Training science, coaching, and the 80/20 method — from Matt Fitzgerald and the 80/20 Endurance coaching team.
Recently I had a disturbing experience on social media. I know, I know. Join the club, right? But This one’s worth sharing, I believe. Let me start by saying that I’m not naïve in these matters. I’ve been aware for some time that social media is a cesspool of idiocy and viciousness. That’s why I…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
I once coached a runner who had a strong desire to impress me. Every now and then during our weekly FaceTime catchups he would ask me, in reference to a recent strong workout performance, “Were you impressed?” or else he would say, in reference to a recent workout in which he had overreached and blown…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
The first adult sports camp I participated in was a Multisport School of Champions event hosted in San Diego by Triathlete publisher John Duke and eight-time Ironman world champion Paula Newby-Fraser way back in 1996. Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to take part in many more triathlon and running camps, and I remember each…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
Fifty years ago, a runner who had been doing all of his recent training before the sun rose shifted to a new schedule that had him running later in the morning. To his surprise, his first several daylight runs felt harder than normal, and it took him longer to complete his usual routes. (This was…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
There’s a lot going on at 80/20 Endurance—so much, in fact, that you might be having trouble keeping up with all of it. Never fear! Within eight minutes (unless you’re a slow reader), you will be fully caught up on the major happenings here. Ready . . . Go! A New Book Earlier this year,…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
On October 12, 2021, two days after she finished third in the Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:27:19, American professional runner Sara Hall posted the following message on Twitter: “Committed 100% to the goal. Suffered through my best training I’ve ever done. Showed up healthy, excited, confident. Executed the plan. Fought [till] the end.…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
The short version. A study of 158,000 marathoners found that the runners who tapered for three weeks ran better than those who tapered for two or less, that four weeks added nothing, and that a disciplined taper, one where volume keeps falling once it starts falling, mattered more than the length. Most runners, 64 percent,…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
Even before long covid scrambled my brain, I was absentminded. It sounds like such a benign foible, but absentmindedness can be deadly. For example, it nearly killed my dog in a Kansas hotel one time. It was a raw, gray Friday at the tail end of March, stubborn winter turfing out nominal spring. I’d just…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
In 2018, Bernadette Brady of Western Sydney University got together with a few colleagues and designed a study to determine to what degree, if any, implicit ethnic bias negatively impacted physiotherapy care among Australian ethnic minorities. Forty-eight patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain who identified as Mandaean, Assyrian, or Vietnamese participated in the trial. Half of…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
Here in the northern hemisphere, the off-season is upon us, and athletes like you are figuring out how to train between now and the time you’re ready to start the next race-focused training cycle. For athletes who use 80/20 Endurance plans, this figuring-out process is a matter of deciding which specific plan or plans to…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
