# How to Transition from Winter Training to Endurance Training for IRONMAN & 70.3 | 528

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 26 Feb 2025, 33 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/98935187/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-1-24%2F3d0c7ed5-b0e2-9296-2d7c-fd25fa94390a.m4a

This week Coach Rob Wilby from Team Oxygen Addict discusses the critical changes in training as athletes move from the winter FTP build phase to the race preparation phase for Ironman and 70.3 events. We cover the modifications needed in bike, run, and swim workouts, to ensure the necessary focus on safely building endurance in each of swim, bike and run . There's practical advice for coached and self-coached athletes, emphasizing the importance of progressive plans, rest and recovery, strength conditioning, and the role of appropriate fuelling in endurance focused training * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Book an application call to see if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use the code OXYGENADDICT2025 at precisionfuelandhydration.com, or click this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello, and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:10] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the code Oxygen Addict 2025 S Welcome to the
[0:17] show, everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Wilby
[0:20] from Team Oxygen Addict, and every week we'll bring you an
[0:22] episode of this podcast to help motivate and inspire you for
[0:26] your 70.3 and Ironman triathlon goals for this year.
[0:30] On this week's episode, I'm going to be talking you through
[0:33] the changes that you're going to see in a training plan as you
[0:36] shift from the winter FTP build focused phase towards your race
[0:41] preparation training plan proper as it were.
[0:45] There are some subtle but important changes in the way
[0:49] we're going to do sessions. The way the key sessions change
[0:52] your actual focus on on what you need to be looking at
[0:55] prioritising. That will change quite
[0:58] dramatically in some cases from what you've been doing if you've
[1:01] been following the the way that we at Team Oxygenatic train over
[1:05] the winter. So before we move into talking
[1:08] about that, I just want to say that my idea for this episode is
[1:13] if you're one of our coached athletes, want you to thoroughly
[1:16] understand your training plan going forwards and work out
[1:18] exactly what it is you're doing and why.
[1:21] If you're not coached by us, I want you to be able to leave the
[1:24] episode with a, a really good ability to go away with a, a pen
[1:27] and paper sketch out a training plan for yourself in a way
[1:30] that's going to be sensible and progressive and it's going to
[1:32] protect you from injury. It's going to allow you to go to
[1:35] your 70.3 or your Ironman this year and and have a great deal
[1:39] of success when you get there. So a couple of things you can do
[1:41] to help us out if you like and enjoy in this episode and you
[1:44] get value from it. I'd really appreciate it if you
[1:46] follow us on Spotify, Oracle podcasts, leave us a good review
[1:50] if you've enjoyed it. And secondly, if you're looking
[1:52] for coaching for Iron Man or 70.3 triathlon this year and and
[1:56] you want help with that, please get in touch.
[1:58] There's a link in the show notes to book a membership call, book
[2:02] to book, even to book a membership call.
[2:05] We've currently got a special offer on of a season long
[2:07] membership. It's a massive saving against
[2:09] our regular monthly payment. If you're interested in finding
[2:12] out more, click that link in the show notes.
[2:14] We'll have a chat. It's usually better to talk to
[2:17] people than it is to read about things on the website.
[2:19] So I've had a few calls with people recently where they've
[2:22] said to me, you know, I wish I'd, I'd had this call months
[2:25] ago. I've been sitting there thinking
[2:27] is, is coaching for me? Is coaching aimed at people like
[2:29] me? I think the best way to find out
[2:31] is just to have a conversation. So head over to the link in the
[2:34] show notes, click that and find out.
[2:38] Right, OK, let's jump right in then.
[2:40] So the purpose of the episode again is I want to talk you
[2:43] through how to structure your training for what for most
[2:47] people is going to be the 12 to 20 week phase heading into your
[2:52] Iron Man or the the sort of eight to 16 week phase heading
[2:57] into your 70.3. We're going to talk about the
[3:01] differences between your training upcoming to how
[3:04] training was over winter, why we changed the focus of the
[3:08] training and the differences in your fitness that we're hoping
[3:12] to achieve by doing that. So firstly, let's recap the
[3:16] focus of our our winds training. We really focused on trying to
[3:20] get you as aerobically fit as possible.
[3:22] We did that by doing focused interval work on the bike,
[3:26] working at or around your threshold level on the bike.
[3:29] Most of your running was done at an easy or a steady pace and we
[3:33] were looking at building the durability of your running there
[3:35] to essentially injury proof you so you won't pick up any run
[3:39] injuries or niggles as we ramp up the volume.
[3:42] Most of our swim work was based on improving your technique so
[3:47] that not that you're not going to get any fitter swimming, but
[3:50] the fitness was a byproduct of working on your technique.
[3:53] We really wanted to make you into the best technical swimmer
[3:56] that we could do so that when we start to work on the fitness
[3:59] swim training proper, we're working with the most efficient
[4:03] stroke that we can build. And I'm not that not that we're
[4:05] not going to work on improving your stroke mechanics going
[4:09] forwards. Of course we are still, but
[4:11] there's going to be this subtle shift.
[4:13] So training plan proper now, the race specific training plan,
[4:18] we're going to make the shift to everything being about improving
[4:23] your endurance and by that I mean your ability to keep on
[4:27] going for long periods of time without getting excessively
[4:31] fatigued. So the first thing is I
[4:34] understand it can be, it can be very overwhelming to think, you
[4:40] know, I've got either a 70.3 or an Iron Man on the horizon.
[4:43] I need to get to those distances as quickly as possible.
[4:46] And you know, it's really common.
[4:47] I had a membership call with a potential new athlete the other
[4:51] day who said I got in the pool the other day and just decided I
[4:54] was going to see if I could swim 2K without stopping.
[4:57] And I'm miles off and, and I'm really worried that I'm miles
[4:59] off being able to do that. My advice to that athlete is
[5:03] going to be the same as the advice to you.
[5:06] You don't need to do that today, so you don't even need to be
[5:10] able to do that next week. We've got, you know, ideally at
[5:13] this point as you're listening, we've got between 8 and 20 weeks
[5:16] until the goal event. So we've got all of that time to
[5:19] use to build progressively across that time.
[5:23] All you need to do is the work that's in front of you this week
[5:27] and then next week you do the work that's in front of you.
[5:29] Then if we set out the plan correctly, it should be small
[5:34] manageable steps. Each week we'll build in some
[5:36] time that there's even time for you there to, to have an illness
[5:40] or injury or holiday weeks in there without disrupting the
[5:43] build too much if at all. So don't worry if you can't do
[5:46] it right now. But we're going to work on
[5:48] building the length, the duration, the volume of your
[5:51] sessions so that the length of your your long run gets up
[5:56] towards either 70.3 or Iron Man run distance.
[6:01] We'll work on building the length of your long run.
[6:03] So we get to either 90 kilometres or 180 kilometres
[6:08] depending on which race you're doing.
[6:10] And we'll get to the point where we're going to be able to swim
[6:13] further than 1.9 or 3.8 K in terms of the swim.
[6:18] So by the time race day comes around, in terms of the
[6:21] swimming, the bike, you'll already have covered the
[6:23] distance multiple times and be confident of that.
[6:26] We won't cover the full marathon distance in training on the run
[6:29] or the we will cover the full half marathon distance for 70.3
[6:32] athletes. But in the, in the specific case
[6:36] of the Iron Man marathon, there's a trade off between how
[6:40] far you can run in training and how long it takes you to
[6:43] recover. And what we found over years for
[6:46] experimenting with this, it usually takes an exponential
[6:52] amount of time to recover from a run longer than at the very
[6:56] longest 3 hours. It's just too long to recover to
[6:59] be able to do any meaningful training.
[7:01] And all of our training for Iron Man distance is based around
[7:05] training so that we can recover certainly within 48 hours and
[7:09] ideally within 24 hours of that session.
[7:12] So you're ready then to go on to do more training and it's a
[7:15] progressive build across that 20 weeks with daily training,
[7:20] getting you tired and recovering from that so that you can then
[7:23] gradually move your fitness toward the point.
[7:25] You can do the goal race if you go and try and run much more
[7:29] than in some cases 2 1/2, in some cases 3 hours, depending on
[7:33] your run background and you run fitness.
[7:35] What we find is it wipes people out for three, 4-5 days and they
[7:38] can't really do anything meaningful after that.
[7:40] It's just too long off training. So remember that we're building
[7:44] you to be the best triathlete you can be, not the best
[7:47] individual swimmer, biker or runner.
[7:50] And that's honestly the challenge that comes with being
[7:53] a selftrained athlete is that you tend to train for three
[7:57] separate sports rather than training like a triathlete.
[8:00] OK, let's go into the specifics then of the changes that are
[8:03] going to happen for your bike training, run training and swim
[8:06] training. And then we'll talk about some
[8:08] other very important aspects such as recovery and rest,
[8:11] strength, conditioning and and planning for illness and
[8:14] disruption. OK, so in terms of your bike
[8:17] training, let's deal with that first because the bike is going
[8:20] to be where you spend the vast majority of your time and
[8:23] efforts on race day and it's the safest place for you to train
[8:26] without picking up injury. So that's where we're going to
[8:28] be spending most of our training hours.
[8:31] So what do our key sessions look like?
[8:33] What do our supporting sessions look like going forwards on the
[8:36] bike? Well, firstly, our most
[8:39] important key session is going to be our endurance ride, our
[8:42] long endurance ride. We're going to build that across
[8:45] the town we have available so that you get to the point where
[8:50] you've covered either 90K or 180K prior to race day and
[8:54] you're comfortable and confident that you can do that.
[8:57] An awful lot of your engine size slash fitness work has been done
[9:02] at this point. Not that it won't subtly
[9:04] increase along the way, but that's no longer the purpose of
[9:08] this. We're no longer trying to make
[9:10] you a stronger cyclist in terms of being able to put out more
[9:13] power FTP. What we're now doing is the
[9:15] shift towards firstly being able to cover the distance that you
[9:19] need to run race day, and then to be able to cover the distance
[9:23] a progressively higher, I'm going to say progressively
[9:26] higher percentages of FTP. I'm going to say that within
[9:29] reason. We're never going to be shooting
[9:31] for a really high percentage here, but we're gradually going
[9:34] to get you comfortable riding at at the higher percentage of FTP.
[9:38] So that's our number one key bike session of the week.
[9:42] Our number two key bike session of the week is going to be an
[9:44] hour long interval session. It's no longer going to be FTP.
[9:47] It's going to be subtly adjusted because again, we're concerned
[9:49] about the recovery time it takes for an FTP session, but the
[9:54] intervals are going to be longer.
[9:55] They're going to be a lower percentage of FTP than an FTP
[9:58] focus block. The purpose of those is to
[10:01] subtly make you able to hold higher percentages of FTP for
[10:05] longer. So there's our two key bike
[10:07] sessions. Our third supporting bike
[10:10] session is either going to be steady endurance right of of
[10:14] about an hour initially, or it's going to be what we call big
[10:18] gear work, pushing a big gear at low cadence, producing high
[10:22] force in the muscles. It's a kind of session that if
[10:25] you're doing it outdoors, it's going to, it's going to SIM
[10:28] well, sorry. If you're doing it indoors, it's
[10:29] going to simulate riding on hills outdoors where your
[10:33] cadence naturally slows, where you end up pushing a bit more
[10:37] force than you mean to, even if you start to change down the
[10:40] gears. So those sessions can be done
[10:42] indoors on the trainer at higher Cade, sorry, at higher force,
[10:46] lower cadence. Or the session can be done
[10:48] outdoors over a rolling course where we let our cadence drop by
[10:52] 10 or 20 reps a minute from where the usual comfortable
[10:54] cadence. And we roll those sessions so we
[10:57] learn to push more force and essentially our legs get
[11:00] stronger. If you are doing a hilly Iron
[11:05] Man, a particularly hilly Iron Man, we are going to shift to
[11:09] doing these long rides over specific hilly terrain as we get
[11:14] closer to goal race. But for now, initially we're
[11:17] just going to worry about, or we're just going to be concerned
[11:19] about extending the length of your ride.
[11:23] And typically we'll look at a volume ramp of about 30 minutes
[11:28] a week for newer athletes. And in some more established
[11:31] cases, a volume ramp of up to an hour a week might be
[11:34] appropriate. So for, for athletes with
[11:36] multiple years of Ironman training in the bodies, they can
[11:39] often do a volume ramp and go 2 hours, 3 hours, four hours, five
[11:43] hours across weeks. Whereas I wouldn't do that with
[11:47] a a younger athlete or an athlete that's newer to the
[11:50] sport. I would, I would go with a 30
[11:51] minute increase in your long ride as a safe and sustainable
[11:55] increase. Every 4th week we'll take a
[11:57] recovery week and we'll step that volume back.
[12:00] So that kind of sketches out how we're going to go and get you
[12:03] from the point you're at now where you're probably riding two
[12:06] to three hours for your long ride and get that to the point
[12:09] where it might be let's say 5 to 8 hours depending on how long
[12:12] it's going to take you to cover the 180 K on race day.
[12:17] Overview of run training sessions then.
[12:20] So what does our key session look like?
[12:22] What do our supporting sessions look like?
[12:24] Well, firstly our key endurance session is going to be our long
[12:28] run, our long endurance run. That's going to be done with the
[12:31] run walk method. We're going to keep that walk
[12:34] break in there every 10 minutes, and that's really going to
[12:36] reduce the amount of time that it takes you to recover from
[12:39] that long run. And again, if if you've never
[12:40] tried it and you're perhaps cynical about it, I would
[12:43] encourage you just to try it. You'll be amazed at how fresh
[12:47] you feel the next day and how quickly you can roll back into
[12:50] training. Because again, the key here is
[12:53] to be training like an Iron Man or a 70.3 triathlete, not like a
[12:57] runner. We want you back into training
[12:58] the next day after your long run, not needing to wait two or
[13:02] three days for the soreness to go away.
[13:04] So our long run is going to gradually build.
[13:07] Again, I'm going to talk about the volume ramp in terms of how
[13:12] it's appropriate for athletes. I like to see the long run be no
[13:15] more than 15 minutes longer ideally than the run the week
[13:19] before. There might be certain cases
[13:21] where that's slightly longer. It might be we need a little bit
[13:24] more aggressive volume ramp for some athletes.
[13:27] But in a perfect world, I'll say don't run any longer than 15
[13:30] minutes more than the week you did before the sorry, the
[13:34] duration that you did before. And let's make sure we're taking
[13:39] that recovery week every 3rd or 4th week as well.
[13:42] Our supporting sessions are going to be two runs of between
[13:46] 30 and 60 minutes. They're mostly going to be E
[13:49] pace for our Iron Man athletes, we might introduce some fartlick
[13:54] running, we might introduce some progressive running, depending
[13:58] on the background of the athletes.
[13:59] And just for a little bit of variety, really with our 70.3
[14:03] athletes, we're definitely going to introduce some fartlick runs,
[14:06] some short progressive runs, some short and pace tempo runs,
[14:10] because they're they're the sessions that are going to
[14:13] prepare you for the specific demands of the pace that you're
[14:16] going to be running on race day. And again, a common question is
[14:19] how fast can I expect to run on race day?
[14:22] Well, a real good rule of thumb is if you can run M pace in your
[14:29] race day 70.3, you're doing incredibly well.
[14:32] There's very few people can turn out to run at M pace.
[14:35] If you can run at the top end of your E pace in a Iron Man
[14:40] distance race, again, you're doing incredibly well.
[14:42] The challenge for people doing 70.3 here is that that pace does
[14:46] not look challenging on paper at all, and isn't particularly
[14:50] challenging in terms of pace when you run for an hour, for an
[14:52] hour and a half, even for two hours when you fit in training.
[14:57] The challenge is to hold that pace on race day when you're
[15:01] fatigued, when you've already done 180 K on the bike.
[15:06] So the key thing here to bear in mind is the durability of your
[15:10] running. Fitness is going to be built as
[15:13] a function largely of the frequency of running, not just
[15:18] the length of your long run. Oi don't think it's enough for
[15:21] an athlete to say I've done 1 long run a week.
[15:24] I've managed to get to, you know, insert amount of time
[15:27] here. I think you need to be running
[15:29] and be on your feet at least three times and in the latest
[15:33] stages of your training plan, adding a fourth shorter brick
[15:36] run when it's appropriate as well.
[15:38] So the durability is built through the frequency of
[15:41] running. That's really important to
[15:43] mention. Ideally we're running every
[15:45] other day through our training plan.
[15:47] We'll have a rest day in there as well off running, but ideally
[15:50] that's really going to help you out I think.
[15:53] OK, let's move on to talking about our swim training then and
[15:57] how that looks. How do our key sessions look?
[15:59] How do our supporting sessions look?
[16:01] So our key session is going to shift again towards being your
[16:05] longer endurance swim. It's going to move away from
[16:07] being the CSS technical swim and towards being the endurance
[16:11] swim. Now again, it's tempting,
[16:15] especially if you're from a running a recycling background
[16:18] to think on race day I need to do this as a as a continuous
[16:22] swim. So in training it should be a
[16:24] continuous swim. Now it will be as we get closer
[16:27] to race day. But initially what I'd encourage
[16:30] you to do is do your endurance swim as a set of broken one
[16:33] hundreds. So don't swim for one kilometre
[16:36] straight. Take a break every 100, even if
[16:39] it's only for two or three seconds to take a couple of deep
[16:41] breaths. That little break is going to
[16:44] let your small shoulder back muscles reset.
[16:47] Those ones that you only use in swimming and it's going to stop
[16:51] you, it's going to stop them from overly fatiguing and it's
[16:55] going to stop your your form and your technique from breaking
[16:59] down and it's going to allow you to practise perfect technique
[17:03] for longer. What we don't want is a
[17:05] situation where each long swim gets progressively slower as it
[17:09] goes through because you're getting progressively more
[17:11] tired. Your technique is progressively
[17:15] falling apart with with each passing 100.
[17:19] And all that ends up happening there is you're embedding poor
[17:22] technique into your stroke. What we would ideally like to
[17:25] see here is say your set is 20 by 100.
[17:29] Each of those hundreds be exactly the same time as the one
[17:32] before, and each one the same time as the first one when you
[17:36] were fresh. And to do that without needing
[17:39] to try harder and harder and harder all the way through the
[17:42] set. So that's a mark of progress for
[17:44] you here. That can be, it can be hard to
[17:46] accept. It's not about trying harder.
[17:48] It's not about pushing yourself more.
[17:51] It's about focusing on holding on to perfect technique all the
[17:54] way through your endurance swim. And it's mentally very, very
[17:58] tiring. It's actually easier to say, oh,
[18:01] screw it and really try hard and try working harder to hold those
[18:05] times. That's not what I want you to
[18:07] do. I want you really focusing on
[18:09] the aspect of your stroke that starts to fall apart.
[18:12] Whatever your stroke limiter is, whether it's dropping the elbow
[18:15] under the water, whether it's having a poor catch, keep
[18:19] focusing on doing the thing that you need to do in order to hold
[18:22] your technique together. As we get closer to race day,
[18:28] those hundreds are going to turn into two hundreds and four
[18:31] hundreds and five hundreds. Eventually we'll end up
[18:36] transitioning your endurance swimming to the open water,
[18:39] probably wearing a wet suit. And at that point I think is
[18:43] when we start to think about doing longer continuous swims.
[18:46] But while you're in the pool, I like to see those swims broken
[18:49] up at the very most every 500 metres.
[18:52] Even if it's only a few seconds that you take after every 500,
[18:56] give yourself that break. It's also a really good marker
[18:59] of time and helps you remember how far you've swung because
[19:01] it's really, really hard to remember, you know, if you've
[19:03] got to be in the pool swimming for over 100 lengths.
[19:08] OK, our supporting sessions are going to be and, and again, it's
[19:13] going to be different for different swimmers here.
[19:16] I'd like to see in an ideal world, athletes getting in the
[19:19] water at least twice a week and having the second session be a
[19:23] technique focus session where there's also a main set swimming
[19:27] at or towards your CSS pace. Now, the purpose of the CSS pace
[19:31] isn't necessarily to force you to work on your threshold
[19:35] fitness, but when we swim harder, we grip the water better
[19:39] and we can then hold on to that feeling gripping the water
[19:42] better. And that in turn leads to an
[19:45] increased awareness of the feel for the water.
[19:48] So that's really what the increased CSS type pace swim
[19:52] intervals are there for. So the water feels harder to
[19:56] pull against. So you get used to feeling how
[19:59] the water is as you pull against it.
[20:04] If you are from a background where you can do a recovery swim
[20:08] and feel more refreshed at the end of it, that third swim week
[20:12] I think is great to do. Even if you are a beginner
[20:16] swimmer and getting in the water is quite a challenge.
[20:19] If you possibly have the option to do this and get in for a
[20:21] third swim, even if it's only really short.
[20:24] And by short I do mean under 10 minutes long.
[20:27] If you can work your week that you'll run say starts or
[20:31] finishes at the pool and you can get in to do the extra little
[20:35] bit of technique work, I think it's worth it.
[20:38] But a recovery swim for a a middle of the pack swimmer or
[20:42] better can be like a free massage and it can leave you
[20:45] feeling really refreshed and ready for the week.
[20:48] If the the recovery swim isn't leaving you more refreshed, if
[20:51] it's making you more tired, then you're better taking a complete
[20:54] recovery day and making sure you refreshed and recovered after
[20:57] last week. Looking forward, ready to go
[21:00] into the next week going forwards.
[21:02] OK, now a really common question here is when should I start open
[21:08] water swimming? And the first answer is, but we
[21:10] need to make sure we've done at least a couple of open water
[21:13] swims before your event. But I recognise that that can be
[21:16] challenging depending on the time of year your first event
[21:20] is. For some of you, it just might
[21:21] not be possible to get into an open water venue before your
[21:25] first race of the year. Going back a decade, we didn't
[21:29] used to have triathlons in the UK before about the beginning of
[21:32] June and the water was pretty fresh then.
[21:34] Getting in now, depending on the weather that we have in the
[21:36] early springtime, sometimes the the water can warm up really
[21:40] nicely, sometimes it doesn't do. So I'd encourage you to try and
[21:44] get at least two open water swims in before your first event
[21:47] of the season. If your first day race is in
[21:50] early season 70.3, like some of the races in the UK that
[21:53] happened in mid-May or early May, it might be really
[21:56] challenging to get in the water. And honestly, any open water
[22:00] sessions that you do before the event will largely be focused
[22:03] around you getting yourself acclimated to what the
[22:07] temperature feels like and getting used to the fact that
[22:09] although water feels really cold when you first get in, you'll
[22:13] adjust within 5 or 10 minutes and and be ready to go into swim
[22:16] again. But bear that in mind as you're
[22:18] selecting your races for the year.
[22:20] If you select races in early May, it's often quite
[22:24] challenging to get in the water and swim in those events anyway.
[22:27] So I'm in favour of people pushing those events back a
[22:30] little bit if they possibly can. And as I said earlier, all
[22:35] things being equal, we'd love to see you do at least two of your
[22:40] at least two of your key endurance swims, the longest
[22:44] ones in open water in the wet suit you're going to swim your
[22:47] race in before you actually get to race day.
[22:50] So that's a really good thing to have on your schedule is trying
[22:53] to build that in. Now in my athletes plans, I
[22:56] build an open water swims in the last six weeks before race day.
[22:59] But I also recognise you just might not be able to do it
[23:03] because it might be too early in the season.
[23:05] If that's the case, that's totally fine.
[23:08] You can do the open water skills sessions in a pool and you can
[23:11] practise those actually within a normal swim setting as well.
[23:14] Things like sighting and drafting.
[23:16] But it is worth bearing in mind the more competitive you want to
[23:19] be or even in some cases if you're up against the swim cut
[23:24] off, Having the skills of being able to draught somebody else
[23:27] and being able to sight well are going to be something that allow
[23:30] you to swim the minimum possible distance on race day.
[23:35] And also if you can learn to draught behind people, you're
[23:38] going to be swimming at the same effort and going much faster or
[23:42] swimming at the same pace and saving yourself quite a lot of
[23:45] effort. Now other things to think about
[23:48] as you go into the the race build preparation phase.
[23:52] Your most important day of the week has always been the
[23:55] recovery and rest day. That's the day when all of the
[23:58] adaptations take place and when all of the training that you've
[24:01] done gets absorbed. The bigger volume that you're
[24:05] doing, the more you need to recognise that that rest and
[24:09] recovery day is really, really important.
[24:11] Because if you don't recover from the training that you're
[24:13] doing, frankly, you may as well not be doing that training in
[24:15] the 1st place. And it's really common for
[24:18] athletes to really struggle to prioritise their rest and
[24:21] recovery session over getting some more training done.
[24:25] But look at it like this, if you're getting four to six days
[24:29] of training done a week, yes, you can afford to prioritise
[24:33] that rest and recovery day. If you've had a complete week
[24:36] off, then that might be the one use case where I would say,
[24:40] well, no, OK, it's it's appropriate to skip that rest
[24:43] and recovery day, but that would be the only case.
[24:45] In every other case, that recovery and rest day is the day
[24:48] when everything's going to become absorbed and it's going
[24:50] to set up the rest of your week. That's why I programme it as the
[24:54] first session, the first day of the week in all my athletes
[24:57] plans. It's that important.
[25:00] Air on the side of caution during the week, especially with
[25:03] any sessions they've got intensity in.
[25:06] Even if your HRV is green and you think to yourself, well I
[25:09] feel really, really tired today, it's OK to dial the intensity
[25:12] down. I'd encourage you to do the
[25:14] sessions still, but if you've got a more intense session that
[25:17] day that's got faster running or harder riding in or harder
[25:20] swimming, take the intensity out before you decide to not do the
[25:25] session. That can be a really, really
[25:27] effective way of making sure that you get training done
[25:31] whilst you're feeling tired. Listen to your HRV readings.
[25:35] Very often it's going to be the one day of the month an HRV
[25:39] reading says it's read today. Take recovery.
[25:42] Today the HRV significantly drops.
[25:45] That's often the day it's hardest to take the recovery,
[25:48] especially if you're motivated to get the sessions done that
[25:51] day. But I really encourage you to
[25:53] listen to your HIV because the studies have shown that if you
[25:56] rest on the day that the HIV has dropped significantly, you'll
[26:00] make more progress across a given period of time than if you
[26:04] train on that day. And it's counterintuitive, but
[26:07] we just have to listen to the scientists on this one.
[26:09] And the last thing on rest and recovery to mention is to really
[26:14] focus on getting extra sleep during this race specific block,
[26:18] especially as you get closer to Iron Man.
[26:20] The best performance enhancing anything that you can do is an
[26:24] hour's extra sleep every day. So prioritise getting yourself
[26:28] to bed at a decent time and never try and cut the sleep out
[26:32] so that you can do more training in terms of strength
[26:35] conditioning. I want those sessions to support
[26:38] what you're doing in terms of swim, bike and run.
[26:41] The closer to the race you get, the less heavy you can lift.
[26:46] And if you need to, make your sessions pre hab exercises if
[26:49] you're healthy and make them rehab sessions.
[26:52] If you've got niggles and you've got things you need to deal
[26:54] with, don't cut them out entirely ever.
[26:57] Always do something in your strength conditioning session
[27:00] because that sends a programme to our brain that says this is
[27:03] really important and we really want to make sure we get it
[27:05] done. So even if it's just a couple of
[27:07] sets of something to help get your glutes activated, still
[27:11] worth doing, but prioritise getting those prehab and rehab
[27:15] exercises done. And I think the last thing to
[27:19] mention on this is let's plan for illness and disruption with
[27:22] my athletes plans. I've got extra weeks built in
[27:25] here so that we know that, you know, an athlete is probably
[27:29] going to pick up a cold or an illness at some point in a 20
[27:31] week build. We've got extra time built in
[27:33] that we can shuffle things around.
[27:35] You're probably going to have to go away with work or on holiday.
[27:39] We've got time built in there so that the disruption isn't too
[27:44] difficult along the way. And the last but very, very
[27:48] important thing to start to consider now is let's start
[27:51] planning. Let's start planning for our
[27:54] race, fuelling our race calories, electrolytes and fluid
[27:58] balance and let's start to practise that in our longest
[28:01] rides and our longest runs. Now, if you haven't been over
[28:05] and done a race preparation document with Precision Fuel and
[28:09] Hydration done their fuel and hydration planning tool, get
[28:12] over there and do that now. Just go onto the website.
[28:15] It's really quick, easy online process and what you'll get at
[28:18] the end of it is a personalised strategy that will give you a
[28:21] rough guide to how many grammes of carbohydrate, how many
[28:25] milligrammes of electrolytes and how how many millilitres of
[28:29] fluid you're going to need every hour on your long ride and your
[28:33] long run. You can then go away and start
[28:35] to practise this in training. You can start to zone in on the
[28:38] specific products that you're going to use.
[28:42] And I'm not going to say you have to use PFH products here, I
[28:45] think they're fantastic. But I recognise people are going
[28:48] to have their own things that they want to use.
[28:49] But the thing precision fuel and hydration do really well, which
[28:52] is why I love working with them, is they clearly mark how many
[28:55] grammes of carbs are on each of their gels.
[28:57] So that makes the maths really easy.
[28:59] And in terms of especially for Iron Man athletes, but also for
[29:02] 70.3, carrying 305 hundred grammes of carbohydrate on the
[29:08] bike is a real challenge. Now they've solved this with
[29:11] their flow gel. If you haven't seen this, it's a
[29:13] 300 gramme gel packet that squeezes straight out into a
[29:17] wide necked bike bottle, makes carrying all of those calories
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[29:22] Like I said, they are sponsors of the show, but the sponsors
[29:25] because I really love them as a company.
[29:28] I love the guys behind it. I've worked with them for over
[29:31] 10 years now and I think they've got certainly the most intuitive
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[29:42] the code Oxygen Addict 2025, that's the word oxygen addict.
[29:47] And then 2O25, you'll get 15% off your first order over at
[29:51] precisionfuelandhydration.com. All right, everyone, I hope that
[29:54] that's been a useful episode for you today.
[29:56] Like I said before, if you've enjoyed that and you've liked
[29:59] it, please consider liking and subscribing in the podcast play
[30:03] that you're listening to. If you consider leaving us a
[30:05] five star review, that would be awesome as well.
[30:07] And if you're on YouTube, click like and subscribe on that would
[30:10] be great as well. The last thing to mention is if
[30:14] you are looking for help and advice with the training, I
[30:17] think teamoxygenic.com have got the most comprehensive triathlon
[30:20] coaching programme that's specifically designed for busy
[30:23] age groupers. If you're looking for coaching
[30:26] for this year, we've currently got a special offer on the
[30:28] season long membership at a massive saving versus our usual
[30:32] monthly coaching price. Click the link in the show notes
[30:35] to book a membership call. Come and have a chat with me and
[30:37] we'll find out how we can best help you out and if you're
[30:40] suitable for joining us. Awesome.
[30:42] So remember there's links in the show notes.
[30:44] You don't have to remember them until next week.
[30:46] Have a great safe training and racing week.
[30:49] I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've been listening to the Oxygen
[30:52] Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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