Long Swedish winter - how to plan?

Training
1

Dear friends,

Winter is coming, or maybe it has already come, already below freezing outside. Winter will probably last until April. That means about 6 months of winter training. What do you think is the best approach? I’ve done sweet spot base 1 and just started 2 so far. Should I proceed to build and then specialty? If I do that it would mean that I’ll be finished with the cycle late March. My first races won’t be until late May, so maybe that’s good? I’m not sure what Trainerroad’s thought is on how close to a race the speciality phase should be conducted. Maybe I should run more base or build before proceeding? I’ve tried to find info online but I’ve couldn’t find anything that relatable to our long winter…

Thanks for your help. I have no clue how to approach planning, so any tips. would be appreciated

2

I am not sure whether a long winter comes into it or not.
The common advice is to work backwards from your key race
8 weeks for speciality
12 weeks for build
12 weeks for base

If you have time between now and the start of base either do some recovery/easy work if you have had a hard season or start off base early and do some sweetspot or Z2/3 work until the start of SSBASE

HTH

3

I would work backwards from your target race (not necessarily your first race) with a speciality phase (8 weeks), build phase (8 weeks), and base phase (12 weeks) to get your programme start date i.e. 28 weeks before your target race. In the gap between now and your start date I would either focus on a weakness, for example you could do a short power build if you’re weak at VO2max efforts, or fill in with more base, because you can never have too much base!

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4

@occasionalathlete has the right approach.

1 Like
5

Take a 6 month vacation to Arizona.

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6

I’m also in Sweden.

With the short triathlon season and long winter here, I have also reasoned that I can start early and do two (or three!) blocks of base.

I realized that this has caused me to burn out in the middle of the race season due to the early start. This year I’m going to have a more relaxed winter season where I’ll try some CX and trail running, and hopefully I will manage to keep my focus until the end of race season in 2019.

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Thanks for your replies! Very helpful