So you want to get faster this coming season, huh? Of course you do-that's why we race, right? But the question is, how do you go about it? If you're like most athletes/triathletes I know, it automatically means more hours/miles/yards, in addition to harder workouts across the board. Not so fast my friend. It all depends on your specific strengths and weaknesses, both physically and physiologically. Let me tell you what I mean.

There are many aspects to consider when you're jotting down the pros and cons of your own athletic prowess. First, what type of racing do you do or are you planning to do? Ironman, 70.3, Olympic, sprint or some combination of them all? In the coaching biz, we call this knowing the demands of the sport. In order to train properly, you have to intimately know what the event is going to require. If the event is Ironman, then you'll need amazing endurance and aerobic capacity most of all. If the event is a fast little sprint triathlon, then you'll need to improve your maximal speed and lactate threshold in order to have success. That being said, just because you're either an endurance-oriented triathlete or sprint-focused triathlete doesn't mean you can neglect the other aspects of your fitness.

OK, so that much isn't rocket science, and you've probably already taken race distance into consideration when putting together your training plan. But a similar concept should apply to your analysis of your own strengths and weaknesses, across triathlon as a whole as well as within each of the three individual disciplines.

To start with, take a long, hard look at your results from the last year or two. Don't necessarily look at your times or speeds, but take a peek at your sport-by-sport ranking within your age group. Are you significantly further behind the curve in one discipline than the others? If so, then there you go-spend the most time working on that sport this winter. Is there one sport that is head-and-shoulders above the rest? Then do more maintenance on that leg and get the others up to snuff.

Let's focus on the "within each sport" part of things, using cycling as an example. What should you try to improve this winter and spring: on-the-bike strength, endurance or top-end speed? Basically you need to take a hard look at your performances over the past few years and decide what your limiting factor has been. Are 100-mile rides a big challenge? Do you want to be able to race at 22 mph but you just can't get there for more than five or 10 minutes? Or are many of your races over hills and really seem to sap your legs?

Proper periodization of a season still demands that you progress through your training logically, but depending on where your weaknesses are, you need to spend more time in one area than another. So if you're aerobically good to go and have a decent top-end but just can't sustain "race pace" for very long, then shorten your "base" phase of training, plan on doing less sprint work right before the big races and focus mainly on doing a lot of lactate threshold intervals in between the base phase and race season.

Even if you're an Ironman and have spent the last few years getting really comfortable with your saddle on five- and six-hour rides, you may need to work on improving your lactate threshold or VO2 max. Sure you may never go quite that hard during a 112-mile triathlon time-trial, but if your threshold is higher, and your maximal oxygen consumption is higher, then your sub-threshold race pace can be higher as well. For example, say you race at 78 percent of your threshold wattage for an Ironman. If your threshold is 200 watts then you'll be racing at 156 watts. But if you can nudge that threshold up to 250 watts, then you'll get to throw down roughly 198 watts on race day.

So if the question this off-season (which it better be) is: "What should I spend my time working on?" I'm really sorry to break it to you, but the answer is unfortunately: "It depends." But at least it depends on some fairly concrete criteria that you can easily determine and rank. So sit down in front of the ol' race results and figure out where you can make up the most ground on your potential next summer. Let's start there.

Nick White is a professional coach for Carmichael Training Systems and the personal coach of 2007 Ironman Hawaii runner-up and 2006 Ironman 70.3 world champion Craig Alexander. He has been coaching and competing for the past 11 years in all distances and disciplines relating to triathlon. Find out more about White and other CTS coaches at http://www.TrainRight.com.