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.

Recover Better: What NOT To Do After Hard Training Sessions

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

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 –...

Travel Tips For Racing a Triathlon in a Foreign Country: Part Two

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

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”

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

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?

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...

How Much Do I Need to Train to Become “Great” in Triathlon?

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?

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

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)?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,...

Five Tips To Reduce Your Transition Times in a Triathlon

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...