ENDURANCEWORKS Triathlon Training and Racing Blog
Welcome to the ENDURANCEWORKS Blog
As service to the sport of triathlon and other endurance sports, we provide our clients and friends with articles that we feel will benefit them in their pursuit of personal excellence in triathlon, other endurance sports and life.
Interview with the Amazing Sarah Lucero: Former TV News Anchor, Body Builder, Mom of 4 and Now IRONMAN Triathlete
Sarah Lucero is a former TV news anchor, a body builder, a 4x Boston Marathon finisher, a mom of 4 and a fitness entrepreneur who is now training for IRONMAN Cozumel in November. I'm very excited to share this interview with Sarah as she has such a diverse,...
Inspiring Interview with Bob Koenig Who PR’d at IRONMAN…at Age 69
As I get older (I'm almost 50 now), I'm finding that I'm looking more and more for inspiration that getting older is not the end of the world and that I can continue to live a healthy and active life full of adventure and physical challenge. Triathlete Bob Koenig...
Recover Better: What NOT To Do After Hard Training Sessions
In a previous blog post, we discussed recovery tools and techniques to help enhance recovery and your body's adaptation to challenging workouts (i.e. training stimuli). However, there are also practices and techniques that hinder recovery. We suggest that you avoid...
Recover Better: Tips for Recovery After Hard Training Sessions
During a hard training block or training session, your body experiences physiological stress, which stimulates adaptation (increased strength and endurance) by the body to the stress assuming adequate rest and recovery are taken. Both sides of the fitness equation –...
Athlete Questions: Riding Comfortably in the Aero Position + Sore Quads on the Marathon
I started to type up a response to this IRONMAN athlete's comment in our blog and realized other athletes are asking similar questions so wanted to share my thoughts as a blog post. I am a sixty one year old triathlete. I am not afraid of working hard to achieve my...
Travel Tips For Racing a Triathlon in a Foreign Country: Part Two
In our previous blog post (Part 1 of "Travel Tips For Racing a Triathlon in a Foreign Country"), we discussed the importance of arriving to your race destination at least a few days in advance, traveling with plenty of local currency, and preparing yourself for a...
Travel Tips For Racing a Triathlon in a Foreign Country: Part One
Whether you have raced overseas before or you have just signed up for your first international triathlon, we have some vital tips for you to make your trip go smoothly so that you can have your best performance on race day. Even experienced triathletes and travelers...
How to Become a Faster Triathlete…by Doing Less “Training”
I love athlete questions, especially questions with answers that challenge the triathlon - and especially IRONMAN Triathlon® - culture of "more training is better." A client of mine completed her first IRONMAN in Cozumel in November where she finished 2nd in her age...
How to Write a Useful Triathlon Race Report
When I finished an event in the past like a triathlon or a Spartan Race, I would type up a race report and publish in my blog. The write up talk about things like: my pre-race routine, the chaos of a mass swim start, my nutrition mistakes on the run and trading off...
What Diet is the Best Diet for Triathletes?
As long as you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the following popular diets that we’re going to discuss. Diet books (of which there are tens of thousands), diet websites, nutritionists, and even triathlon websites like triathlete.com...
Make Sure the Swim in Your Next Triathlon Race is Off to a Good Start
When asked about the most anxiety-driven part of a triathlon, it comes as no surprise that most triathletes will say they’re worried about the swim. The most nerve racking part of a race is often right before the gun even goes off. Once you get into the flow of the...
Pedaling Technique and a Few Basic Drills to Help You Improve Quickly on the Bike
When technique is mentioned in regards to triathlon, most people assume you’re talking about the swim, the run or nutrition planning. This makes sense because swimming is 80 percent technique (roughly speaking) and running also demands a great deal of time and energy...
How Much Do I Need to Train to Become “Great” in Triathlon?
Too many triathletes assume that more hours will result in more prestigious results, bigger gains and increasingly impressive personal bests. Our success-driven culture embraces a “work more sleep less” mentality in all regards, whether in relation to sports or...
What is My Ideal Race Weight for Triathlon?
Whether the encouragement comes in the form of a magazine article, diet book, or from a training friend, it’s hard to miss the fact that triathletes are often (perhaps obsessively) concerned with their weight. Much of this weight obsession stems from American culture,...
Age Group Doping in Triathlon and Medications You Cannot Take
Doping is the process of using illegal substances (referred to as Performance Enhancing Drugs or PEDs) to improve sporting performance, and triathlon is no stranger to this immoral and unlawful act. Because of extensive drug testing and media coverage, professional...
What Should You Be Doing for off the Bike Runs (AKA Bricks)?
In triathlon, the swim and the bike are really just a warm up for the run—an extremely tiring warm up but a warm up nonetheless. The run is where races are won and lost, PRs are broken or not, and where finishers are separated from DNF'ers (Did Not Finish'ers)....
Why You Should Experiment With Your Triathlon Pre-Race Warm Up
Come spring or early summer, you’ll soon be toeing the start line of your first race of the season. You will have already put in the long hours over the winter, the hard intervals on the trainer when the snow was piling up or rain was falling outside and faced months...
When to Stand on the Bike in a Triathlon Race
There are three positions to choose from while riding a triathlon bike: Down in the aero bars, Seated while holding the base bars and Standing. In a typical race, you should aim for spending the largest percent of your time in the aero bars, as this low profile...
Some Odd Tips to Improve Your Next Triathlon Race Experience
Racing a triathlon this season? Here are some odd tips for improving for your next race. Trust the Feet in Front of You (or Not) It’s risky, but one way to save energy and increase your average speed during the swim is to find a pair of feet, stick on them like glue,...
When to Push Through the Triathlon Training and When to Back Off
Training for triathlon takes commitment and a lot of time. Professionals spend 20 to 30 hours, sometimes even up to 40 hours, per week swimming, riding, running and doing strength training. A dedicated age grouper may spend 10 to 15 hours a week while holding down a...
Improving Muscle Tension for Faster, More Efficient Running
Our last blog post touched on the “elasticity” within the lower legs, and how this spring-like mechanism acts like a coil to propel you forward. The tendons in your lower legs and feet (such as your achilles and plantar fascia) store energy when your foot strikes the...
Lower Body Strength Training to Build Speed and Injury Resistance
In our previous blog post, we suggested upper body exercises focusing on the core for stability and the shoulders for mobility and injury prevention. Let's now talk about lower body strength. Even though we spend the majority of our time during triathlon on our legs,...
Incorporating Strength Training Into Your Regular Weekly Triathlon Training
Most triathletes know that they should be doing strength work, but not everyone knows why it’s necessary, or what exercises to do. Strength training is a vital part of the sport if you want to continue doing triathlons in the years to come, because without strength...
Five Tips To Reduce Your Transition Times in a Triathlon
Almost no one practices for or takes the time to properly prepare for triathlon transitions (T1 = swim to bike transition, T2 = bike to run transition). Think of all the hard rides, run, intervals, and swim sets that you do throughout the year just to shave off a few...