We joke that we have been having the same conversation for years.
We get a lot out of our conversation, even if there are recurring themes!
After hundreds of calls, I’ve figured some things out:
The energy I spend planning for the future is wasted. The future that arrives is always different than expected.
I keep fooling myself that buying something will make my life better. Thankfully, I have a system to slow my ability to act on my feelings.
Time shows us what better looks like. The actions that actually make my life better have been the same for a very long time.
Do what needs to be done. Do the actions. That is it. Enjoy the actions!
There’s no more to be attained. One of the reasons I left finance was I had taken enough from society. Ironically, I got the idea from Warren Buffett. I pulled the pin at 31, Warren’s 91 and still rolling.
My life only needs to make sense to me. Warren might be right.
Consider Declaring Victory! When you arrive where you were trying to get to… before pushing onwards… stop, look around and ask, “Is there anything I can learn from the experience?“
Apply the best advice, from those who know you well. When Dad turned 60 he told me to “create roots”. I was newly married, at the peak of my athletic career (36) and living between Bermuda, Scotland, Australia and the US. A few years later, I moved to my wife’s hometown and stayed put.
Cautious optimism beats pessimism every single time. Keep what works, change slowly.
The “programer” is not aware of my background load:
I scale the sessions (downwards) to fit into my strength allocation for the week
I spread the sessions out to avoid too much load in a week
The benefit of using someone else’s program is variety. For me, the only way to make that happen is someone else designing the program.
Your personal tolerance for strength will vary over time. The 10% guideline is a minimum. Many athletes will tolerate, and benefit from, a greater emphasis on strength (particularly in the winter).
I score traditional strength at 1 TSS point per minute and plyometric/work capacity sessions at 2 TSS points per minute. These scores include rest periods.
When resting between work sets, do mobility work!
So that leaves us with Endurance Training
80% Stamina
6% Tempo
3% Threshold
1% VO2 & VO2+
I titled this piece with intent.
The Ambitious Athlete’s Guide
I am assuming you truly want to see what’s possible with regard to endurance sport.
I’m assuming you want long term gains rather than whatever payoff you’re receiving from your current approach.
To see what’s possible, you’re going to have to overcome certain aspects of your Human Operating System and past habits.
One of these aspects is what I call “training like an age grouper” => instead of the 9% allocation to Tempo/Threshold we often have a burning desire to get that number closer to 90%!
Tempo/Threshold is what we expect exercise to feel like. Our breathing rate is up, we’re sweating, the work rate is high… we think it’s more beneficial.
Well, it is and it isn’t.
The ability to benefit from “work rate” training is linked to our capacity to do, and recover from, work.
Stamina is our endurance capacity over time and fully developing this capacity takes years.
Best effort for an hour scores 100 points (5th gear)
Threshold effort 85 points per hour (4th gear)
Tempo effort 75 points per hour (3rd gear)
Steady effort 65 points per hour (2nd gear)
Easy effort 50 points per hour (1st gear)
If you think in Fahrenheit then you probably won’t be that far off.
Exercise scientists spend their lives debating the different gears, the transitions between the gears and the best gear to use for where you want to take yourself.
It matters, and it doesn’t matter.
Why?
Because most people never stay focused long enough for their protocol to limit their performance.
What you need is a simple way to keep yourself from over-doing-it.
TSS works for this task.
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Each day, I push my workouts up to TrainingPeaks and a TSS score is generated for the day.
CTL is a proxy for fitness – it’s what you’ve actually managed to do for the last six weeks.
TIP: the speed your CTL increases is called your “load ramp” – a common error for athletes is too quick a load ramp.
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CTL should be fairly stable – if it is not then look deeper.
Do you have unplanned misses? injuries? illnesses?
Your mind will try to wrap a story around the misses.
Don’t worry about why.
Instead, assume:
Your training zones are set too high
Your loading days are too big
You have too many loading days
Two loading days each week, a stable CTL, a life that’s under control…
Gives you plenty to work with.
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In the TP world, “fatigue” is measured by Acute Training Load, ATL. This is your average score for the last week (7 days).
If we take your CTL (fitness) and subtract your ATL (fatigue) then we can see how “fresh” you are. TP calls this your “form.”
Each athlete will have a personal tolerance for how negative they can take their form.
When you get “too tired” have a look at your “form” score and see how negative it was before you tipped over the edge.
We ALL make mistakes – the framework gives you a way to see if there is a pattern to your loading mistakes.
How it comes together – Blue Shaded is CTL, Red line is Acute Load and Yellow Line is Form – this table is called the Performance Management Chart I’ve been working my CTL upwards so my form has been negative in the last 28 days
If it the above seems too much then you can simplify your approach!
Use HRV4Training and taking a morning HR measurement. Marco’s app will help you decide if it is a good day to load, recover, or rest.
Green light (load), Yellow light (maintenance or easy), Red light (recovery).
For now, I don’t recommend other company “readiness metrics” – they don’t work, yet.
To show how the week comes together, let’s dig into a case study – my current situation
My CTL is ~75 points.
Easy day – 25-50 points (below CTL)
Maintenance day – 75 points (around CTL)
Loading day – 150 points (2x CTL)
The key error here is one you’ve heard before…
Keep your easy days easy
In order to give yourself capacity to absorb your Loading Days, you need to recover from them!
This means you need to limit:
Number of loading days in a week
The size of the loading day, relative to CTL (your “average” day)
Many athletes load themselves into the ground, go stale, recover, then repeat the cycle, perhaps with injury/illness for variety!
This pattern will leave you undertrained because you are doing too much training.
More Tips:
When I was younger, I tolerated bigger Loading Days – start with two days a week at 2x CTL
The game with CTL is to gradually build sustainable load – that’s a superior game to seeing how hard you can smash yourself every single weekend.
CTL will seem like a long game to you. Six weeks is NOTHING – barely enough time to create an overuse injury.
1,000 days is the shortest cycle you should be thinking about. Amateur athletes should be thinking on an Olympic Cycle – 2 years base building, 1 year performance-focused, 1 year health-focused – repeat forever!
The majority of your load should be Moderate Domain aerobic load (Zone 1 and Zone 2). This is very different to what you will think you need. You are going to be battling your urge to “go hard” and self-sabotage.
Training Peaks helps make mistakes visible – it’s up to you to address your mistakes.
Now we are ready to discuss the week, itself.
Similar to the Big Picture, write down what you are trying to achieve. From my week just past:
Elevation change run
Hill sprints
Bike long ride (2,000kj)
Those were specific workouts I wanted to include.
Why?
Something important I didn’t do last week
Something I want to add
Correcting an error from prior week (2,800kj was too much)
All the other sessions stay the same: (a) endurance training focus; and (b) strength sessions.
Teen runners can present a paradox… She won districts (!) and considers 10 minute per mile pace “absolutely brutal” when training (?) Solution? Well paced intervals and walking
How do you fully develop an athlete?
Keep them in sport.
This requires paying attention differently than if you were seeking to improve them.
Fun
Friends
Success
It also requires you to remove things that can knock them out of sport, and make training less fun.
For running, the #1 risk is injury from impact forces.
Learn about, and limit, impact forces – Jason’s Book is a good place to start (figure, below, is available free at the link, scroll down on Jason’s page)
p102/103, May The (Ground Reaction) Force Be With You
Thoughts:
The forces by WALKING, not by slowing down
Downhill, hard surface running will send the forces through the roof (avoid)
Uphill, walking & running, can be used to get intensity up with less impact
Jason’s book, on Ultrarunning, makes a nice complement to the sprinting book (below).
To those titles, you could add a mobility book. Ready To Run was available at our local library, link is to Kelly Starrett’s webpage.
My blog on pain-free running gives you a 10-minute program you could do with the kids and have them repeat on their off-days.
When my problems appear to be outside my control, when the normal setbacks of daily living are getting me down, when my mind is caught in a doom loop…
Time to SEEK
New Environments
New Ideas, People and Experiences
Give the mind an opportunity to find a better fixation.
At first, anything is better.
With time, from outside the doom loop, we can curate our attention.
Separate from getting past the doom loop, this technique is how I found my wife!
Are You Sure Your Problem is The Problem?
I work as a fiduciary advising families about risk, ruin, health, life, human capital… you name it. A common concern is concentration and fear of loss.
Whatever is keeping you up at night, split it in half.
Then pay attention.
If you are still worried then it’s not about your worries.
There is something else driving your anxiety.
Anxiety is an interesting emotion – it feels a lot like excitement.
Anxiety can be mapped on to enthusiasm for new experiences and positive fixations (see step one, above).
It is not possible to plan our way out of a doom loop. We must act!
What to do? I have no ideas for you!
All I can offer is questions…
What are you doing when you laugh out loud?
What person makes you feel good when you see them?
What environments make you feel serene?
My list: exercise, solo, trees, water, quiet and a list of five people who “make me feel good”
Use your list – go, act, do…
I’ve been writing about One Thing for 20+ years. The most rewarding periods of my life have been characterized by a quest for One Thing.
My theory of One Thing is simple, but not easy!
decide what will make a difference (see 123 in section above)
do what is required to move towards your thing (this is uncomfortable to start)
give a nice no-thanks to distractions & poor habits (via negativa)
Let’s recap:
Offer the mind new things to focus upon
Exit the Doom Loop
With clarity, decide on your One Thing
Map anxiety onto enthusiasm for moving towards your One Thing
Let’s end with a story.
I’m working on getting back in shape. Now, “getting in shape” has a different meaning for me than many. My doctor tells me I was “in shape” already.
…but it wasn’t the kind of shape that lets me live the life I want for my future self
…and it wasn’t working for my mental health (2022 depression link above)
So I changed my approach, and ramped my social connection back up.
Life is better.
That’s it.
Better is the win.
I’ve been using the WayBack Machine to access my old writings This is a screenshot from my first landing page I’ve been telling myself to enjoy the journey since 2000
Nine months along with HRV, and 15 weeks along with proper training… I wanted to update you on how I’m applying load.
Dealing with Noise
To avoid chasing my tail on a daily basis…
Respect the trend
Ensure a positive trend before starting each microcycle
Chart from HRV4T.com
Respecting The Trend
Top half of the chart:
Blue line – 7 day HRV average
Shaded range – 60 day HRV average
Colored Bars – how I’m trending
When my “line” gets to the bottom of my shaded range…
When my bar turns orange…
…it is a sign I have disregarded the trend and gone too far.
Because my primary source of overload is Moderate Domain aerobic volume, the fatigue clears in a few days.
In July (lower chart) I made an error that required a week of backing off.
My error was stacking bikes on top of hikes, same day => my muscles are learning to reload themselves and I need to metabolically challenging sessions.
So, similar to Steve’s book, I thought I’d share my personal take on the topic.
Before triathlon, I was an ultra hiker and mountaineer. It was a great way to prepare my body for the demands of running.
Frequency is the Foundation
If we want to improve at something then we need to do it often.
Often, like, most every day.
Whatever protocol you choose, it needs to allow enjoyment most every day.
What this implies, for my return to running, is getting my body to a point where I can run 5k most days.
Choose Goals where you have an Emotional Attachment
This helps in expected, and unexpected, ways.
Expected – helping us show grit, getting us past inevitable setbacks, helping us endure the challenges of the process.
Unexpected… when we care about outcome, REALLY CARE, then we might be able to overcome our habits of self-sabotage.
I love amateur sport for driving positive personal change.
Why?
Because our habits are not as ingrained as elsewhere in our lives.
I’m currently rolling a daily mobility streak that’s the longest of the last decade. My desire to improve my fitness motivated positive change.
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Consistency via Removal
Pay attention to every choice that screws up tomorrow (‘s training). In my early days it was late-nights and alcohol.
As you build a habit of removing these minor obstacles, you might find larger issues to work with. Triggers that lead to “freak outs” (see Do Hard Things by Steve Magness, and my article).
The stress of racing, the grind of training… quite often these will surface other patterns we can work with.
I discovered a lot about myself on my endurance journey. I’m free to change the habits that hold me back.
Don’t let Goals cover Poor Choices
I write about sugar consumption sitting on the frontier between “training for health” vs “training for performance”.
That’s true but it’s only part of the story.
We often use “performance” to justify our choices.
It could be performance but it might also be something else.
Many times, high-performance has been an excuse for a disordered relationship with food and exercise.
Whatever I have going on…
Better to own it.
Gain a Technical Understanding of:
Personal sweat rate
Sodium needs
Gastric emptying
Many athletes have well-earned pride in their mental toughness.
Do not be in a rush to get to the difficult bits!
Understanding the points above, and training your personal “solution”, will avoid many unforced errors.
By the way… most my unforced errors track back to choosing a pace that’s not appropriate to the session, or conditions.
Put another way… nutrition problems are usually pacing errors in disguise.
Feel The Byrn 
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