Speed should become a priority when the goal requires it, it is a meaningful limiter and the athlete can execute and recover from the work.

That sounds obvious, but speed is often treated in one of two unhelpful ways. It is either presented as the exciting answer to everything, or pushed aside until an athlete has completed enough slow work to be considered ready.

Neither approach starts with the athlete.

I enjoy speed. I am a short-distance specialist and I believe that improving an athlete's ceiling can change what becomes possible beneath it. Fast is also fun. It can bring variety, confidence and a clear sense of progression.

But enjoyment alone does not make speed the priority. The work still has to earn its place.

Start by defining what “faster” means

Speed is not one training session or one energy system.

For a triathlete, faster work might mean:

These sessions are related, but they are not interchangeable. Twelve-second hill sprints, five-minute cycling intervals and race-pace running solve different problems.

Before asking whether speed should be a priority, ask which faster ability the goal demands and which one the athlete currently lacks.

When speed earns priority

I would make faster work a leading priority when five conditions line up.

The goal has a clear speed demand

Start with the event, outcome or performance the athlete wants.

A short-course triathlon can demand the ability to swim hard from the start, respond to changes of pace, produce high power on the bike and run quickly after both. A qualification or placing goal may require a performance that cannot be reached by extending the athlete's existing pace for longer.

Longer events still contain speed demands, but the deciding demand may be different. The athlete might need to sustain a smaller percentage of a higher ceiling, improve race pace or retain enough quality to avoid becoming one-paced. The distance alone does not tell us which version of speed matters most.

Speed is a real limiter

A performance ceiling matters when it is actually limiting the goal.

If an athlete already has ample top-end ability but cannot hold appropriate work, recover between sessions, fuel training or maintain technique, adding more intensity may develop the quality they already possess while ignoring the one holding them back.

Likewise, an athlete should not be labelled “slow” from one race result. Course demands, pacing, technique, confidence, fatigue and the other two disciplines may explain more than raw speed.

The useful question is not “Could this athlete be faster?” Almost everyone could. It is “Would prioritising this kind of speed create the most valuable change now?”

The athlete is ready to execute it

Fast work rewards quality.

The athlete needs enough technical control, training history and current readiness to produce the intended work rather than merely survive it. That does not mean waiting for a mythical perfect foundation. It means choosing a version of the work that the athlete can execute safely and purposefully now.

Readiness also includes the honesty to stop, adjust or extend recovery when speed becomes poor-quality repetition. More intensity is not more useful once the reason for the session has disappeared.

The phase gives the work time to develop

Priority means more than inserting a hard session into an already crowded week. It means organising enough training around the quality for it to improve.

That may involve changing volume, reducing competing fatigue, altering the sequence of sessions or concentrating a particular stimulus for a defined period. It also means leaving enough time for the athlete to adapt before the event demands the result.

Small studies in trained cyclists help illustrate why organisation matters. In one four-week experiment, cyclists completed similar amounts of high- and low-intensity work, but the group that concentrated five high-intensity sessions into an opening block improved several performance measures more than the group that spread two such sessions through each week. A later 12-week study found no performance advantage between block and traditional organisation, despite some different physiological changes.

Those findings do not prove that block training is always better. They show why “include some speed” is not a complete prescription. The sequence, concentration, recovery and timescale can change the result.

The athlete can recover without losing the rest of the programme

Speed work has a cost. The cost is only worthwhile when the athlete can absorb it and continue doing the other training the goal requires.

High-intensity training can improve endurance performance. In a study of 38 highly trained cyclists and triathletes, groups that added two different types of high-intensity interval work each week improved 40-kilometre cycling time-trial performance and peak power more than the control group. But those athletes continued their regular low-intensity training as well.

Another nine-week study across 48 trained runners, cyclists, triathletes and cross-country skiers compared high-volume, threshold, high-intensity and polarised approaches. The polarised group—which combined substantial low-intensity work with some high intensity—showed the largest improvements in several measured endurance variables. It was a short study with a small, mixed sample, so it does not give every athlete a universal intensity distribution. It does challenge the idea that improvement must come from choosing either speed or endurance and neglecting the other.

The priority can be speed without every session becoming fast.

Priority is not exclusivity

Training does not develop one quality in a sealed box. A phase can emphasise speed while maintaining endurance, technique and recovery. Another phase can emphasise race-specific durability while retaining small doses of faster work.

That is an important distinction.

If “speed priority” means filling the week with hard sessions, the athlete may lose the quality needed to execute them. If “endurance priority” means removing every exposure to faster movement, the athlete may lose a useful ability unnecessarily.

I prefer to think in terms of emphasis:

The answers should change as the athlete, goal and available time change.

When speed should not lead the phase

I would be cautious about making speed the priority when:

This does not always mean removing faster work. It may mean maintaining rather than developing it, changing the format, reducing the dose or waiting for a phase in which it can receive proper attention.

A practical decision before adding speed

Ask these questions in order:

  1. What does the goal require the athlete to do faster? Name the discipline, duration and performance demand.
  2. Is that quality genuinely limiting the athlete now? Use training, racing, technique and feedback—not assumption alone.
  3. Which session would develop it most directly? Define the purpose before choosing the interval format.
  4. What must change around that session? Consider volume, sequence, recovery and the work that may need to move or leave.
  5. How will we know whether the priority is working? Choose a relevant test, training marker or performance change and review it over a useful timescale.

If those questions do not produce clear answers, “more speed” is still an idea rather than a coaching decision.

The principle to carry forwards

Fast is fun. Purpose decides when it leads.

Speed can raise the ceiling, improve performance and make training more enjoyable. It should become the priority when it offers the best return for this athlete, towards this goal, in this phase—and when the surrounding training lets the athlete execute and absorb it.

The right question is not whether speed is good. It is whether this speed is the right training, at the right time, for the right reasons.

Does your training reflect what your goal actually requires?

If you want your goal, training history, current strengths and life context considered together, a discovery call is the place to start that conversation.

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