On training,
racing and
sport science.

Process over outcome

At this time of year, many athletes are setting goals for what they hope to achieve in the coming months. As runners, it's natural to focus on outcomes — hitting a personal best, running a certain time. But the athletes who improve most consistently are usually the ones who learn to love the process.

Avoid randomness

One characteristic shared by all successful training programs is that they help runners avoid randomness and instead focus on sensible progression and consistency. It's always easy to be tempted by a race or hero workout that may garner more Strava kudos — but randomness is the enemy of progress.

Maximal is not optimal

For every workout and most races during the season there is an ideal target effort level that balances the stress of the workload with an athlete's ability to recover and benefit from the work. The fastest progress to peak fitness comes from knowing what that target is — and hitting it precisely.

Miles make champions

It's easy to go down the rabbit hole on any topic related to training physiology and get completely lost in the weeds. A look at VLamax, anaerobic capacity, and why the oldest truths in endurance sport remain the most durable.

Training to maximize suffering

The purpose of training is not to minimize suffering during races. We train our bodies to make them able to tolerate more stress on race day: higher heart rates, lower blood sugar, increased muscle damage, lower pH, greater lactate — and to keep moving fast in spite of all of it.

Slowly by slowly

Nike's Breaking2 project set out to break the 2:00:00 marathon barrier — and in doing so, raised serious questions about what "legal" really means in elite distance running. A close look at shoes, pacing, and the rules of the sport.

Experimental studies of training intensity distribution

Retrospective analyses of athletic careers suggest that the polarized training model — a large amount of low-intensity training peppered with small doses of high intensity — may be the preferred intensity distribution for endurance athletes. The evidence examined.

What, when and why

The what, when and why of every single training session in your program should be clear to you before you begin. Understanding the purpose of a workout changes how you execute it — and how much you gain from it.

This is boring, I'll just train a little harder

Further evidence on the importance of high-volume low-intensity training for endurance athletes — and on the responsibility of the athlete to follow the protocol rather than improvise. Two papers, one uncomfortable conclusion.

Case study: Ingrid's epic 1986

Elite cross country skiers and elite distance runners share more than most coaches admit. A close look at the intensity distribution behind one of the most dominant athletic seasons in modern endurance sport history.

A 14-year case study: Bente Skari

To illustrate the power of record keeping and a methodological scientific approach to training, a deep look at 14 years of training data from one of the most decorated endurance athletes in history — and what it tells us about long-term development.

Scientist

"I am a scientist, I seek to understand me." As an athlete searching for your lifetime best performance, you and your coach are wise to think like scientists. What proper scientific method looks like in a training context — and why it matters.

n=1

As an athlete, you are conducting an experiment in which you are both subject and scientist. Case studies with n=1 are usually dismissed as the lowest form of research — but for the individual athlete, they may be the most relevant data that exists.

Training to train

Further to the 12-week myth: the concept of training to train. This boring, old-fashioned prep work does not sell magazines or impress your friends on Strava — but it is absolutely necessary and is the foundation on which all serious performance is built.

The myth of the 12-week marathon plan

We've all been tempted by the simplicity of it: a 12-week marathon plan bought online or copied faithfully from the pages of some recreational running magazine. You choose your plan, choose your marathon date — and then discover why it almost never works.