As a follow-up to Alan's article on strength limiters, I thought I’d share my approach to going big in the gym. On our site, you will find a classical approach to strength training for triathlon. That approach works well, but as I age, I’ve needed to adjust my targets so my swim/bike/run training doesn’t tank.

Rather than blasting myself twice per week for a month, I place three or four Big Strength Days into a six-week period. Across the block, I will lift every third or fourth day but I will only blast myself on a limited number of key days. When I go big, I go really big.

by Gordo Byrn

Qualifying for Kona requires a lot of work and, even if you have all day to train, smart overload is an effective way to get better.

Athletes can waste a lot of energy worrying about the structure of their training plan. Prove that you can do the work before you worry about the structure.

Remember that the role of the coach can be to heal an athlete to the point where they don’t need sport any more.  – Bobby McGee

Recently, I was brainstorming with a buddy about a sabbatical planned to start a year from now. My initial thinking was I’d repeat past patterns and head to the Southern Hemisphere and train big. In the spring, I would emerge and rip the legs off my competition!

by Gordo Byrn

Three things stand out from the last year.

The first is an example of what we’re up against in terms of our competition for Kona slots.

In May, one of the athletes that I coach, Ron Ottaway, broke his hip. Heading into surgery, he sent me an email asking my thoughts on how this might impact his chances for a slot at Ironman Arizona.

The injury was a tough one and Ron’s still not back to full function. He did, however, win his age group and qualify for Kona at Ironman Arizona.

More than winning, my buddy is an example of the best in sport –- there’s no quit in Ron Ottaway!

Ron is 74 years old.

Here’s a winter workout that will improve your quickness, give you a VO2max stimulus and enhance your running economy at all speeds.

Start with 15-30 minutes of easy aerobic to warm-up. When traveling I like to use 15 minutes LifeCycle then 15 minutes CrossTrainer. 

After my warm-up I hop on the treadmill and do a gradual pace ladder from walking up to FT pace with one- or two-minute steps.

Following on from my last installment that covered Your Basic Week, I wanted to get into detail with practical examples of the specific work that is required to get you to Kona.

Before we get stuck into the detail, how are you doing with creating a life structure of a Kona Qualifier?

I ask because your best competition have finished their seasons, completed their rejuvenation blocks and are dropping back into a proven routine.

To be successful you need to create the space to follow a path that others find too difficult.

Two weeks ago, I hit a dog, at speed, while finishing off a ride in Tucson. I’ve had high-speed crashes before but this one was special, as a light tailwind had me flying north on Old Nogales Highway.

Superior athletic performance requires getting your mind out of the way of your body.

One of the shortfalls of a classical approach to sports psychology (goal setting, visualization, self talk, arousal control) is the exercises actively engage the mind.

Athletes seldom have the problem of “thinking too little.” The challenge is our minds are constantly spinning.

How do we free ourselves?

I have a keen interest in how I fool myself and one of my most common rationalizations for excessive exercise is personal health.

I asked our editor for a month focused on health. We tell you how to get fast, how to get ripped, how to manage your time, how to achieve your goals... but we rarely pause to consider the dramatic impact of an integrated approach to personal wellness (body, mind and spirit).

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been focusing on what-it-takes. To balance that writing, I want to share thoughts on rejuvenation and recovery.

A big part of coaching success is putting an athlete on a structured training plan and giving visibility to what actually gets done. It’s easy to make most athletes improve by applying those two actions – structure and visibility.

You don’t need to hire anyone to pull that off. Build a week, log what you do, apply the lessons from our site.

The tougher part for the self-coached athlete (and the self-coached coach!) is developing a recovery strategy. My No. 1 piece of advice to you in this regard is Schedule Your Recovery.

Following on from my first piece on about setting up your life structure to qualify for Kona, AC wrote a great piece on the physiological and training load requirements to position yourself to qualify.

In this article, I’m going to step back from the technical detail and dig a little deeper into my statement that you’re looking at four hours per day, most days, of time commitment.

If you haven’t qualified for Kona then you may have run the numbers on that statement and inferred that I’m talking about a 28-hour training week. That is not the case.

This article marks the launch of a new series on EC: How To Qualify for Kona.

With over 1,000 articles in the database and more than 1,500 threads on our coach-athlete forum, it is time for us to pull together our key themes for you.

Each month, Alan and I will address a theme. The articles will focus specifically on advice for the athlete that wants to qualify for Kona. I plan on linking up past pieces where I addressed similar issues -- so if you really want to get stuck into the topic then we will make it easier for you.

In case you miss an article, you can find all the articles referenced in our new library section: How To Qualify For Kona.

Let’s get started.

This week’s photo was taken towards the end of a 44-hour training week. If you look closely then you may be able to see the signs of fatigue intoxication!

Within our endurance library, you will find an article on
Big Week Training. That article will help you get the most out of your training camps. Print a copy of it and review it -- daily -- when training big.

Given that I have a wife, two kids, a triathlon business and am in my 40s... I want to revisit that article while my most recent camp experience is fresh in my mind.

The title of this week’s article comes from a quote inside Julie Diben's blog. I’ve been trying to get Julie to come and talk at one of our camps but have not (yet) been successful. I will keep trying because I have tremendous respect for her!

At our last Boulder Camp, I was successful with Rinny, Angela Neath and Bobby McGee. This is a summary of the best ideas that I picked up from them.

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

What is our brand?

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.

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.

In 2003, I had a chance to hear Jack Daniels speak at a swimming clinic (my notes, slide down the page). Daniels is a favorite of the coaches here at Endurance Corner and we model much of our physiological approach based on what we’ve learned from him.

My two favorite Daniels tips are:

• Trust success; question defeat.
• If you want to train faster then prove it by racing faster.

At the Boise 70.3 I went far faster than I thought possible and I’ve been trying to figure out the lessons to help me as an athlete and coach.

But first a reality check...

I started swim training at 30-years old and couldn’t break 2:00 for a 100.

By living what I share with you, I’ve swum 50-minutes for ironman; 20-minutes for 1,500 meters and won the 6.2 mile swim at Ultraman Hawaii.

You can learn how to swim fast.

Part of being a teacher is enjoying the process of repeating the fundamentals. Two articles that set the scene for this piece are: The Path to Excellence and Nine Ways to Live Like A Pro.

With the race season in full swing, I’ve been hearing a lot of:

• I need more
• I need a plan
• I need to suffer

Are you sure?

Consider these match ups:

• Dave Scott and Mark Allen
• Chrissie Wellington and Julie Dibens
• Peter Reid and Chris McCormack
• Paula Newby-Fraser and Erin Baker

Who’s the faster athlete?

A few years back, I listened to Lisa Bentley explain how she paced a half ironman. Basically, her approach was, “Go as fast as I can until the finish line.” I always thought that was a bit nuts until I started racing age-group and working with a wider range of speedy triathletes, especially female athletes.

After Cali, a very quick pal of mine mentioned that he rides 70.3 as fast as he can. He really means as fast as he can go! After that best-effort bike, he hops off the bike and, usually, puts up the fastest run in his AG.

Perhaps I need to re-evaluate!

To kick off April, I raced Cali 70.3. Given that this is “Early Season Racing” month at EC, I thought I’d update my thoughts on fast age-group racing.

I was in Mississippi last weekend (this week’s photo) and we ended our camp with a session on coaching. My talks are always geared about three points that the audience can apply on Monday morning.

Here’s my take on triathlon coaching!

Recently, the New York Times published an article about the hearts of long term endurance athletes.

When I read the article, I was nodding my head in agreement. I believe, athletes at the top of our sport (myself included) are at a much greater risk for exercise-induced health problems. It makes sense, we are doing a lot more exercise.

Given the depth of the winter this year, many athletes are feeling behind. Behind last year, behind where they’d like to be, behind their competition…

…with that in mind, I’d like to share some observations to help you set up your season.

At some stage every elite athlete needs to make a choice that will impact the rest of his or her career...

I’ve been extremely fortunate to live and train alongside champion athletes. While they may say that training is “hard” -- when I watch them in action, it sure looks like a lot of fun.

I’ve observed that athletes that get the most performance from a given amount of potential are not particularly hard. They are committed and really, really like working.

Our February theme is “winter’s still here.” I’m going to share some ideas on what you can get done to set yourself up for a solid 2011.

As you’d expect from a large team of athletes, the EC crew had a wide range of performances in January. I’m in the fortunate position of watching how successful people deal with the ups and downs of life.

Recently, I touched on the key elements of ironman success. In that article, I shared a favorite benchmarking session, the progressive bike test.

If I could pinpoint the main difference between my approach to endurance, and more classical approaches, it comes from a desire to optimize sub-maximal stamina. With the exception of my female and veteran athletes, I rarely focus on maximal performance.