You’ll find today’s post over at my new location on Substack.
Time is a critical component of your endurance training. The article covers the origin of Big Day Training, which was my favorite workout as an elite triathlete. Also covered, is how you can apply the principles for amateur athletes.
An Ultraman Training Day – The Origin of Big Day Training
I’m in the process of moving my endurance writing over to Substack and hope you join the community over there.
Every new cyclist knows the feeling of being completely blown after a hard effort.
In my first bike race, I decided to attack the bunch, downhill. Don’t ask me why. Back then, I’d lose my mind when my HR was up.
The attack left my legs shattered and saw me quickly spat out the back when the bunch rolled me up.
In swimming, as I challenged my ability to swim long via 4000, 5000, 6500 and, eventually, 10000 meter workouts, there would be days when a switch-flipped and, instantly, my pace dropped by 10s per 100.
Like my first bike race, there was no coming back.
In running, particularly long races, my experience was different yet again.
Here, pain would slowly build in in my legs and my pace would gradually slow.
Eventually, my legs would be so beat up, I was unable to place a meaningful load on my cardiovascular system.
Fueled up, and hydrated, with no ability to raise my heart rate.
Exercise physiologists refer to the above as Durability
…the time of onset and magnitude of deterioration of physiological performance parameters over time during prolonged exercise.
– TTS Podcast with ed maunder & stephen Seiler
Quite a mouthful.
I prefer to think in terms of DEPTH.
Think Deep.
Deep Fitness
Fitness, that goes the distance.
Fitness, nurtured with sleep and nutrition.
How might we build this fitness?
Last Monday, I shared an Endurance Hierarchy
Before you try to get faster, DEEPEN the fitness you already have.
You are going to be surprised by this process.
It will make you faster AND give you the capability to hold your speed.
Dead-simple approach
Make sure you’ve developed the Ability To Do Work before starting this training.
How much should you do? Start with a 90:10 split.
If you incorporate hills then you might already be doing this training without realizing it.
That said, if you are ‘trying’ on your hills then you are likely to be training more intensely than required.
This tip, to slow down, will be a recurring form of my advice to you.
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You’re almost certainly training more intensely than you realize.
It’s not your fault. It’s the way we’re wired.
The solution is simple, aim your mistakes towards “low & less.”
In the unlikely event you’re aiming too low, you get more volume around aerobic threshold.
This is not a problem, it’s a benefit from my approach.
You’ll benefit in avoiding the common pitfall of nuking yourself as soon as you add a bit of “proper” training.
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What is a Heavy Domain set?
I’ve written out examples for you.
Tips for all sports:
Advanced athletes, build up to 40-60 minutes worth of work, broken.
Remember: this is not more than 10% of your total volume
Resist: the urge to go bananas when heart rate rises
Know: The big gains come from:
Build fitness that permeates every cell of your body.
Think DEEP
In January, I am migrating to Substack and splitting my blog.
WordPress won’t let me migrate my existing subscribers.
Subscription is free – there’s an option to financially contribute if you wish.
Come along for the ride. It’s going to be great.
Today, I am going to touch on a favorite topic.
Getting Tired The Right Way
“Right” meaning the way that directly benefits race performance, or builds the capacity to do the training required for race performance
Let’s start at the beginning.
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You’ve signed up for a race. How long is it going to take you?
Consider The Gap between Average Daily Load and Likely Race Duration
The wider the gap, the lower your training intensity will need to be.
The initial focus: skills, strength and building the capacity to move.
Above is a long weekend from in November, ~10.5 hours of volume across three days.
When you are pushing duration, you will need to back off the pace.
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Extend by Compressing => patiently build the capacity to fit your event into fewer days.
Triathletes, look at total time (& distance) by sport. The multiple, or fraction, of race distance completed each week gives valuable insight into the humility you must display with race pacing.
Runners, your job is easier, look at weekly mileage and remember ALL mileage counts (walk, hike, run, you name it).
Everyone, judge your fitness by what happens after you load.
When you push duration, how long does it take you to return to normal training?
The depth of your fitness will be determined by your ability to back-it-up following your key endurance days.
The weekend after the block (above), I did the equivalent of a Half Ironman (below)
These two days were not done at race pace.
Race Simulation workouts would have been too costly to my overall week. I would have needed too much recovery.
Step Two: after you have proven “Ability to Move” move on to “Ability to Do Work”.
What I was seeking was placing the work-equivalent of my goal event into a single day, or 24-hour period.
My long “workout” is actually a series of workouts, intervals, meals… spread across a period of time.
Then I rest, do easy training, absorb and return to my normal training week.
Over time, my ability to do work will improve.
If it doesn’t then I need to see what is preventing improvement (below).
How can we train the ability to do work?
You gotta put in the hours.
Years later, it’s time to think about the specific demands of your event.
Step Three is training to perform and that’s a topic for another day.
The more time you give yourself to prepare, the faster you will be in your racing.
Top Five Threads
Endurance Training Tips
High Performance Habits
Jim O’Shaughnessy is a favorite follow and introduced me to Human OS.
Human OS is our default operating system. After birth, our OS is reinforced by our parents, communities and environment.
It wasn’t until I started training _very_ seriously that I became aware of my default programming.
Athletic stress is a low-stakes method to surface our default settings.
Amateur sport has lower emotional, and financial, stakes than our families, and careers. It is an effective venue for self-improvement.
Awareness is the first step… I’ll share certain traits you might want to notice.
Once you see these in your sport, look for them in your driving (another training ground for elite emotional control), at the office or around the Thanksgiving table.
There is no “right” answer.
What’s useful is understanding our tendencies then allocating time to train against preference.
The goal being to remain emotionally stable as stress ramps up.
The benefit being the capacity to think clearly under duress.
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Hills
A hill pushes against you.
What do you do?
Do you have the capacity to anticipate the hill? Shift to an easier great, or shorten your stride, in advance of your heart rate spiking?
Step outside your sport.
Life pushes you.
What do you do?
Start with hills, it’s easier.
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Where do you place most of your energy?
At the bottom, middle, or top of the hill?
I’m a “top of the hill” rider – I want my power to be highest when air speed is lowest.
I want to optimize overall time and avoid the pain of regret.
My son is a “bottom of the hill” rider – he likes the challenge of hanging on.
My son wants to win. He is likely to regret not giving maximum early effort.
We can learn from each other.
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Weather
My kids love bad weather racing.
Why?
Because they’ve learned it hurts the competition more.
How do you deal with weather?
Surprisingly simple to retrain our attitudes here.
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Pacing
Understanding the slowest part of an event, then training to be fast in that segment, will give you an edge in your racing.
Understanding our own tendencies makes it more challenging for others to exploit them.
Some mantras that have helped
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Feel
Do you have the capacity to feel speed?
There’s a feeling to all of the above.
How about seeing speed? How fast you’re moving.
With the gizmos available to us, it’s easy to lose the ability to choose how we’re feeling.
Feelings, our response to stimulus and stress, are highly trainable.
Take charge of your ability to decide how you’re doing.
Being excessively data-focused can drain mojo, without benefit.
Be more than your data.
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Setbacks
How often do you get sick, injured or have a setback?
A pattern of setbacks will have more to do with your approach than fate.
A simple ‘trick’ here.
Build your circle with coaches, partners and mentors with different blind spots than you.
Consider looking outside your agegroup, gender and sport.
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Relentless positivity is not common.
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Personal Narrative
This one’s important
What’s the story you tell yourself about exercise?
Really listen to yourself here.
Why?
No matter your story, you will act to prove yourself right.
All my stories have proven false.
Most of my stories were useful.
Know your story.
What is something most people think is important that I can skip entirely?
Most of the debate between exercise experts occurs with respect to the Severe Domain, high intensity exercise.
Energy spent entering this debate is WASTED.
Why?
As a new athlete, it’s 1% of your training load.
Focus on:
If you need some Pep in Your Program then do a race, ideally a short one.
What is something important to your daily routine you wish you started earlier?
What channels led to the building of your highest quality relationships?
I’ve lived an open life and shared my experience online. This attracted a wide range of interesting people, and opportunities.
One aspect of my coaching business was training camps. These camps were not vacations. They were created to put athletes in high stress situations.
The shared suffering of the camps generated enduring, high quality friendships.
Here’s the filter… shared philosophy on life, willing to travel to learn, not an asshole under duress.
What is something you did differently from your peers but served you in the long run?
I defined “enough.” When I hit my number at 30 yo, I left Private Equity.
At 42 yo, I was at the top of AG racing. I made a decision to shift from fame to family.
What can I expect to struggle with along the way?
Setbacks are salient. Gains are slow.
Write your wins down, daily.
Before we had Strava, I used to post my weekly training summary on my website.
We build our lives brick-by-brick.
Persist.
What is something you had to unlearn to take the next step?
Soft Skills – harmony enhances every aspect of performance
Recovery – loading is the easy part
What is something you had to learn the hard way?
There is more grey in the world than I realized.
Linked In This Article:
Top Threads
Endurance Training Tips
High Performance Habits
I got a lot of things right during my elite career.
Optimized loading was not one of them!
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Let’s start with the purpose of load, paraphrased from Øyvind Sandbakk,
A good enough disruption in physiology that can be repeated over long time horizons
As a returning athlete, most my errors come from targeting too large a disruption…
…that delays my ability to repeat (and hopefully progress) the disruption.
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How do we tip the scales in our favor?
One: Know YOUR Sustainable Average
On my first call with an athlete:
That’s your HIGH and LOW range for sustainable volume.
It’s much easier to move up the bottom of the range.
Remove the causes of “missing tomorrow.”
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Two: Know What Tips YOU Over The Edge
We each have a level of load that causes our lives to gradually fall apart.
Make errors visible and pay attention to what tips you over.
10% less can have you feeling 100% better.
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Three: Know Your Minimum Effective Dose
My current minimums:
Not in a row, by the way.
Get those done 3x a week, add a strength session.
I’ll be just fine until life settles down.
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Bottom-Up Fitness
Compounding Drives Returns
Above, my 2000 landing page
All the world-class players I know, take their game very seriously!
This attitude runs from life-and-death situations (combat, medicine) through to less lethal environments… say, lane etiquette at the track / pool.
OUR game is IMPORTANT
It could very well be.
Let’s explore for a moment.
First Tip : What do my ACTIONS say about the game I am actually playing?
How about ten years living like these guys?
If you survive then you will be a phenomenal athlete.
That’s how you play the “endurance athlete game”
NVDP – similar game, similar approach
All Domains => BIG survivor bias in the winners
Special people, challenging to integrate into a family system.
The high-performance game is a young person’s game.
Why?
Meaningful relationships outside your domain are impossible (think NFL Quarterbacks, Grand Tour Winners).
Second Tip: Connection is the central ‘problem’ of aging
The reason high-performers keep coming back…
I had the rug pulled out on my life, too.
It was a good thing.
I started asking myself better questions.
We are free, at any time, to change direction.
Is my game solving the central problem facing my future self?
Have I even thought about this question?
Third Tip: Knowing “What We Don’t Want” Is Easier
When you hear the voice, “this isn’t where I need to be.”
Listen
Too often I fall prey to lifestyle inflation (here & here) and showing off.
Not only is that game impossible to win, it will take me somewhere I didn’t, and don’t, want to go.
As a young person, the first values we notice are the “not for me” choices of our peers.
So, if you start journalling, lower the stakes.
The game of life is ever changing.
What’s right for you today, will change over time.
Maybe, you’ll find a life partner and agree to face change together.
I have complete confidence you’ll figure it out
I say to my kids.
We’d figure it out, together.
Same reassuring mantra, different target => my wife
Our lives, our paths, our friendships, and our marriages…
only need to make sense to us
The voice we hear in our diaries, the themes that reoccur in our writings – that’s who we need to be faithful to.
If we don’t choose with intention then we get the default set of values of our parents, our peers, or our surroundings.
Own your game.
What do my actions say about the game I am really playing?
Where is this likely to take me?
Every day, we make a choice : Drama or Peace
Because the mantras are different than how many of us were raised, they take a little getting used to.
Think about them in the context of the last unforced error you made.
What the mantras have in common is they lower the temperature.
Pay attention to the one you think is the most difficult.
Choose Peace
Feel The Byrn 
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