Endurance Corner has been a leading resource for long course triathlon training and racing advice. In our first “Best of” book, we’ve pulled together advice from our team of experts to help guide you to iron-distance success, focusing on five key content areas:

• Setting up a successful season
• Executing your race plan
• Using training camps to slingshot you past your competition
• Creating a healthy lifestyle
• Developing mental strength

Enjoy your journey, celebrate your hard work, and above all else, Race Every Step!

Good luck to team EC in Kona!

• Sue Aquila (Bloomington, Indiana)
• Paul Barnhart (Houston, Texas)
• Tom Goth (Salt Lake City, Utah)
• Fabrice Guillaume (Ashburn, Virginia)
• Gail Hughes (Flagstaff, Arizona)
• Clifford Hynson (Newnan, Georgia)
• Paul Linck (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Jenny Lorenz (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
• Vince Matteo (Pleasanton, California)
• Martin Muldoon (London, England)
• Ron Ottaway (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
• Greg Penner (Palo Alto, California)
• Ron Tribendis (Frisco, Texas)
• Mimi Winsberg (San Francisco, California)

I spent two years traveling between my job in New York City and my home in West Texas -- flying one way or the other about every five days. Those trips required at least one connecting flight and my East Coast legs were into or out some of the worst U.S. airports for flight delays. Work required many late night flights with even later night arrivals. During my big travel years, I PRed across all triathlon distance but I also experienced an overuse knee injury that left me unable to run for three months and a shoulder injury that limited my swimming.

While healing those injuries, my physical therapist and I came to the conclusion that they were related to my frequent travel, weakness and tightness in key areas and overuse from trying to “hit it” when I had the time to train. If you find yourself traveling quite a bit, here are some of the things I learned from trial and error to help you get those PRs but keep yourself off the injured list.

Here's part two of some of the most popular articles from 2011, along with some of our favorites that you may have missed when they were first published.

Endurance Corner is going to take a brief hiatus from publishing new content for the rest of 2011, but we don't want to leave you hanging. Over the next few days, we'll share a recap of some of our most popular articles from the past year, along with a few gems you may have missed.

We'll be back in January with all new content to help you address your limiters and set yourself up for a great season.

To wrap up the year, we asked some of the EC writing team to share some of the things that worked for them this season and the things that they'll be passing on in the future.

Jeff Shilt, M.D. -- or Dr. J as he’s known on Endurance Corner -- has been part of the EC network since the beginning. Jeff took some time to chat with us about his approach to endurance sport as an athlete, physician and coach.

Some of Gordo's favorite workouts

The EC coaching team had a great day at Ironman Louisville this year, with a second win on the course for Chris McDonald, a third place finish for Justin Daerr and a brilliant return to iron-distance racing by Marilyn McDonald.

Chris, Justin and Marilyn sat down to share their perspectives on the day and their training leading into the event.

Click here to listen to their conversation.

We're pulling together our key themes from across the site to help you qualify for Kona.

This section will expand over the coming months. The articles will focus specifically on advice for the athlete that wants to qualify for the big show: workload, athletic background, and some of our favorite training sessions. We'll also cover the necessary life skills required to pull it all together.

Paul Linck has been tearing up the field in the 45-49 age group, winning his AG with a stellar 9:36 at this year’s Ironman Coeur d’Alene, a second in last weekend’s Ironman Louisville, and multiple AG podiums in half ironman events around the country. We caught up with Paul to talk about his development in the sport from beginner four years ago to one of the top AG racers in the country.

Most people have something that takes up a lot of time but doesn't provide much benefit to their lives.

To wrap up Time Management month on Endurance Corner we asked some of the EC team to share their thoughts on "unproductive" time sucks and what they do to minimize time wasted.

There is a flip side to training full time. You have a lot of free time and you have to deal with it.

While I started training full time after I lost my job, it took a while for me to do it successfully -- during the first six months I recorded some of the most lackluster training of my life. I hated myself and the world around me, and I hated the budget.

The biggest hurdle for me was finding time to train -- I was always thinking of something to do which might help me get a job. Every minute I spent training I felt I was wasting my life; messing around when I should have been doing something important. I felt I didn't deserve leisure time. I needed to be productive.

If you're living in one of the "15 states too hot for humans" (according to a recent CNN article), you may be struggling with trying to train while simultaneously trying not to have your internal organs fail.

That gets even harder if you're trying to build yourself up for an A race taking place during or just after the summer. If that's the case, this year is probably too late to make a change, but you may want to consider swapping your seasons goals in 2012.

And by "swapping goals," I mean move your "winter" training to the summer.

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.

Everyone makes mistakes. It might come as a shock, but even Endurance Corner's expert panel of expertly experts doesn't always execute every race perfectly.

We asked the EC writing team to share some of their most memorable race strategy blunders and what they learned from those errors. You'll likely identify with some of their mistakes and hopefully be able to avoid some of the others.

In March I drove from my home in San Angelo, Texas, to Jackson, Miss., for a two and a half day triathlon camp and clinic. That was 700 miles and about 11 hours drive time one way. Why would I spend 22 hours in the car for what amounted to roughly 24 hours of “tri time” over a three day weekend?

Choosing to work with a coach can be a difficult decision for some age group athletes, particularly because it's sometimes harder to quantify the direct value of a coach. We asked some members of the EC network to give their thoughts on the benefits that come from a coach-athlete relationship.

Mike Coughlin is an experienced Endurance Corner athlete with Ultraman Canada, Kona, Epic Camp and multiple AG podiums on his resume. We took some time to talk with him about his background, his recent focus on Ultraman and his views on coaching.

Most triathletes are willing to jump into local cycling time trials or open running races, but have a big hang up when it comes to entering swim meets. Why are we reluctant to race in the pool?

"Training Camp" month may be officially over here at Endurance Corner, but that doesn't mean we don't have more to say on the topic. In the spirit of Coach Marilyn's article on training camp venues, we asked our panel of experts to share some of their favorite training locales.

There are different reasons why each contributor picked a particular training camp or location as his or her favorite, but you'll see that each has one thing in common -- the training was fun.

This past fall, EC team member Slater Fletcher completed what Gordo termed “The Aloha Triple” -- the trifecta of triathlon world championships in Hawaii: Ironman in Kona, Xterra in Maui and Ultraman back on the Big Island.

Part II of our interview looks at Slaters preparation and experience at Ultraman in more detail.

This past fall, EC team member Slater Fletcher completed what Gordo termed “The Aloha Triple” -- the trifecta of triathlon world championships in Hawaii: Ironman in Kona, Xterra in Maui and Ultraman back on the Big Island.

We took some time to chat with Slater about his approach to training for these three huge races essentially run back to back.

The dark, gray months of winter impact a lot of athletes' motivation. We asked the EC network to share their favorite "mental boost" workouts. What's interesting is that many didn't share a specific workout, but rather their approach to keeping themselves mentally energized, from mixing things up with new partners to inserting different stimuli into their training.

Endurance Corner recently partnered with IMTalk on a "Workout of the Month" feature. Each month, someone from the EC team performs an IMTalk listener workout and then shares his or her feedback with John and Bevan on the show.

Justin Daerr was first up for the new feature. From Justin: "I recently chatted with John and Bevan from IMTalk for their 'workout of the month.' This month's workout consisted of hill repeats during a run focus period. You can hear my thoughts on this workout and hill running in general."

Listen to the show

Visit IMTalk

Here's part two of some of the most popular articles from 2010, along with some of our favorites that you may have missed when they were first published.