Endurance Nation | Triathlon Coaching, Ironman Training, Half Ironman, Beginner Triathlon

Results Talk, Talk Walks.

The final measure of our success, as coaches and leaders of a team of long course triathletes, are their peformances on race day. Our athletes pay us to make then faster. Period.

No “look at what I did as a pro, look at the intials behind my name, no you gotta pay me $$$/mo cuz I say so.” Our results talk for us. We are going to regularly and repeatedly hit you between the eyes with the performances of our athletes and remind you that none of them is paying us more than $79/mo to be a member of our team and that you can try us out, for free, for 30-days. Until we close the doors on 5/1/2009, that is!

Executive Summary:

James Lewis, Miami Internation, 2:2x, over a 25′ PR!
Dan Kerr, Caesar Rodney Half Marathon, 1:37:04, 1:25 PR!

Four EN Athletes, members of our Northern IL Sleeper Cell, raced the Cary March Madness Half Marathon:

1. Mike Biarnesen, 1:33:58, negative split
2. Matt Ancona, 1:20:08, 1:25 PR, negative split
3. Hayes Sanborn, 1:36:58, 3:30 PR!
4. Jim Hansen, 1:28:31, 2′ negative split, 9′ PR

Note: all of the athletes above (except Mike B, training for Boston) are training under our Out-Season Program (Download the free ebook here): 6-8hrs a week, all threshold work, no swimming, zero focus on building endurance. Yeah, they were totally under prepared for a half marathon….

Complete details below

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This Fall, Endurance Nation conducted a free, 90′ webinar on heart rate based training. The webinar was converted to an ebook, which you can download below. Over 1000 athletes have read the ebook!

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…according to our athletes! Below is text from an athlete’s post in the EN forum. Enjoy!

Have you ever started looking at a particular model of car, and then all of a sudden noticed them all over the place? Well, I’m 3.5 weeks into my experience with EN, and am starting to notice all over the place that other people know this stuff, they’re just not sharing. Thought I’d post a few interesting examples…

Lance Armstrong
http://www.active.com/triathlon/Arti…like_Lance.htm
- Discusses 2 hr rides just below LT in the section on “Aerobic Development”

Joe Friel
http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesbl…best-race.html
- says that periodization is not about intensity and volume, but rather about training more at race pace as the race gets closer

Allen & Coggan
Training and Racing with a Power Meter
- when discussing the benefit of time spent at different intensities, basically says that for the time-limited athlete, “Zone 3 / 80-85%” is the “best bang for the buck.” “This level of training is also one of the most beneficial for most cyclists. Riding in Level 3 causes some of the greatest adaptationsto your training stress. ” “If you have limited time… then this is the level for you.” “If you are getting prepped for a long 100 mile race, then being able to ride in this zone for up to 2.5 to 3 hours will pay off with a possible podium finish.”

Here I was, reading all this stuff before, but through the lens of LSD nonsense. It’s borderline unbelievable that nobody else really put together all of these thoughts on training for the time-constrained AG athlete. Thanks, RnP!!!

-MG

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Rich and Patrick,

Thanks for the blog about me last week! I was a little surprised as I was getting some-mails and texts and I had no idea what they were talking about until someone included the original link.

Happy to report that after straining for another 3 watts on last week’s FTP test on the trainer, that I now have better numbers to report. I was pretty happy at an FT of 289 watts but was still looking to pay off Rich when I hit 300. This thread was very motivating.

On Friday John and headed out to do some intervals and then cruise around “working”. As always we spend the first part of the ride talking and getting caught up and then do our own thing for intervals, regroup and then head home. We had a 2 x 15 @ FT on the menu followed by Z3 stuff.

I had an awesome ride.

I started the first 15 minute interval feeling pretty good. Very relaxed, bike was just back from the shop and all tuned up, shifting really well, and lowering the aero bars were still good.

2 minutes in, I look at the power meter; 308 average and feeling good. I start wondering how long I can stay over 300 watts. 5 minutes in I’m still at 305. 10 minutes same thing, now wondering if I can hold it for the whole 15. Start hammering. At 15 minutes I’m at 307 and say to myself, let’s go to 20 minutes. At 18 minutes I’m feeling invincible and say, let’s make this a 2 x20′ (2′) FT test and see where I fall out. At 20 minutes I was at 307, 15 watts ahead of my last week’s FT test. Slam on the breaks, flip the bike and recover for 2 minutes.

I hit the interval button for the 2nd 20 minutes and I’m felling really good still. At 5 minutes in I’m at 311, at 10 minutes down to 304 watts average, but knew I could make it to the end over 300 watts. I jammed on the brakes and flipped the bike again heading back to our planned meeting spot. 15 min = 303 and still no sign of fading. 20 minutes = 305!!

I cruised into the meeting spot and started looking for John. Hung around for 10 minutes or so figuring he was circling around, accumulating TSS. John was long gone wondering what the heck I was doing. I decided to keep going and headed for home as time was getting tight.

Raced into the shower and then off to the school where I volunteer at my son’s class.

Got back from school and downloaded the data and my new FTP is 304, up 15 points from a week or so ago!!!

Not sure if was the big bike week, the 30/30s, the three day weekend off, riding outside versus the trainer on the last FT, but I’ll take it.

Now I’m fried but happy, watching X-Men with the boys.

Here are my updated results since joining EN in October 2007

Functional Threshold Power (FTP) Progression
test 1 215w (10/20/07)
test 2 233w (11/24/07)
test 3 259w (1/2/08)
test 4 269w (1/29/08)
test 5 250w (3/17/08)
test 6 275w (4/8/08)
test 7 279w (6/30/08)
test 8 260 w (10/7/08 – first time on trainer in months = disaster)
Lower FT from 279 to 275 for now.
test 9 286 (11/3/08)
test 10 289 (2/23/09)
impromptu test 11 304 (3/5/09)

I guess I owe Rich and Patrick a coffee and a beer.

tom

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Triathlete’s Coffee Shop featured Rich, Patrick, and TeamEN athlete Tom Newman this week for an hour long podcast. We discussed the Endurance Nation approach to the Out-Season, base training, race prep, team coaching, and Tom’s experiences and the results he has seen since joining the Team.

Visit the Triathlete’s Coffee Shop to listen to the podcast, also avaiable on iTunes!

Want more? Create a free 30-day trial to Endurance Nation!

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