80/20 Endurance Blog
Leo Tolstoy: Honorary Endurance Coach
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Inspiration can come from unexpected authority. My progress as an endurance coach is nothing extraordinary: a mix of formal and informal education with a reasonable amount of experience and luck. Occasionally, my coaching philosophy is disproportionally shaped […]
Do You Suffer from Workout Myopia?
German-born Canadian spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now has sold more than three million copies. I know this because it says so right on the cover. In the book, Tolle encourages readers to “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.” If this advice sounds familiar, it’s because it is. […]
Heart Rate Variability
There are two kinds of endurance athlete: Those who don’t know what heart rate variability (HRV) is and those who are about to find out. For as long as hearts have existed, these vital organs have contracted at a slightly erratic tempo, and it is this slight play in rhythm that we measure as HRV. […]
On the Importance of “Doing You” As an Athlete
Every once in a while a podcast host will ask me to name my favorite writer or to recommend a book to listeners. It’s always an awkward moment for me because it all but forces me to admit that I don’t read many books about endurance sports. Almost none, in fact. To be clear, I […]
Avoid Bonking and GI Issues in Your Next Ultra by Guzzling Carbs
I’ve been rubbernecking lately at a Twitter debate between scientific experts on human metabolism and obesity, on one side, and keto diet advocates on the other. The spectacle is both entertaining and tedious, and also revealing. What I’ve realized in observing it is that even I knew nothing about human metabolism and obesity, I would […]
Extended Mind, Sports Watch Dependency, and Pacing
In the 1990s, philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers introduced the concept of extended mind, which proposes that the acts of thinking and feeling do not occur entirely inside one’s head. If you’re not familiar with this concept, it might sound plumb crazy to you, but if you give it a chance, you’ll see it […]
Optimism Is Overrated
When things aren’t going your way in a race or during a training block, it is helpful to remind yourself how much worse things could be. A lot of athletes who engage in this mental exercise choose prisoners of war specifically for such perspective-shifting comparisons—folks like Admiral James Stockdale, the U.S. Navy Admiral who spent […]
A Fresh Look at Intensity Zones
Anyone who has ever used a piece of cardio equipment at a public gym has some notion of exercise intensity zones. Here’s an example of a chart you might see stuck to an elliptical trainer at your local health club: Athletes scoff at such simplistic, one-size-fits-all guidelines. For starters, they are based on the supposition […]
You Don’t Have to Be an Elite Runner to Run Doubles!
As a runner first and a triathlete second, I am attuned to the differences between the two sports. One difference is that many recreational triathletes think nothing of working out twice a day, whereas very few recreational runners engage in this practice. There is an obvious reason for this difference: Triathletes have three separate disciplines […]
78 Days to Chicago
If you read my book Running the Dream: One Summer Living, Training, and Racing with a Team of World-Class Runners Half My Age and found yourself wondering what happened on the days not included in the journal-style narrative, here’s your answer! Sort of. What follows is a chapter I wrote for inclusion in the book […]