Winter bike training plan

The Winter Bike Training plan is an FTP (Functional Threshold Power)  builder.  I have done Jorge's Winter Bike Training plan found here as well as two other Winter Bike Focus Plans aimed at building FTP. 

The idea is that as your FTP increases so does your power/speed at other distances.  My understanding is that your body can build a lot of power in 3-4 months but that after that you tend to level off and so you need to change your training.  So a 3-4 month winter bike focus plan is followed by other types of training that are specific to your event. If you are doing Ironman that might look like a lot of sweet spot and tempo training to increase endurance and functional strength. If you are doing Olympic Triathlons that might look like a lot of threshold and VO2_max intervals like the 4 x 8' @ VO2_Max (4' RI )and 9 x 3 @ FTP (3'RI). 

Yes,  the Winter Bike Plan is a good idea.  Coming off your Ironman base you will be cutting volume but increasing intensity so you will see a lot of power gain. 

The Winter Bike Training Plan here is a 4-day plan.  When I did it I did all four days and just did recovery runs two days.  After four months of bike focus I hadn't improved much at all and my run fitness was greatly reduced.  When I went back to cycling three days a week and running 3-4 days a week the run speed can back really quickly.  The other two plans I did were three days plans and I stuck with the 3-4 days of running through them.  I did a winter run focus during one of them and that is the one I actually improved the most on.   I won't go back to a do-day recovery run again.  I didn't need the extra rest to nail the bike workouts and the running seemed to help me improve faster with the bike training.  So I would do a 3 day FPT bike plan, a 3 days run plan, and a 3 days swim program.  You can always add another bike or run to the schedule on peak weeks.   

The Winter Bike plan has a long ride on Saturdays which should keep your endurance up, if that's what you want.  That plan is HARD.  You can do some maintenance stuff on the other disciplines but it's a bike focus, and REALLY a bike focus so plan accordingly.  It also is only 4 days/week, which to me isn't a true bike focus.  All semantics, I suppose, but a true bike focus should have you on the bike 5-6 days a week IMO. 

Curtis recommended a good compromise where you do the three hard rides and keep up some volume on the other disciplines.  An Oly ride is an hour or just over so you don't need 3/4-hour endurance rides, in fact I think they'd be counterproductive.  You have plenty of endurance (11:XX IM) so you're going to switch focus to going faster and being comfortable with discomfort.  You'll be doing Olys sub-2:30 based on your IM time so you'll be holding that upper tempo, lower Z4 for long stretches.

I love the Olympic distance - good luck with your training!

***EDIT***  4 x 8' @  FTP  (4' RI) and 9 x 3' @ VO2_Max (3'RI)  ***EDIT***

LOL I thought that was a little aggressive up there.  Those Vo2 max intervals really pile up fatigue over a few of them.