold capacity, threshold durability
- Bikemuscular endurance, aerobic endurance, aerobic durability, threshold capacity, threshold durability
- Swimaerobic endurance, aerobic durability, threshold capacity, threshold durability, muscular endurance, technical skill
Touches scheduled by each capability’s own decay, at a fraction of its development dose, so earlier work is still there on race day.
The sessions the blocks are built from
One entry per kind of work the block trains, at the intensity that work is meant to be done at. Where the same work runs at several lengths, the entry shows the span it grows across rather than one entry per length.
- Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 575 to 240 min
150 to 210 min at Zone 2
BikePower, Zone 2Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 540 to 270 min
180 to 210 min at Zone 3, then 30 min at Zone 4
BikePower, Zone 3Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 535 to 120 min
90 min at Zone 2
RunPace, Zone 2Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 550 min
4 x 1.5 min at Zone 3, 6 min easy between
RunHeart rate, Zone 3Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 545 to 51 min
4 x 8 min at Zone 2, 1 min easy between
SwimPace, Zone 2Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 547 to 81 min
3 x 1000 m at Zone 3, 0.3 min easy between
SwimPace, Zone 3Trains aerobic capacity
9× climb-to-false-flat repeats
1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, then 1.5 min at Zone 5, then 0.8 min at Zone 4, 0.8 min easy between
Compiled by the deterministic course compiler from the organiser’s file: the course’s one repeatable requirement, rehearsed at a dose the progression allows.
- Bike
- 51 min
- Trains muscular endurance
- Supports strength force
- Supports high intensity capacity
- Supports threshold durability
24 weeks, laid out backwards from race day
The shortest runway Nymiva builds for this event type, with its blocks, recovery weeks, taper and race week in place.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- Prep
- Foundation
- Event shaping
- Peak
- Race
- Recovery week
Your own season carries these same phases on your own dates, with the load solved from your fitness and the days you can train, and it changes when your data does.
What each level does on the day
Reference finish times per peer band, the pacing plan the model holds each band to, and where the day is decided.
| Band | Swim | Bike | Run | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recreational2:11 /100m critical swim speed · 2.47 W/kg at 75 kg · 6:08 /km threshold pace | 0:45:15 | 3:23:06 | 2:25:20 | 6:43:41 |
| Trained1:51 /100m critical swim speed · 3.03 W/kg at 75 kg · 5:06 /km threshold pace | 0:38:21 | 3:05:32 | 2:00:51 | 5:54:44 |
| Competitive1:36 /100m critical swim speed · 4.15 W/kg at 75 kg · 4:20 /km threshold pace | 0:33:10 | 2:44:08 | 1:42:41 | 5:09:59 |
| Elite1:26 /100m critical swim speed · 5.27 W/kg at 75 kg · 3:50 /km threshold pace | 0:29:43 | 2:29:54 | 1:30:50 | 4:40:27 |
Pacing plan
- 0 km0.2%29.8 km/h9:03
- 4.5 km5.7%11.7 km/h7:28
- 5.95 km1.7%22.9 km/h2:35
- 6.94 km4.4%14.2 km/h3:40
- 7.8 km-0.9%35.3 km/h1:47
- 8.85 km-5.3%55.3 km/h0:51
- 9.64 km0.4%28.8 km/h1:08
- 10.2 km5.5%12 km/h2:51
26 more segments in the full plan.
- Run: reach 4:20 /km and this course gives back 44:45.
Where it is decided
On the run, and it is set up on SCTEX.
The two flat stretches inside SCTEX are the largest blocks of time on the bike, each about a third of the leg. They come after the climb out to SCTEX, when your legs are warm and your average speed looks poor, and they are open, level road with nothing to break the rhythm. Every watt you add there above 182 W is paid for twice, once in effort and once in the heat you have to shed.
Then you ride back over the hill and start a run that the file reads as one flat segment from the first step to the last. A Trained athlete starts it nearly four hours into the day, in air the organiser has logged at 31 C every year. There is no climb to hide behind and no descent to recover on. The runner who paced SCTEX properly holds pace through the second loop along Binictican Drive. The runner who did not starts walking there.
Getting it wrong
Training for the hills is the first mistake. Strength and force score 45 on the bike and 30 on the run, far behind aerobic endurance at 85. The climbs at each end of the bike matter, but they are a small share of the ride, and the steepest of them takes up less than 5 percent of the bike leg.
The second is arriving unready for the heat. With highs of 31 C and lows no cooler than 24 C, the water at 29 C offers no relief either. Athletes who have only trained in cool weather meet the real demand of this race for the first time on race day.
The third happens on the way home. The climb back up from SCTEX between kilometre 78 and kilometre 84 comes after more than 60 km of flat road, and it feels harder than the climb out did. Riders who push it to get it over with start the run with less than they think, and two flat loops in the heat find that out quickly.
Conditions on the day
- 2025high 31 C, low 24 Cwater 29 C
- 2024high 31 C, low 25 Cwater 29 C
- 2023high 31 C, low 25 Cwater 29 C
From the organiser’s own records. Not a forecast.
Every session is a claim, every block is a test
A plan is not a calendar. Each key session states what it trains and how that is checked, and each block ends with a public verdict before the next one is chosen.
What a block promises
Bike aerobic endurance moves from your baseline to a stated target by the end of Foundation 1
- The baseline is your measured score when the block starts. The target is the score the model predicts for it.
- Verified at the block’s recovery week, by a field test or a refresh of the supply read from your history.
- Confidence rises by agreement between independent signals, never by one metric crossing a line.
- A block that misses its target is a public miss. The next block is chosen from what was proven, not from what was planned.
- 01Stimulus achievedThe work landed in the zone the session named, for the dose it named.
- 02Partially achievedSome of the work landed. The session banks what it can prove.
- 03Not achievedThe load may have been there. The stimulus was not, so nothing is banked.
- 04Data insufficientNo usable stream. The session is neither credited nor blamed.
- Session verified
- Progression banked
- Block verified
- Priority reassessed
- Plan adapted
Your numbers, this course
Analyze IRONMAN 70.3 Subic Bay Philippines against my fitness
The same simulation and the same Focus Lab read, on your thresholds instead of a band’s. Three numbers give a finish estimate and a partial read. A connected history gives the whole table.
The first 14 days are free.
- Trained band finish
- 5:54:44
- Of the day on the bike
- 52%
- Dimensions scored per leg
- 12
- Season runway shown
- 24 wk
Questions people ask
- How hilly is the IRONMAN 70.3 Subic Bay Philippines bike course?
- The organiser calls it hilly, and the hills are real but they sit at the two ends. The file measures 588 m of gain over 90.5 km. The climbing is packed into the first 14 km and the last 13 km, with a 1.5 km ramp at 5.7 percent near kilometre 5. The middle is two flat loops inside SCTEX.
- What is the water temperature in Subic Bay?
- The organiser records 29 C in 2025, 2024 and 2023. The swim is a single counterclockwise lap from the Subic Bay Boardwalk beachfront, with two left turns at red buoys. The course page does not state a wetsuit rule, so check the athlete guide.
- How hot is IRONMAN 70.3 Subic Bay Philippines?
- The organiser logged a high of 31 C in each of 2025, 2024 and 2023, with lows of 24 C and 25 C. Nymiva scores environmental resilience at 90 on every leg, the highest demand on the whole course.
- Is the IRONMAN 70.3 Subic Bay Philippines run flat?
- Yes. The organiser describes it as mostly flat, two loops from the SBECC through the industrial park and along Binictican Drive and Maritan Highway. The file measures 94 m of gain and reads the whole run as one flat segment.
Course data from the organiser’s published files, analysed 25 Sept 2026 by engine 1, demand model 4. Reference times are simulated for a peer band at a stated reference athlete and are not a prediction for anyone. Nothing on this page is medical advice.
IRONMAN® and IRONMAN 70.3® are registered trademarks, and 5150 is a trademark, of World Triathlon Corporation. Nymiva is an independent training platform and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by World Triathlon Corporation. Course data is read from the organiser’s public course pages for the purpose of describing the event.