Real Training Week — February Volume Block (Joel Filliol Squad)
This is Vasco's actual week from his February base block, described in exact detail in the interview. Every session, every distance. The week runs Monday to Sunday with no rest day and no recovery week — just six sports sessions each day on average.
The Joel Filliol Philosophy — Minimum Effective Dose
"The main idea is to do as little as possible for the maximum performance." Not no training — 28–30 hours per week is substantial. But every extra kilometre adds injury risk, and every injury resets months of work. So the squad does exactly what is needed to improve, and no more. No rest days, no recovery weeks — instead, the intensity is controlled so carefully every day that the body can always recover overnight. "We never go over the point where the body is exhausted and injuries come very easily." The contrast with many triathlon programs: instead of hard/easy week alternation, Vasco does the same structure every week, with intensity that slowly builds across the season — from long easy rides in December to race-pace work four weeks before competition.
Volume by Sport — February Base Week
| Sport | Sessions/week | Total volume | Hard sessions | Easy sessions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swim | 6 | 25–30K / ~4–5K/session | 2 (Tue + Fri) | 4 (Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat) |
| Bike | 6 | ~15 hrs (winter) | 2 (Thu + Sun) | 4 (Mon, Tue sprints, Wed basic, Fri easy) |
| Run | 5 | 75–85K | 2 (Tue + Sat build) | 3 (Wed, Thu, Sun) |
| Gym | 2 | Mon + Fri | MACAW program — balance, small muscles, low weight | |
Intensity Distribution — Joel Filliol Squad
"We do a lot of easy work — what we call cruise." Each sport has 2 hard sessions and 4 easy per week. Threshold is the primary quality zone. Race pace only enters 4 weeks before target races. No supramaximal work in base blocks.
Vasco's Exact Key Sessions
Every session comes directly from Vasco's own words. These are the real sessions from the February base block. The Tuesday triple and Saturday build run are the two signature sessions of the Joel Filliol squad week.
40×50s: 4 sets of (3 hard + 1 easy), then (2 hard + 1 easy) × 4, then (1 hard + 1 easy) × 4, then 4 hard
Vasco gave this session explicitly in the interview. Forty 50s with descending hard reps and constant short rest — starting on 45 seconds, building to 50–55 seconds toward the end as the session accumulates. "It's not like you're doing short efforts — in the end it does feel like a long threshold because you don't get that much rest." The pattern means you do 12, then 8, then 4, then 4 hard 50s — the density decreasing but the rest never becoming truly generous. Total hard work: ~1800m. Total session: 5K.
8–10×10 seconds hard out of U-turns · 2 min recovery
"Although it sounds like nothing, sprints do take it out of you when you have so much running around." Vasco trains his U-turn sprints at a U-turn in Girona — simulating the exact moment in draft-legal triathlon where power is demanded: coming out of corners and turns at race speed. "In triathlon, we never need to sprint from 40–45 km/h. The power is needed coming out of turns." 10 seconds hard, 2 minutes recovery, 8–10 reps. Done on a short loop with a U-turn. The session is primarily neuromuscular — training the ability to accelerate explosively from a bike handling movement, not just raw wattage.
8×45s hills (race effort uphill) + 8×1' flat (race pace building to 3:00–2:45/km)
Vasco's Tuesday run is the third hard session of his hardest day — done after the swim and bike sprints. Starting with hill reps to build leg strength and explosive running, then moving to flat race-pace efforts that build from ~3:00/km down to ~2:45/km across the 8 reps. "Controlled, but hard up." Rest on the hills is the time to jog down — longer as the session goes on because legs are slower. On the flat reps: "We build — so you can stop earlier if you're having a very bad day and you've already done the right stimulus." Sessions designed to always have something left.
30 min warmup + 20' @ 3:40/km + 20' @ 3:30/km + 20' @ 3:20/km
The signature Joel Filliol squad session — "once you've done this session, you're part of the squad." Vasco describes it as the hardest single session of the week. 30 minutes easy warmup to ~12K, then three 20-minute blocks at progressively faster paces: 3:40, 3:30, 3:20/km. "The last 20 minutes can be a bit hard sometimes. The first time I did it, I got dropped in the last five minutes." Total: ~30K. The difficulty is cumulative — by the time you reach the 3:20 block you've already run 25K. It's not just the paces, it's the accumulated fatigue. This session is Friday-recovered (no run on Friday) and specifically carb-loaded for.
Thursday: 10×4' hills (250→380W) · Sunday: 5×10' hills (250→350W)
Both key bike sessions use the same progressive build structure. Never starting hard — always from a controlled first rep and building. "We would start maybe 250–275W and build to the last one at maybe 350–400W, depending on how tired I am." The build-up structure is a deliberate safety valve: if it's a bad day, you stop at a lower wattage naturally without overreaching. If it's a great day, you push through. "The last ones would be pretty hard." Thursday uses shorter 4-minute reps (more intense per rep), Sunday uses longer 10-minute reps (more aerobically demanding). Both done as hillclimb repeats in Girona.
3 sets: 6×50 (hard) + 4×150 (steady) + 200 (recovery) · Followed immediately by gym
"Probably the hardest swim of the week, although Tuesday is hard as well — but Friday is the only hard session that day." Three full sets of 6×50s hard, 4×150s steady, then 200m recovery backstroke/easy. The 50s are genuinely hard, the 150s are steady, and the 200 is active recovery before the next set begins. Immediately followed by gym (the only two sessions done back-to-back) — "most sessions we get 2–3 hours between them, but gym is done straight after the swim." Total session: 5K. Swim performance here directly reflects fatigue accumulated from Tuesday's hard swim and Wednesday's volume session.
4-Week Training Block — Base → Race Specific
Built from Vasco's exact description of how the Joel Filliol squad structures its season. No rest weeks. The same weekly schedule repeats, but the intensity sessions evolve across months: December long rides → slow thresholds → faster thresholds → race pace. This is a 4-week slice of that progression.
The Joel Filliol squad never has a rest day. This is only sustainable because the intensity is meticulously controlled every single day. "If you get exhausted and you don't have any easy days, you don't have any time to recover — so we have to control the efforts to be able to recover for the next day." The structure is not heroic — it is scientific. The same 28+ hours every week for months is more adaptive stimulus than 35 hours followed by collapse and two weeks of recovery.
Vasco's swim progression came from one key insight from his Swedish swim coach Anders Holmertz: "If you just put the volume in, slowly your body will learn. Someone who swims a lot will get good at swimming without any exercises — because you learn automatically to save energy when you spend enough time in the water." The Filliol squad applies this same principle: swim 6 times per week, cruise volume on most days, just enough hard sessions to stimulate, and let time and accumulation do the rest.
The transition from hills to baseline to crit is not arbitrary — it mirrors the demands of draft-legal Olympic distance racing. Hills build raw power, baseline builds sustained threshold power, crit sessions build race-speed power with cornering and acceleration. "We kind of believe that if you're a good biker and a good runner, even after a hard bike, you're going to run well." The brick sessions exist to confirm the feeling, not to create the fitness. The fitness was built over the previous 8+ weeks of systematic work.
Vasco's advice: "Performing at your best isn't about equipment — it's about rest around the races, sleep, eating well, minimizing flights in the middle of the night. Those things make a huge difference and many times people focus on getting the best wetsuit or ceramic speed components instead." The athlete who arrives at the start line having flown through two time zones the night before with four hours sleep will not perform to training capability — regardless of aerodynamics. This is the most actionable race-week advice in this series.
Why It Works — Coaching Keynotes
Vasco Vilaça trains in the Joel Filliol squad in Girona — one of the most philosophically distinct setups in elite short-course triathlon. No rest days, no recovery weeks, minimum effective dose. These keynotes explain what makes this approach work where others fail.
Data Sources
All training data in this blueprint is sourced from the athlete's own public statements, verified interviews, and published race data. Nothing is inferred or fabricated.
That Triathlon Show (2023) — Vasco Vilaça Interview
The primary source for this blueprint. Vasco describes training philosophy, methodology, key sessions, and race preparation in their own words. All quoted material and specific numbers in this blueprint trace directly to this interview.
Supplementary Research — Published Race & Training Data
Race results, split data, and training context cross-referenced from published race data. Used to verify the plausibility of stated training numbers and to contextualise the athlete's competitive trajectory. No training data comes solely from this source without primary-source corroboration.