Patrick John McCrann | Athlete. Author. Coach.

Cut your training hours. Focus on the critical work. Get faster and fitter. No, really.

The first visceral reaction to the 10Hours A Week training approach is “Yeah, right!” People just don’t want to believe that slashing training hours to the critical workouts can actually improve their fitness, help restore balance to their lives and make them much happier people. But as those of you who have read the eBook [link] know, cutting hours on the average week doesn’t meet cutting them for good.

We aren’t simply eliminating hours, we are reorganizing them. Instead of pounding yourself day in / day out with mega weeks of 20+ hours, we create a manageable schedule and invest your “workout credits” into short-term, high-volume training events: aka “Big Weekends” or “Big Weeks”.

Endurance fitness is easily built. Going longer at less effort isn’t hard, it just takes more time. You can spread that time across many weeks, or you can invest them for maximum impact. The best part? This is not only good for your fitness, but for you life as well. Instead of disappearing every weekend for a 4 to 6 hour ride on Sat, you can keep that ride at 2.5 hours (with intensity) and then request permission at set intervals to go away for a 3- to 4-day weekend for some big riding. Believe me, it’s a much easier sell to your “boss.”

While it’s not 100% ideal, you can sustain that fitness across a season with intermittent doses of higher volume / lower intensity. As a personal example, you can read how I successfully implemented this strategy last year at the ENation Tour of California Camps. This year I went from averaging 3.5 to 4 hours on the trainer to a 23.5 hour week of cycling – with no problems.

A typical long-course triathlete (HIM + IM), using the 10Hours approach over the course of a 6 month build up to a race, will end up doing :

* A big cycling week // two big weekends
* A big run week (pretty easy to do)
* A big tri week // two big weekends

Why waste your valuable weekends on B or C races when you can get in some great training instead?

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Here’s The Challenge: Put your brain to work and draft your ideal big training weekend. This would take place over a holiday weekend (Sat / Sun / Mon). Post your version here in the comments section. The reader whose description I like the most will get a free hardcopy version of Competitive Triathlon in 10Hours A Week and a Starbucks gift card for $20.