I recently completed my second half IM of the year and am looking forward to another one in a few weeks. I never forget the road I've been down the past three years when I'm out there racing.

People wear busyness as a badge of honor. Ask most Bay Area parents how they are, and they often reply “crazy busy.” Every profile I’ve ever read of top age groupers emphasizes the athlete’s time management skills: how they get up at 5 a.m. (or 4 a.m. or 3 a.m.) to train, how they are great at multi-tasking, and how they juggle a busy schedule of child rearing, work and training. It may well be true (though somehow everyone finds time to tweet). But, when it comes to going fast as an age-grouper, busy may not always be better.

One gift of long course training is that it has helped me to identify some important tenets in my life: family, health and business. By knowing the three things that matter (and conversely the things that don’t matter) I am able to prioritize the one asset that is fixed: time.

As I mentioned in my Chrissie piece, my personal mantra is be-the-brand.

What is our brand?

Our series on triathlon training around the world rolls on with Endurance Corner team member Luis Duarte's perspective on tri life in Brazil.

Alex Thompson, EC's newest columnist, shares what it's like to work with EC coach Alan Couzens as he develops on the path to becoming an elite athlete.

There's essential gear -- a bike, running shoes, swim suit -- that everyone needs for triathlon. There's the range of gear that you may or may not need for improvement, but many people use to gain an advantage: race wheels, powermeters, swin skins, etc. Then there's the personal gear: the things you consistently use that are important to you and you alone; the things that you feel are key parts of your triathlon training or racing. Since it's gear month here on EC, we asked the writing team to share some of their favorite personal gear and why it's important to them.

Male
27 Years Old
Triathlons Completed: 27
Ironman PR: 9:38
Half Ironman PR: 4:24
Years in the Sport: 9
USAT Coach Level I
USAT Certified Race Director

Who do the above stats describe? Who do you picture?

Do you picture someone with an eating disorder?

If you are a long-time cyclist, chances are you have more than one bicycle in your garage. These days, there are many high quality bikes built for specific purposes and with different strengths and weaknesses. However, if you could only own one bike, what would it be? For me the answer is an easy one: my cyclocross bike.

We learned recently from news reports that two-time Ironman World Champion Normann Stadler underwent heart surgery on July 4 because of a “failing heart valve and aortic aneurysm.” On Twitter, I re-tweeted a link to one of these news reports and I was surprised to see that more than 1,200 of my Twitter followers clicked on that link to read about Stadler. In the past few days, I’ve received a bunch of inquiries about his situation and I thought I’d share some of my initial thoughts with the readers here at Endurance Corner.

At the Endurance Corner Boulder Camp, we had amazing speakers including World Champion Triathletes and exceptional coaches. I thought I'd share some of my notes about their unique perspectives on pursuing excellence and long course triathlon success.

I recommend that you consider two sessions within your week as the season builds on:

• A sport specific strength session
• A neuromuscular speed session

Both of these sessions prepare you for the work that needs to be done, but don't leave you feeling tired or require a lot of recovery. These sessions are the work that keeps you from falling flat and getting slow from the big miles, and set you up for the quality training required to race.

We are constantly bombarded with new products, promising improvements to performance, savings in energy and reductions in times; there are solutions to problems I didn't even know we had. I love new kit, but my budget is limited, before I get out the credit card my concern is return on investment. How much faster will those wheels really make me? Are there other ways to achieve the same results for less?

Following the birth of my son, I thought I’d revisit the topic of our previous article and webinar on fit pregnancy.

The purpose of this article to present an option for athletic moms to consider with their approach to pregnancy. You are a unique population and we wanted to share our experience. Be sure to talk through any advice with your personal physician.

Since I’m on call these two weeks and indeed, doing this late at night, I think I’m okay on the title. What are the top 10 things you can do to prevent ever seeing the likes of me in a professional encounter?

Our series on triathlon training around the world continues with a look at tri life in Moscow.

As you've seen from some of the other EC columnists, this month’s theme is, "All About Gear." I’d like to address my thoughts on technology in our sport since this topic always presents healthy debate.

As an Endurance Corner writer, I am free to write about whatever I want. That said, there is usually a theme for each month and prior to writing my article, I exchange emails with our editor, Nick Mathers, about what he had in mind with the subject.

This month was no different but when Nick and I chatted about the topic, "All About Gear," he said he expected to get some folks suggesting "gear doesn't matter" which he felt was "disingenuous" but the topic was open and I could write whatever I wanted.

The "disingenuous" comment didn't sit well with me because I've said "gear doesn't matter" a number of times.

Am I being disingenuous, I thought?

Athletes have many gadgets and software to choose from when it comes to supporting training: SRM, Quarq, Power Tap, Garmin, heart rate monitors and Swimsense to name a few. There are graphs on WKO that record power distribution, heart rate distribution, mean maximal power, training stress and performance management. They can all be helpful. But none of them are as good as the human brain.

I recently attended Endurance Corner's Boulder Camp. I thought the best way to describe the camp experience was to share some of our moments.

When looking at your gear setup you should be really looking at a few different things as you make your decisions on what is best for you and your event.

I've spent time with squads where gear was put very low on the priority list for performance, I've spent time in the bike racing scene where gear is everything and I've spent a bit of time in between where finding the balance for the individual and the needs of the event is leveled out.

We all know marriage has it’s stress points. There is the dual career marriage, marriage with toddlers, and the more recently documented phenomena of divorce by triathlon, as exposed in the February 1, 2011, Wall Street Journal piece entitled, “A Workout Ate My Marriage.”

Gordo asked me to write a piece on managing oneself as an endurance athlete in a marriage to a non-training spouse. First, a disclaimer: This article intends to share some wisdom from a leading marriage expert, and should not be construed to imply that I have successfully minimized the impact of triathlon on my marriage. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Listening to Chrissie speak at our Boulder camp, my initial reaction was a powerful desire to train more and seek to be my absolute athletic best. It was the perfect talk for the day before a race -- except I was so jacked that I couldn’t fall asleep that night!

When listening to a charismatic figure, it’s tempting to think that their life is the message.

by Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

In the last article that I wrote on the importance of functional flexibility, I looked at flexibility demands in the freestyle stroke. I suggested that, in order to be able to "swim like a swimmer" there are certain flexibility pre-requisites that must be attained. Levels of flexibility that most adult who do not fall into the category of life-long swimmers, do not typically have.

In this piece I want to follow up on the last with a few practical exercises that you can use to improve shoulder mobility and improve your swim stroke.

A dramatic change from yesterday's look at triathlon in the heat of Dubai, Jan Hugo Svendsen shares a little about triathlon life up north in Norway.

We continue our series on triathlon training around the world with EC athlete David Chambers' look at Dubai.

We continue our series on Endurance Corner team members living in areas away from the traditional triathlon hotbeds. Today, Alasdair Hall tells us about the island of Jersey, located in the English Channel.

Not everyone lives in the triathlon hotspots around the world such as Boulder, San Diego or Noosa. In a series beginning today and running through next week, some Endurance Corner team members who live far removed from those tri lifestyle areas share their experiences training without a solid multisport infrastructure in their communities.

Experience has refined my race strategy. What began as a manual detailing every mile of the ironman has been honed to a focused list -- simple, memorable rules I can apply however low I feel midway through the marathon.A plan gives me confidence; a plan I can apply when I'm racing gets me through the day. Writing it has become a ritual -- I'm not ready to race until it's on paper.

Dave Jewell wraps up his series on running shoe production with this final installment looking at the sample, testing and production phases.