Steal A Pro's Workout: Kevin Collington’s VO2max Intervals

As a former collegiate national champion (2007), Kevin Collington continued onto short-course ITU racing before shifting his focus primarily to the 70.3 distance the past couple years. The 30-year-old’s second-place finish in a deep field at the U.S. Pro Championship at the 2013 Ironman 70.3 St. George was a career highlight, and he also won Challenge Rancho Cordova in October and will be racing at Challenge Laguna Phuket later this month.

This is Collington’s favorite bike workout, which he admits he enjoys mostly after it’s over. He’ll do this simple but demanding interval session once a week leading up to an Olympic-distance or 70.3 race. “I would qualify the interval efforts as VO₂max or above threshold—they are very hard and painful, and typically I’m sore from the effort the next day,” Collington says. “High power doesn’t come naturally to me, so I need to train it a lot, and this workout really pays off on race day for me. But it’s a painful one!”

The workout

Include a warm-up and cool-down of choice.

Main set: 8–10 x 2 min very hard with 2 min recovery

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