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

This year we have a handful of Team EN athletes competing at Ironman Florida. They are an awesome bunch, some new and some veterans, all coming to put their mental and physical mettle to the test in the classic one-day event. The 2010 edition sees the bike course changed due to some new roads, but guaranteed there will be suffering and spectacle on the big day. Learn more about the Team and the unique individuals who make up our IMFL crew below. You can also track them online on race day using our Team Tracking Sheet.

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Brian Comiskey, 41
Orland Park, IL

IMOO (2009) – 13:24
IMLP (2010) – 12:51IMFL: Goals: 1:15 swim, 5:20 bike with a VI of 1.03 or less, 4:15 run. EN Gang Sign Finish Line Photo.

I am a Janus Charity Challenge athlete for Ironman Florida and have raised over $2,500 for Autism Speaks. Still a few days to raise more money.

Joined EN team in July of 2010 and this is my first race with a power meter/compacts (thanks Coach Rich for the discount). I have been in the sport for three years. I have two sons, Scott (8) and Dylan (11) that also like to swim, bike, run. I am very lucky to have a very supportive and patient wife, Michaela.

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Mark Roberts

I’m an original EN member from the first Off-Season group in 2007. This will be my 5th Ironman and 3rd time racing Florida. I grew up in Michigan, but have lived in so many different states that its hard to really claim one. The Air Force moved me from Texas to Ocean Springs, Mississippi in April so this year has seen a new house, new job, new assignment, oh and Katy and I welcomed our second son, Daniel to our family 5 weeks ago! Somewhere in there I fit in training for this race. I am excited to be racing next week! Ironman for me is really about the journey and the preparation. The race itself is the reward! This will be my first Ironman since kids and my #1 goal for this past year was to try and balance my training with my job and being a good father and husband. I feel like I succeeded in that much better than ever before but despite that success I came the to realization that at this point in my life I don’t want to sacrifice this much time away from my wife and 2 boys. The day after my 2 year olds birthday I turned my 90 mile ride into a 9 mile ride because all I wanted to do was be at home and see James play with his new garbage truck.

So…this will be my last Ironman for awhile, at least until i age up into the 40-45 group. Next year I’m looking forward to shorter training days and getting really fast at shorter races! My goal for Florida is to execute with the fitness I have, run well, and celebrate the day! It really is a privilege for all of us that we are able to do this. My one thing and my race will be dedicated to my wife Katy (a 3x Ironman herself) and my two boys James and Daniel. Their enduring support, encouragement and sacrifice got me to the starting line this time. I’m looking forward to meeting all of you and hope you all have great days on Nov 6!

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Bob McCallum
City: Cypress, Texas
Age: 40
Picture: attached

- This is my first IM.
- I do have a goal time in mind but I don’t want to jinx it or be a slave to some pre-determined time. I’ll be flexible on that day if needed.

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Shawn Talbott, PhD
Draper, Utah
43

• How many IM’s you’ve done and your PR, if you’d like to share that as well.
This will be my 14th IM-distance event.
My PR was at Wisconsin way back in 2002 (11:30) – but I intend to crush that time at IMFL (hoping for a sub-11)

• Your goals for the race.
Execution!
-my fitness is as good as it has been in years (probably since my college rowing days), so I am hoping for solid execution and not being an idiot on the bike (my best event) so I can have a solid run (I tend to fall into the trap of going too hard on the bike and then suffering like a dog in the 2nd half of the run). Hope to avoid that trap this year…

• Anything else you’d like us and your team to know about you.
-I am a nutritionist (PhD – nutritional biochem) and physiologist (MS – exercise science) who intellectually “knows” what I should be doing on the training end of things – but I have found that EN Coaching has held me accountable in a very important and different way in my buildup for IMFL. I view EN as similar in some ways to having an “executive coach” to help me get the best performance out of myself in the midst of a very hectic work/travel/family balancing process.

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Marc Robards
Tallahassee, FL
39

Ironman Florida will be my first Ironman.

My goal is to execute the best race I possibly can, handle whatever
the race throws my way, and enjoy the experience of my first Ironman,
which has been 20+ years in the making (my first triathlon was in
1987). It’s been a long journey with many starts and stops, but
spending the past year with Endurance Nation has given me the
training, tools, and support to finally get me to the start line
physically and mentally fit and ready to race!

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Rebecca (Becky) Hirselj
Alexandria, VA
36
IMFL will be my first IM, so if I finish it will be a PR! (BTW, I like those odds)
My goal is to finish and have fun. I kind of have a time in mind that I think is realistic based on my EM performance and 2 IM RRs (in the 13-14 hour range, hopefully much closer to 13), but this is my first IM… so ultimately finishing and doing my best and not giving up with the line comes is my goal.

Bio: I’m relatively new to the world of athleticism and endurance sports. I ran my first marathon in the spring of 2007 and ran 4 more in the following 19 months. I raced my first sprint tri in July 2008 as a practice run for my first OLY in Aug 2008. I was totally hooked and kept at it scheduling a pretty full 2009 season that included my first HIM (Eagleman). In 09 I started the year with a marathon (in January) and then did a sprint, 2 OLYs, and a HIM… before injury (bike crash that resulted in sprained ACJ) knocked me out for my last OLY of the tri season and my fall marathon.

Following the injury I decided to do an IM… while I could, because I could… To do it, I needed a plan. I talked to a friend (Suzanne Kinsky) and found my way to EN… I’ve had a crazy (my year started off with surgery on my hand followed by months of PT and one scratched race because I couldn’t hold my bike), long, but pretty solid season. With ENs help I’ve gone from around the middle of the pack to about the top third of the pack at some pretty good races (i.e., Eagleman, Timberman) which is pretty darn cool.

I’m nervous about the IM, but not because I don’t think I can do it but because of the unknowns. The training and the RRs have definitely given me the confidence to believe that I can do the distance. I have to focus on staying in my box and executing as I’ve practiced.

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Nathalie Bruneau
Age: 42. I’ve done IMLP twice, 07 and 08. I’ve joined EN in Jan of 09. This will be my first IM with EN’s training protocol and wisdom. I’m looking forward to applying what i’ve learned and for the first time I have a really calm feeling about this race. I feel ready and happy that I have an arsenal of knowledge and training under my belt to achieve a PR . My best time in a IM is 14:31. My one thing will to crush this. I have a time in mind which will be my focus when the race starts( @ mile 18). I also have to say that I’m so impressed to be part of a team that really supports itself wheter it’s during OS, while training or at the races. Even though I haven’t met any of you I still feel so part of this team and appreciate all the support I get. I’m looking forward to meeting fellow EN’s at IMFL and of course RnP.

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Dennis R. Scribner, Jr.
Roanoke, VA.
Age = 44.

This is my 2nd Ironman. Last year I participated in the IM Louisville race and finished in 13:55.
My goal for IM Florida is to have as much fun as I can and hopefully break 13:30 and if I feel really good, breaking 13 hrs would be awesome!!!

I am a gynecologic oncologist and I use the strength of my patients and what they have to endure to help me when times are tough during the race along with the lessons this teaches my children which is “you can accomplish great things with hard work”.

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Lynda Stewart

45 years old from Texas. My first Ironman.

Totally geeking out about all of this. Spent the last week in the chiropractors office. Back is way out of whack. My execution of the race will reflect this development! This will be my 5th triathlon….ever; and no I don’t come from an “athletic” background.

If I execute perfectly and my back cooperates you will see me in 14 hours….if not, have a few red bulls b/c it won’t be till midnight! Waaaayyyyy excited! Can’t wait to meet everyone!

Popularity: 24% [?]

September traditionally marks the end of the season for Endurance Nation, as we use Ironman Wisconsin as a opportunity to reflect on the year, extract valuable lessons, and make plans to implement changes in 2011. Actually, this process is continuous, internally, but for many reasons a lot of stuff just comes together for us around the September time frame.

As such, this is a great opportunity for us to reflect on the year with you, our ENFans and TeamEN members, to share with you our lessons learned from 2010 and preview what we have in store for you–and the greater tri world–for 2011.

In Part I, we’ll talk about where we’ve been and where we are today. In Part II, we’ll reveal some (but not all) of our plans for next year.

1. The Waiting List
It started in May of 2009, but really took root in 2010. Closing registration to the Team, a potentially risky move, actually created a few opportunities:

• Focus and Efficiency: The waiting list allowed Patrick and I to focus 100% on our members during the time when they need us the most: the Ironman race season. Between supporting the team in the forums, travel to races, creating content for them, and much more, we just didn’t have the bandwidth to spare on what we felt would probably have been a trickle of new members joining in the heat of the racing season. Instead, we just closed the doors and locked them. However, we were surprised when the waiting list exploded eventually building to over 400 athletes multiple times by the summer of 2010.
• Filters: TeamEN–the community–belongs to the members, not to us. We just can’t describe to you the depth of the community that our members have built for themselves within virtual walls of EN. Going to a waitlist meant that the people who were invited really wanted to be on the Team, making adding new folks a much more seamless experience.

2. Re-Investing in the Team

1. We repaid our existing, longest serving members by offering to them a heavily discounted rate, for life. This core group of over 150 athletes has been with us since the beginning, through several iterations, and gyrations, of service delivery and pricing model. We sincerely appreciate their loyalty (sniff).
2. We created a partnership that allowed us to build our own proprietary membership and training plan platform focused on what we feel are the most important elements of the coach/athlete relationship. In short, “Here is my training plan. Right next to it, easy to find, is the content I have created to accompany each week of your training plan. If you have questions about THIS week, ask here; about your SEASON, ask there. Connect with your fellow teammates over here.” We are continually improving this interface.

Training Plans
Listening to feedback of the Team and applying our own observations, in August ’09 we completely rewrote our OutSeason plans, and created brand new podcasts and videos to accompany every training week. We ran a very successful OS training plan sale in September and many of these training plan customers decided to join EN in November after our offer of a training plan credit applied to membership.

We repeated this rewrite process again in December, this time to our entire suite of half and full Ironman training plans, and recorded new podcasts and videos to accompany the new plans. We applied a sale to these plans in January and February, and brought in a few more members in March through our training plan credit opportunity above.

2. New OutReach / Education Initiatives
In keeping with our progressive outreach through free eBooks and social media, we decided to compile some of our most precious resources into more digestible and exciting formats.

Virtual Seminars: Related to our filter and screening ideas above, we decided to create a series of “virtual seminars,” to deliver to the tri world our thoughts on OutSeason and Long Course training, and Ironman race execution. (links to all). We were successful in delivering our message to more athletes, identifying potential members for TeamEN.

100% FREE Tri Rallies: A  free training camp for our athletes and the general public, hosted by us on a couple of the Ironman courses. We hatched the idea while riding off the IMUSA course during our June ’09 camp and decided to focus on IMUSA and IMWI, the courses we are most familiar with.

Our first Tri-Rally was on the IMUSA course in June 2010. With only word of mouth marketing and RSVPs taken on Facebook, we truly had no idea what expect. We were very pleasantly surprised to have over 60 athletes attend the Rally and, though the weather didn’t exactly cooperate, I was still able to deliver about 3-4hrs of instruction and introduce many athletes to TeamEN. It was also a ton of fun and this was duplicated, with a few refinements, on the IMWI course in July, where over 70 athletes joined us.

ENFan: Our next to last epiphany of the summer was that we were under-serving all of the people who had connected themselves to our brand. Whether by downloading an ebook, taking one of our virtual seminars, purchasing a training plan, following us on Twitter, fanning us on Facebook, or attending a Tri Rally or Four Keys talk, these athletes had told us they were interested in hearing what we had to say and in connecting to Endurance Nation in some fashion. So we fired up ENFan, giving away our Four Keys DVD and a 10% training plan discount code. The response from you, our ENFans, has been incredible

3. Improved Race Weekends
Huge, huge, huge and, more importantly, incredibly fulfilling for us as coaches and founders of a community. An opportunity to meet our athletes again, watch them on their big day and be there for them and their families at the finishline.  The numbers:

• 20 at IMSG
• 24 at IMCDA
• 30+ at IMUSA
• 20 at IMLou
• 13 at IMCA
• 38 at IMWI

At each of these races we delivered our Four Keys talk to 70-120+ people — the Team and general public. And as we better leveraged our word of mouth networking tools the number of people present at the start of each talk (ie, a measurement of how well we had gotten the message out there and convinced people to actually put us on their calendars) dramatically increased.

By September of 2010, we sensed that we had finally reached a tipping point of awareness of EN and our race execution message as we received MANY props on the course, in coffee shops, and shouted through car windows by our fans.

4. Two Week Trial
Now for our final epiphany: as good, unique, valuable and amazingly cool we think TeamEN is, it’s hard as hell to explain to the public what is actually going on inside. Instead, we were expecting you to sign up on a waiting list and then sit by the phone waiting for us to call to join the team, which you only got to see and witness after paying us. Even with a 30-day money-back guarantee, we’ve realized this isn’t the most efficient scenario for you or for us.

On September 17th we invited our ENFans to create a two week trial membership. Nearly 420 athletes responded by creating a trial. Close to 100 of these ended their trial early, within 5 days, to start their season with the Team. By the time the dust settled on October 1st, a total of 155 new athletes joined the ranks of TeamEN.

Endurance Nation is now a team of over 525 Ironman and Half Ironman athletes. Next we’ll share with you some of our ideas and plans for 2011.

Interested in Joining TeamEN?
Become an ENFan to receive a FREE Four Keys DVD, and an invitation to our next trial membership opportunity, expected to take place near the end of October, 2010.

Popularity: 20% [?]

This year we have a handful of Team EN athletes competing at the Ironman World Championships on the Big Island of Hawaii. They are an awesome bunch, having earned their stripes through a full year of training and final preparation for the big day.

There’s nothing like racing alongside the world’s best…a supreme challenge but as you’ll see this group is ready for it! Learn more about the few folks who were able to find the time to send in a bio during this busy week. Our Kona crew is a diverse group but certainly indicative of the makeup of Team EN. You can also track them online on race day using our Team Tracking Sheet (coming soon to the EN Homepage).

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Brad Loescher

I live in Yardley, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles north of Philadelphia, and work in marketing for a medium sized reinsurance company. After 7 years of entering, this year I won a lottery slot to the Ironman World Championships. Excited, anxious, nervous – don’t begin to explain what I have been feeling for the last 6 months. I know I will be in awe at the start of this race, but hopefully once the nerves calm down, I will be able to execute in true EN style. This race will be my 8th Ironman over the course of the last 7 years and I think I am probably in the best shape I have been going into any race. None of this could have been possible without the tremendous support of my family. My wife Amy, son Grant, and even our dogs Norm and Lucy have all been fantastically supportive as I have prepared for this year’s race. I have promised them a IM free year next year (although I did sign up for the Florida 70.3).

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Matt Ancona

I am 29 years old from Roselle, IL. My wife Theresa and I had our first child this year, Abigail Marie. Outside of triathlon, I work for the internal IT organization for a large technology company. After finishing Ironman Wisconsin 2007 in over 12 hours, I had a ways to go but was determined to make it to Kona. After making many lifestyle changes and joining Endurance Nation, I went more than 2 hours faster at Ironman Wisconsin 2009 and earned a Kona Spot for 2010. Theresa, Abigail and I are actually already in Kona and taking in all the sights and excitement. I have no goals for this year other than to enjoy the week, race smart and then have a great time in Hawaii for vacation afterwards.

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Matt Samojeden

Matt only submitted the picture above, and no story, but you can catch the full 411 via this news broadcast here. Basically he lost 70 lbs in 3 years and went from couch potato to Kona qualifier…incredible story. He’s probably the most excited (and deserving) of all qualifiers, earning his spot at Ironman Louisville this year. Congrats Matt!

Popularity: 16% [?]

Since bringing on board our latest crew of 100+ members and now with the launch of our OutSeason training plan sales, we’ve been fielding a LOT of season planning questions and discussions. Specifically:

“My head is currently at X, I’m racing Y, when should I start my OutSeason and how/when should I then move to my “InSeason” half or full Ironman training plan?”

I’ll answer these questions by presenting you with four common case studies that we see across our Team.

But first, let’s address the head space issue:

One common comment we are seeing from new members is that they have turned to EN after realizing the limitations and iffy results of their current training protocol. They come to us for a change, to get much faster with a much smaller training time investment. We get that and we’re happy to have them on board.

But we tell them that our OutSeason training plan is tough. It will redefine “work” for them.  We advise them to ask themselves “is my head in a place right now where I can commit to 20wks of hard work to get much, much faster?” If the answer is “not yet,” then we encourage them to come back to us when they are ready.

So, the starting point of your OutSeason isn’t a simple backplanning on the calendar of 20wks of OS + 12-20wks of IM/HIM training = Race Day. Rather, it’s “am I ready to do the WORK, starting on Date X?”

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s explore season planning by presenting you with our case studies. While there are certainly exceptions and special cases, these scenarios probably cover 90% of the scheduling issues we see daily with our team:

May (or Earlier) A-Race:
Cali, New Orleans 70.3, IMSG, Wildflower, IMTX, etc.

• OutSeason: Begin Monday, October 4th
• End OutSeason: Sunday, February 20th.
• Begin A-Race Training Plan (IM or HIM): after transition, 12-16wks out from your A-race
• Notes:
  • “Warm Winter Athletes,” ie, folks who can ride outside all year, may consider following our “outdoor volume guidance” included with our plans in mid-January or so, to “lean forward” towards the higher volume shift coming when they begin their in-season plan.
  • “Cold Winter Athletes,” stuck on a trainer: stick to our volume guidance. No need to ride longer than 2.5hrs on a trainer, ever.

June or July A-Race
IMCDA, IMUSA, June or July HIM’s

• OutSeason: begin October 4th or November 1st, depending on where your head and ’10 season is at.
• End OutSeason: 20wks later, just follow the plan.
• Begin A-Race Plan: at the end of your OS. However, if you’re an Ironman athlete and have an HIM in route to that race, you’re going to do our Ironman training plan and insert your HIM into your Ironman training plan.
• Notes:
  • Warm Winter athletes: Ok to do an April or early May (if racing IMCDA) or early June (if racing IMUSA) HIM.
  • Cold Winter athletes: prefer you to not do a May or June HIM in route to June or July Ironman. You’ll be coming kinda late to the Ironman volume party and we need your training to be very race specific, without a 7-10 day messiness caused by working your training around a scheduled half Ironman.

August-September A-Race
IMLou, Canada, September, and August-September Halfs

• Begin OutSeason: October, November, or January. Really, it’s more a function of where your head is and can you put events on the calendar before your A-race that will encourage you to keep your eye on shorter term goals. For you, there really isn’t the Warm/Cold Weather concerns above. Rather, you’re faced with a long season and we need you to focus on shorter term stuff so you don’t go nuts.
• Begin InSeason: at the end of your OS plan, but:
  • Warm Winter Athletes: we like to see you peak for a May or June race, rather than focus on one event in August or July for months and months.
  • Cold Winter Athletes: sorta the same as above but probably not as important for you because your season is generally shorter.

October-November A-Race
Kona, Soma Half, IMAZ, FL, Cozumel, etc

• Begin OutSeason: January
• Begin InSeason: DEFINITELY encourage everyone to have a split season, with a May – June or July A-race(s) and then transition to the last 12wks of our HIM or Ironman training plan.

Popularity: 21% [?]

It’s Fall and time for another annual rewrite of our OutSeason training plans, now in their 7th generation of improvement, and our annual OutSeason Training Plan Sale.

It’s also the season of the recycled, paraphrased training advice that appears in the tri mags year after year as coaches try to catch your attention— by telling you the same advice that everyone else is telling you, apparently.

We do things differently. Our nearly 20 years of Ironman coaching experience and interactions with a team of over 500 long course triathletes forces us to step back and think long and hard about things like:

• What is time return on race day for every training minute we ask our athletes to invest?
• Is the cost of that training time constant across the year, or variable? That is, more expensive at certain points in the season?
• When is the best time of year to make our athletes much faster on race day?

We’ve captured these ideas, and much, much more, in our FREE OutSeason Virtual Seminar, currently subscribed to by over 2000 age group triathletes just like you. We you haven’t already done so, we encourage you to sign up (it’s FREE!!) and redefine how you think of fitness and endurance training.

But that’s us talking.

We’d now like to share with you the thoughts, observations, experiences, and results of our athletes in our OutSeason training program.  We asked them four questions and below are their answers:

How did you to train in the OS, before EN?

“Nothing too formal, to be honest I wasn’t real serious but was told by old coach to MTB, do some running, nothing formal. Mainly low z1 work.”

“I had a one on one coach for 3 years before EN. OS consisted of the “Training Bible”/Joe Friel base building. About 3-4 runs a week—when I trained with HR, all at zone 1. No intervals. When my coach went to training with pace, those runs were done at Epace–which was determined by HR as there was no run testing. About 3-4 rides on the trainer a week—also at zone 1-2 with some one legged drills and spin-ups. No intervals. The peak longest ride was 2.5-3 hours on the trainer for me as it was Feb and March when the base building volume was its highest. When my coach went to training with a PM, I did one test at the start of the OS then did a few intervals at 85% (called “The Sweet Spot Ride”). There was no testing again for the rest of the season or any guidance with how to pace an IM or HIM with the PM. 3-4 swims a week: with 100 and 400 IM sets (as in fly, back, breast, free) with IM drills (breast kick drills, one armed fly drills) with sets of 200, 300 pull with buoy and paddles, 100-400 sets at T-pace or descend for a total of 2800-3200 for each swim. The peak amount of time per week was 15-17 hours.”

What do/did you do differently in the EN flavor OS?

“Obviously it was structured so I followed EN protocol. High intensity work on the bike and run. No swimming.”

“NOT SWIM! Hallelujah!!! Test for run and bike, use that test to set training zones, train at  FTP, 120%FTP, tempo pace for the sole purpose of increasing FTP and Vdot. Simply, I trained to get FAST…in the most time efficient way possible. I learned what hard work really was…which has made me not just physically, but mentally stronger. I saved myself from going crazy from not doing 3 hour trainer rides and IM drills in Feb.”

What changes/gains/results did you see in your training, racing, and self-coaching knowledge?

“When the weather was nice enough to ride outside with friends they all noticed how much faster I was on the bike. Only real comparison racewise would be a 21 minute improvement in a long sprint race. FYI, this result was the same weekend as a HIM RR and another 20 mi ride so legs weren’t firing like I would have liked them to.”

“In my first OS, I had a 38% gain in my FTP and a 4 point increase in my Vdot. Despite not swimming all OS, after 4 weeks of doing Coach Rich’s swim drills, I was swimming just as fast as I did when I went to Masters 4 times a week and way faster than when I did those stoopid IM sets. I finally have a grasp of what a powerful tool my powermeter is for training and racing. I can know make reasonable decisions (when my ego is in check) about my training schedule as a self-coached athlete.

What would you tell a training partner who is considering the choice between Old Skool and EN OS?

“Basically results speak for themselves. 15% gain on the bike in 20 weeks.”

“If you are interested in training smarter and more efficient, if your ego isn’t wrapped around training 20+ hours a week “like the pros”, if you want to execute to the very best of the fitness that you bring to race day…then EN is the way. It is the most time efficient method to squeeze out as much fitness from your body while preserving your sanity, home life, and job. Even if I won the lottery, didn’t have work or clean my bathrooms ever again and had OODLES of time on my hands, I would still train the EN way. It just makes sense.”

Other observations from our athletes
(sorry, they didn’t specifically answer our questions

“While I was attracted to EN by their race execution philosophy, I’ve since learned that the emphasis on “minimize time, maximize value” of each workout has value not just for the time-crunched athlete, but also for someone like me, who is both a veteran trainer and an older athlete (two different concepts; veteran is someone with at least 5-7 years of consistent long-course training under his/her belt; older is whatever age you want to use, probably somewhere north of 50-55). For the vet who still wants to improve, and probably has years, if not decades of “base” in biking and running, doing more volume will probably not help very much. EN’s focus on more intensive, shorter efforts, especially in the Out Season, offers a route to faster times on the race course. And for the older athlete, who probably has signficantly more need for recovery, doing less volume provides that opportunity.  While top end speed is probably less in the older athlete, we still have opportunities to mazimize our potential through judicious use of short, intense intervals. The EN program, designed for the “time-crunched” athlete, fits the bill nicely for different reasons for the older athlete, who might not necessarily be time-crunched, but whose ability to fit in massive amounts of training is restricted by other factors, such as injury, slower healing times, and reduced hormone levels (e.g., HGH, testosterone.) I haven’t yet gone through a full season on the program, but I do have one OS and one IM result so far. No question, as a life-long swimmer, I was anxious about de-emphasizing that aspect of my training life. I saw NO dropoff in my swim race times, however. And, my IM result was quite satisfying – on a very warm day (temps up to low 80s), I bettered my time from the year before by six minutes, when the temps had been in the 50s, by six minutes, and could have gone even faster if I’d had a reason to – I won my AG by 10 minutes, and just cruised  my run home! At my age, keeping my times the same from year to year I regard as a big accomplishment, to say nothing of getting better.”

“I’ll offer some of my thoughts having been doing this for about 7 years and starting with the Triathlete’s Training Bible back in 2003. TTB (at least the version I worked with) emphasized true Old Skool techniques (large volume with significant time in heart rate Z1-Z2). I was trying to log upwards of 16-20 hrs/week (this was less than advocated by TTB, but was all I thought I could manage working full time and being married… fortunately, no kids at that time) in the “offseason,” and was frequently doing 5-6 hr rides and 2-2.5 hr runs on the weekends while cramming in 10,000 meters of swimming (again, less than advocated by TTB) and additional bikes/runs during the week.  My goal was IM Wisconsin in 2004, and I did very well for me, finishing in 12:27, (~1:10 sw / ~6:10 bike / ~5:00 run). After that, I wanted another shot, because I thought I could do better. I switched from TTB to “Going Long” (Gordo Byrn) which was similar, but offered a few differences. a month or so before my second shot at Moo in 2007, I switched to Crucible Fitness with Rich just as EN was being launched. I listened to R&P’s advice, but didn’t heed it. I was one of the morons walking the marathon talking about my great (for me) bike split en route to a 6 hour ego death march (and puking at mile 22) on the marathon. For 2007, my (mostly) Going Long training again averaged in the 15-20 hrs/week and netted me 1:12 sw / 5:50 bike / 6:00 run and a disappointing finish, although I wonder if I’d have done better with better execution, because I think the fitness was there.  FFW to 2010 as I was training for IMLP. With 3 more years of EN under my belt, my training volume had significantly dropped. I was now taking months completely off from swimming while focusing on the bike and run (although my run focus has been shaky at best). My average training hours are way down (maxing at about 12… maybe). At LP, I PRed in 12:12:27 (1:13 sw / 6:11 bike / 4:35 run). This result came after virtually no swimming until 12 weeks out, and then only 2x/week (total of 5Km-6Km), even when the Race Prep called for 3x/wk, and I was exactly 3 minutes off my BEST IM swim trying to cramalmost twice as much swimming into a week. In addition, I really didn’t follow the run portion of the plan this year. I ran rather infrequently, but trying to hit the long runs. When I DID start hitting more runs (about 6 weeks out) I didn’t hit a lot of the interval work prescribed, but rather, ran pretty steady. I still PRed my marathon run by 25 minutes. What I DID do was hit almost every bike workout at the prescribed wattages.  These plans work to keep me in great shape at half the time of Old Skool plans. I’m eager to find out what I can do if I really apply myself to ALL aspects of the plans, and I’m now working to improve my running. With easier access to the pool later this year and a renewed interest in running, maybe I can finally hit all aspects of the plan and see where it can take me at the Half IM level.”

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