The T.I.M.E system: effective and intelligent winter training with Rob Wilby | EP#158

Rob Wilby, triathlon coach, coach educator, and host of the OxygenAddict podcast, discusses his T.I.M.E system for effective triathlon training through winter. His approach works particularly well for time-crunched age-group triathletes training for half and full distance triathlons.

• Test and Evaluate.
• Intelligent Intensity.
• Mindset.
• Effective Effort.
• Examples of weekly structures and workout structures Rob use with his athletes.
• Rob's recommendations for when you're going into spring and summer training.

5:54  -

• One of the recurring themes I saw in the athletes I coached was that they're super keen, but they don't have as much time to train as they'd like. 
• Over the years I've come up with a framework for training, particularly for age groupers competing at half Ironman, or full Ironman distance. 
• It's called the TIME training system. 
• It stands for all the things I find important in training, but it's name after time because that was such a recurring theme. 
• The most important thing is making sure athletes get the most bang for their buck in training time. 

7:22 -

• T stands for 'Test and Evaluate'.
  
  We want to honestly evaluate how much time you have to train - it needs to be realistic and your plan needs to be written for the amount of time you have got. 
  
  Secondly we want to test our athletes regularly because you can't afford to train with guess work. You need to be sure that the intensities you're training at will bring the most improvement in the shortest amount of time. 
• I stands for 'Intensity' or 'Intelligent use of intensity'.
  
  You need to use the appropriate intensity in swim, bike and run, at the appropriate times of year. 
• M stands for 'Mindset'.
  
  The way that you approach training, and whether you've got confidence in what you're doing, is so important. 
  
  This is something that coaches can really help an athlete with - ensuring the athlete knows that what they are doing will be effective. 
• E stands for 'Effective effort'.
  
  This ties all of it together. We want to make sure that anything you are doing in training will get you to your goal as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

10:08 -

Bike

• The key thing that guides all training is the goal to be the fastest triathlete you can be on race day. All of your training should be aimed at that.
  
  You don't necessarily need to be the fastest swimmer, the fastest biker or the faster runner you can be, but the fastest triathlete.
• Sometimes we need to take a step back and think about the best ways to use your hours for training to make you the best athlete. 
  
  If you're a weak swimmer, it isn't always the best plan to spend half your training time swimming - you're going to spend more time on your bike on race day. 
• My approach to winter training is using the majority of their training time to focus on the thing that'll make the most different on race day. 
• For both 70.3 and Ironman distance racers I focus on building their bike power. 
  
  We'll do 2-3 short high intensity workouts focused on raising their FTP - which is essentially how fast you can go over a 40km time trial. 
• I usually advise my athletes to do these sessions on the turbo trainer as we can control more variables. 
  
  In a 60 minute session we'll do a warm up and cool down, and 30-40 minutes of hard work including rest. 
  
  We're looking at working at or around 100% of functional power, and working in a ratio of 5 minutes work/1 minute rest. 
• A classic session may be 6 x 5 minutes 100% threshold, 1 minute recovery. 
  
  You could do this every week, but we know people will get bored and need progression so we often start in smaller chunks and build it across the season. E.g. 1 minute/2minutes/3 minutes/2 minute/1 minute mini pyramid to introduce them to threshold training. 
  
  By the end of the winter they should feel they can hold the 100% for a longer period of time. They may be doing 4 x 8 minutes, or 3 x 10 minutes at 100% threshold. 
• The overall amount of work at threshold may not change, but the longer chunks will help them hold it for longer. 
• In an ideal world I want the athletes to get to Spring a lot faster on the bike. 

Run

• In terms of the run, lots of athletes want to improve their run over winter and are surprised when I give them a plan with lots of running at a steady state. 
• However, it goes back to the big picture of being the fastest triathlete on race day. 
• The human body can only absorb a certain amount of threshold training per week, and this counts across all three disciplines. 
  
  If you try and do threshold sets in all three disciplines, it is likely this will totally exhaust you because it's too much in one week. 
• The aim of run training is to work on the run-specific ligaments and tendons to improve the durability of our body. 
  
  You get pounded just from going out for a run, so we need to build the ability to train before training you. 
• Your cardiovascular system is already getting training regularly from the bike, so you don't need to be doing threshold training in the run in winter.
  
  Often athletes are surprised at how much better their run improves using this strategy, and it helps prevent injury. 
• The key to improving your running is repeated running 3-4 times a week without getting injured. The one danger for getting injured is trying to run fast and hard, especially during the winter.
• I'm a big fan of the Jack Daniels pace tables - his E pace running is ideal for winter training, which is low to middle zone 2 heart rate running.  
• The 3-4 runs per week initially would be 30-45 minutes, and one longer run per week starting at 45 minutes, increasing to 90 minutes over the winter block. 
  
  Running short and more frequently is better for athletes than infrequent long runs during winter. 

Swim

• Winter swim training can be minimal in the winter, particularly if you're very time limited. We can usually maintain the swim with 1 per week, and focus it on drill work and practicing perfect form.
  
  For most athletes with around 7 hours a week, we aim for one swim a week and we'll add more in closer to race season. 

19:49 - 

Bike

• As we get into spring on the bike, you will have hopefully done two 9 week blocks where we've raised the FTP on the bike.
  
  We tend to see a 6-8% increase in FTP per block for most athletes. This is a really good improvement. 
• In Spring we reduce the amount of intensity on the bike, and 1 session per week will now be 'sweet spot' which is around 90% of FTP. 
  
  At this level you can do longer reps, and more overall reps. You will still be getting 95% benefit compared to working at 100%. 
• We also begin working on specific leg strength, using big gear work on the bike. 
• In general if our athletes are helpful and have no knee problems, we will do low cadence work (20 revs/minute lower than comfortable cadence). 
  
  We start with 1 minute out of every 3 low cadence, then 2 minutes out of every 5 low cadence, then 3 minutes out of every five, 5 minutes out of every 10. 
  
  If you can ride outdoors these sessions can be done well outdoors, particularly on rolling terrain, but they also work well on the turbo. 
  
  I tend to have my athletes do these sessions in zone 2, and you still see the benefit. This can be difficult for athletes to get used to! 
• As the season gets closer we can push higher intensities for the athletes it's appropriate for. 

Run

• For the run, the athlete should now be nice and durable, and will have increased aerobic endurance from the winter bike training. 
• In Spring we start introducing more distance, and more intensity.
• For 70.3 athletes we start doing progressive runs, building to race pace intensity. This may still be challenging at this point in the year. 
• For Ironman athletes, I often tell them they don't need to often run faster than race pace in training, and Ironman race pace is usually not too fast. 
  
  If you're aiming for a 3 hour marathon, that is still only 7.5 minute miles. 
• Your training needs to be specific to how you will race, so you need to use the intensity in the most appropriate way. 
• If you've got more run training in you, it's probably important to spend that on volume, rather than intensity. We want to programme our bodies to be able to run comfortable in the race - e.g. a 3:30 marathon in an Ironman.
  
  Anybody who has tried to do this will probably agree that the second half of that marathon can be very hard. 
• In 2008 I raced at the long distance World ITU championships. I went far too hard on the bike, and really struggled to run 8 minute miles on the marathon.
  
  This was a lightbulb moment for me, because like a lot of people at the time I'd go out on training tempo runs and be doing 6 minute miles. I would never do this on race day! The fastest run on the day was not even 7 minute mile pace. 
• My approach has always been to look at the body as a whole. Aerobically and cardiovascularly your VO2max will be lifted from any of the training you're doing. 
  
  If you've raised your threshold on the bike, you'll have raised your threshold on the run as well. 
• You can always have your athlete go out and do fast runs and increase the VO2max this way, but my concern is that this will often increase the risk of injury in a lot of athletes. 
• The key thing to being an effective coach is finding the way that works for the athlete you're working with. 
• Experiment on yourselves and find out what works for you, but be honest with yourself.  
• I've interviewed Joe Skipper on my podcast and he's an outlier because he can do threshold training in most disciplines most days. He's genetically gifted in how he can recover.
  
  This is so different from what most athletes I know can do! They usually need a day off running the next day and an easy day in other disciplines. 
  
  Most athlete can do a threshold day on the bike though and still work hard the next day. 
• Age can also be a big factor, the older you get the less your body can absorb in the way it could when you were younger.

Swim

• Regarding the swim, you now start to make use of your improved swim mechanics, start swimming more fruently, and starting to introduce more volume and intensity. 
• Typically in this phase I'll split 1 hour sessions into 20 minutes of drill work and 20-30 minute main set (mix of endurance and/or threshold training).

41:55 - 

• Monday is usually a rest and recovery day. 
  
  If you're the kind of swimmer who is able to do a recovery swim, definitely do that! However if you're a beginner swimmer and that will be an effort for you, stay out the water. 
• Tuesday and Thursday are threshold workouts on the bike, Saturday is the long ride that will ideally be outdoors for 3 hours. If the athlete can't get outdoors I'll give them a 90 minute turbo workout with some sweet spot efforts. 
• Steady runs will be scheduled for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. These are usually two 30 minute runs and one 45 minute long run. 
  
  We will build that to two 45 minute runs and one 90 minute run. 
• Our key swim for the week will be scheduled on Wednesday. It'll be a mix of real technique focused work, and some quality swimming as we progress through the winer. 
• If the athlete has more time, we'll add an endurance based swim on the Friday as well. 
• It'll workout to around 7 hours a week for most athletes, depending on the duration of the long ride. 

44:55 - 

• It's hard to improve swimming without specific guidance, so if you can find a club with a good swim coach I always recommend joining for that. 
• If you can have underwater swim analysis done, that can also really help. It can even just be your friend recording you so you can see what you're doing. 
• If you haven't checked out SwimSmooth I would highly recommend doing so. 
  ​
  He has a set of specific drills and if you cycle through them you can quickly see what will help you. 
• If you do one length of drill and one length of swim, if you're not feeling like something is improving you need a professional that will help you make necessary changes. 

• OxygenAddict podcast 205: Mikael Eriksson - 70.3 Portugal Age Group Winner On Debut!
• Swim training structure the Swim Smooth way with Paul Newsome (part 1) | EP#132
• Swim training structure the Swim Smooth way with Paul Newsome (part 2) | EP#133
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Connect with Rob Wilby

Connect with host Mikael Eriksson

Hi! I'm your host Mikael,

I am a full-time triathlon coach and an ambitious age-group triathlete. My goal is podium at the Finnish national championships within the next few years.

I first started the website Scientific Triathlon in autumn 2015 as a passion project to share my learnings with a larger triathlon audience. Later on, in early 2017 I started the podcast That Triathlon Show. 

I sincerely want you to contact me to

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