Winter Training

Typically I focus on SOMETHING, while reducing overall volume.  2014 was run focused, 2015 was a very big bike focus (almost all on the trainer), 2016 was kinda all over the place because of my job, moving, and then 2017 was "recover from back surgery".  LOL

This winter will be getting back to running and a focus on strength and core training, hoping to hit 2018 healthy-ish.

So...if my goals for 2018 is to take another 30 minutes off my 70.3 race what approach is going to help me the most?  Building volume (i.e. training for a 100 mile trail run) or choose a focus area to work on 3-4 times a week while dropping my over all volume and going down to just 2 days a week in the other two areas?

Hmm? Build the base in the offseason or do speed work in the off season? 

That "2 days off a week without feeling bad about it" is a tough pill to swallow for many triathletes, but many could really benefit from it.  While my off-season plan only has 1 day off, I PROMISE I'm not going to have nervous breakdown if life/schedules/fatigue get in the way and I miss a day.  

EDITED:  That should read "1 day off per week". 

^^^This^^^

Plus, take a hard and honest look at your past 70.3's (or better yet, have someone knowledgeable look at them) regarding how well you executed them.  Do you have a tendency to over bike, then under perform on the run. (This one should be really obvious.)  Do you tend to over swim, impacting your run performance? (This one is usually less obvious.)  Do you give up minutes through inefficient transitions?  These all indicate areas where you could likely gain a lot of time just by executing the race better, even at the same fitness level.

During this analysis, you can also drill down into the data to answer some of Marc's questions above that may not be completely obvious.  A straightforward example:  Is there a trend of one of the 3 disciplines being significantly out of line with the other two as a percentile of finish place overall?   A less obvious example:  assuming your swim is good (decent pace relative to T-pace), bike is solid (healthy FTP / kg and good pacing as % of FTP), but your run starts strong then slowly fades to the point that your final run time is more than 10% slower than your open HM time, but you never completely blow up, that can imply more biking and running volume would help you.

In most cases, I wouldn't try to get 30 minutes all from one place.  Instead, I'd look at everything, and try to trim time anywhere it's available.  10 minutes from better race execution + 3 minutes from better transitions + 3 minutes from a more aero bike set up + 10 minutes from a stronger bike + 5 minutes from a stronger run = 31 minutes.  For most athletes, that's easier to achieve than 20 minutes off the bike and 10 minutes off the run.

I'm coming back from injury, so probably now through the end of the month I'll be on the trainer and in the pool prepping to begin training later.  But I plan to spend a lot of quality time with TrainerRoad later.  On Zwift now just for riding.

But as for motivation, try to set process goals like bumping your FTP, or running for a month straight or something.  Pick some winter/spring 5ks to give you something to think about.  But mainly, it's about the process right now.