Both philosophies have their own validity, but they also are athlete specific. Depending on individual physiology and the distance you're racing, some people will respond better to one over the other.

I would say I'm Doing the Friel method...but I have no idea how I'm actually going to do speed skills right now...but good thing I'm in the Prep phase of the training plan.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I think they are both lacking in regards to triathlon.

Do agree Friel advocates appropriate intensity (as it applies to race distance) is one of the most important elements of training (another biggie is limiters)

On the second part in bold, I don't agree that is what he says in regards to base training. It seems you have an interest in self education in exercise physiology and triathlon. If you haven't read Friel's book "Your Best Triathlon", I would recommend it to educate yourself more about his methodology in regards to the base period, and differences in the base period as they relate to the expected race duration.

So no, I don't think he is advocating that the core of base is AC, Strength, and LT.

Don't mean to be confrontational, just hoping to add food for thought.

What race distance / race pace are you training for ?

Ironman (55 to 60 % of your Max VO2 Power -not VO2 quantity) ?
Olympic (75% of your Max VO2 Power) ?
Individual Pursuit (100% of Max VO2 Power + anaerobic initial push) ?

Because this is the main parameter to define with % you will do of :
low intensity (1mmol/L)
med intensity (2 to 3 mmol/L)
high intensity (4mmol/L and above)

With of course total number of training hours you can handle and some personal variations.

I think you are confused.
Friel advocates pretty traditional base training with lots of aerobic work. He specifically states that he does not bring in AT work until late in the build period, and specifically that the build period (rather than base period) is where your training needs to start getting closer to the racing you are doing (ie sprint with more AT work versus IM with longer lower intensity work).

Answering Tojunialto or me ?

If me :
yes, I do base with lot of low intensity, some medium (except in swim, more medium / high)

then on build (and targeting 70.3) :
replacing progressively most/all of low with race pace (lower than medium / sweetspot)
some medium / sweetspot
adding some high intensity (FTP/PMA) around 2%

Sorry was answering Tojunialto.

So here is the deal, Mark Allen did a decade of super high intensity work to get great. I know that because I did a lot of those workouts with him at the time, and he was legendary in for his intensity in workouts. After that, he was able to maintain that greatness with a more balanced approach. Once you get fast, the trick is to stay fast for as long as you can. That means your older body that used to recover from super high intensity training, needs more down time, or easy training. The MAF method worked to enable him to continue to race at his peak for a long time, but it absolutely did not get him to that peak..

So to answer everyones question on what they should be doing, well how old are you, injury prone or not, where are you in your career as a triathlete, what are your goals, do you need to lose weight, are you doing ironman or sprints, and on and on....Everyone needs to evaluate their own situations and then decide the path to take, with or without a coach..

Really great insight Monty...thanks to you and everyone else who chimed in.

I've never heard Mark say he trained hard, but in reality he says that after his end of season layoff and starting up again, he even walked some hills as they were too high a heart rate on his plan. Joe Friel actually comments here:

https://www.joefrielsblog.com/...allens-training.html

"He basically followed a three-mesocycle periodization format. In the first period he focused on aerobic endurance. The second was devoted to strength. And the third was for speed. Then he was ready to race. He generally moved on to the next mesocycle when he saw an obvious plateau in performance." and

"His long, steady sessions at this rather low effort built a great aerobic engine. His goal was to get as fast as possible at a low effort. That’s a great goal. Using the formula he determined his aerobic endurance training heart rate was about 155 bpm and so would spend hours running and riding at that intensity in the first period. He says that when he first started he was running 8:15 mile pace (5:09/km) at 155 bpm. After a few weeks he was running 5:20 per mile (3:20/km) at the same heart rate."

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