Alistair Brownlee talks training intensity and tips for going long

The last 12 months have been anything but straightforward for two-time Olympic champion, Alistair Brownlee.

There have been highs (setting the British record at Ironman Kalmar) and lows (missing the biggest races through injury), but he’s ready and eager for the races yet to come this year.

Here, he talks to 220 about dealing with setbacks and the exciting future of the sport…

How do you decide whether to race or not if something doesn’t feel quite right?

There’s definitely no hard and fast process. You just go with what feels right. Even though I’ve been doing it for so long, I definitely don’t know what the best way to approach it is.

Ultimately, if you’re worried about something, you’ve just got to take it seriously.

Is it difficult to plan your season now with so many races to choose from?

There are a lot of races out there, but on the whole I just aim to be at the best, they’re the ones that I focus on.

I think these days that’s the Ironman World Championships and, outside of that, the PTO races. I just want to be the best athlete I can be.

What motivates me is to take on the best people in the world to get the best out of myself, so those races select themselves fairly easily.

Do you think the calendar’s in danger of becoming too congested?

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of racing there in August and that’s not ideal, for sure. But I’ve been racing for long enough to know that there’s a lot of difficulties around planning and timetabling races.

So it’s definitely not ideal, but I think the flip side of that is isn’t it exciting that there’s so many top-level world-class long-distance races going on?

It’s kind of a nice position to be in if you look at it like that.

What tips do you have for people moving up from short-course to long-course racing?

Let’s presume most people can’t train more, so it’s about keeping your total training hours the same.

I think training for any endurance sport is ultimately about consistency, so what can you maintain as a training week schedule not for this week or next week, but over three, four or six months.

That consistency is really important. You know, not doing loads one week because you’ve got a week off work and then much less.

If you can do your eight sessions that week, you try and do eight sessions every week. I think in terms of specifically transitioning to long course, time-trial biking [is important].

For me, so is training for a single output rather than an up and down varied output. I think consistent long sessions where you’re getting efficient at being at a consistent output is important. And obviously time in the TT position focusing on your aerodynamics.

Then I think the two big things to work on are having a really good pacing strategy and also nutrition, being really confident with what nutrition you’re using on the day.

What’s your approach to volume and intensity in training?

Well, it depends exactly what I’m training for at the time. Most of my training is based on relatively low intensity aerobic training. What that percentage is varies a bit depending on the time of year and what kind of race I’m focusing on.

If I’m doing Ironman, I’m probably doing a bit more aerobic. If I’m doing more middle-distance stuff, like PTO races, it’s bit more intense because, you know, you’re still trying to run fairly quick.

It’s a balancing act, but to put a number on that, it’ll be somewhere around 80% low intensity and 20% higher intensity. In a big week I’ll do two intense swims, two intense bike rides of some sort and two intense runs of some sort, obviously spread out through the week.

But even the majority of those sessions will be aerobic. You know, so if it’s a swim session and you’re doing a couple of intense kilometres, there’ll be more than a couple of kilometres that aren’t intense. So even in the hard sessions themselves, they’re kind of padded-out by plenty of low-level aerobic training.

I try to set my sessions at a level that I can do them on any day, to be honest., I try to never do anything so intense that I need to be on a good day to do them. I just want everything to be super repeatable and, if I’m not having a great day, they feel a bit hard, and if I’m having a great day, I cruise through them and they’re easy.

But yeah, I want to be able to do all the sessions I do on pretty much any day of my training week.

How have your goals and the way you deal with setbacks evolved over the years?

Aiming for a World Series or Olympics is obviously different to long distance. It’s always been about aiming for the most important races in the year. That’s kind of the same.

But when you’re racing World Series, it’s a bit more laid out for you because you basically have to do so many races and so you’re just committed to do that. In terms of setbacks, how has it changed? Not a lot. It still pisses me off.

Aside from the obvious ones, who are the athletes to watch over the next few years in long-course?

I think post-Paris we could see some of the guys who we’ve seen racing on the short-course scene for a long time successfully transitioning over to long course.

I’d say that generation of people could be Leo Bergere and Marten Van Riel; people like Vincent Luis are already doing a bit. I think there’s some really good people out there that are going to be good.

I already think that middle distance is as competitive as anything else in triathlon.

I think it could get more competitive, too, which I think is exciting because you’ve got people who specialise at that, people coming up from short distance, people coming from long distance. I think it’s just great for the sport.

As far as the women are concerned, I think we could see similar. If Flora [Duffy] really focuses on long distance, it’d be mad to think she won’t be really good at it.

But similarly, if you saw Georgia [Taylor-Brown] and Jess [Learmonth] focus on long distance I can only imagine they’d be very good at it, too.

Do you think Britain is in with a good chance at Paris 2024?

I think we’ve got a brilliant chance of medalling. Obviously, the same athletes are around, with Jonny [Brownlee] and Alex [Yee] on the men’s side, and Georgia, Jess, Sophie [Coldwell] and Beth Potter on the women’s.

It’d be a disappointment if we didn’t win the gold medal in the relay. So yeah, we’ve got a good chance at the three medals.

How important is shoe and saddle choice to you on the bike?

It’s maybe an obvious point, but your shoes and your saddles are the contact points on the bike. I spend a lot of time riding my bike, between 15 and 20 hours a week at least, and being super comfortable and making sure that those things don’t cause any discomfort or unnecessary injuries is really important.

Fizik is a great company that makes a great range of products – I think I’ve been lucky enough to try most of them. There’s everything from comfortable road saddles to off-road, TT and triathlon specific.

Then there’s super-fast shoes for transition, aero shoes and comfortable everyday road shoes.

I think having great top-end performance products that are well designed and offer a good range is important because, ultimately, saddles and shoes are similar to wetsuits in that different things fit different people. Finding out what works for you is really important.

Thanks to fizik for arranging this interview. The brand’s new range of triathlon bike shoes, the Transiro Hydra, is now available on-site.