There is a perpetual quest for the perfect brick or run workout…some folks spend inordinate amounts of time trying to unearth the training secrets of the triathlon gods. This drive extends from insecurity: “Sure my training is good, but it would be better if I could only do what that other guy/gal is doing.” This external focus on what other folks are doing has a direct impact on how we train ourselves, the extreme examples of folks caught in this catch-22 simply float from group workout to group workout doing what everyone else is doing. They are also the folks who get fired up every single month at the latest research into training…which only lasts until the next article comes out.
These folks are missing out on one of the biggest triathlon training related hacks I can think of – period – is consistency. There is no one great workout or session that will lead to your success. Success in the triathlon space has much more to do with “total time worked out” than it does with any specific “unit of time worked out”. In other words, it’s not what you did yesterday or might do tomorrow for a workout…it’s what you’ve been doing for the last few years.
This doesn’t mean that you need to go out an try to make up for year’s of procrastination in the next six months to be successful. That is one of the huge fallacies of triathlon training – particularly for beginners – that more is better. For newbies, more training tends to translate into more burn-out, more injuries, and more junk miles.
The Most Effective Training Schedule is One You Can Actually Complete
Folks who work out less often feel like they are are missing out on something when everyone else rides another 2 hours in January and you hop off your trainer after 75 minutes. I am consistently getting emails from my athletes and training plan clients who tell me: “This plan is too easy; there’s not enough work here.” The only thing my athletes are missing out on is the last two hours of the Lord of the Rings movie that everyone else is watching; they are missing out on that massive mental and physical plateau that will hit mid-season, crippling any attempts at reaching peak fitness; they are missing out on burning out.
One of the core tenets of training within the 10Hours approach is that your schedule is appropriate…not only for your life and your priorities, but for your training as well. And in most cases, 10 hours of training a week is a pretty good baseline from which you can achieve success. Over 50 weeks a year, that’s 500 hours. I can tell you right now, out of the 200+ athletes I have worked with over the last five years, only two have trained more than 500 hours a year.
For more information on how to build a better training program, go to the Manifesto Page and download the free PDF sample…be sure to check out page 14. Happy winter training, and remember: less is more!
Hi, I'm Patrick McCrann. 
