Aerobic Training - Is it that easy?

For those looking to refine your training over the coming winter months, a key target I would invite most people to try is simply riding/running/swimming (delete as appropriate). Now you may be wondering how this counts as training, given that the word training is often associated with blood, sweat and tears, definitely not easy, high volume, aerobic work. Sadly, the former does not equal or measure success and you don’t have to look to far to see how progression is made at the pointy end of the sport. Courtesy of some rather influential people in the sports science world, I have managed to attach some of the training data of Gustav Iden (12 months & 16 weeks) prior to his record breaking Ironman Kona 2022.

As you can see from Figure 1, over the past 12 months he has spent 72% of his run-based training time in Z1 (easy aerobic) and that is typically around 70% of his Ironman race-pace. A training time of circa 0.7-10% in Zones 3-5 tell you all you need to know, easy aerobic will always be more suitable to middle-long course events than the largest FTP known to man. Even in the final build up to Kona (12 weeks, below) he still maintained an average training time of 62.9% Z1 based work, with his slight change being more Z2 (still aerobic!) training.

Although it may seem simple and ‘common sense’, the vital steps you need to nail over the coming months, is not intensity it is consistency. If you use Strava or Zwift religiously, now is the time to block out the numbers and simply think in terms of quality, enjoyment and time on the feet/legs/arms (delete where appropriate), if you have these three things chances are you will succeed in your goals over the upcoming seasons. As always, any questions, drop them in the comments and we’ll do our best to delve deeper. If you have any sports science based topics you want me/us to cover please let us know and we’ll get straight on it!