Defying Convention, and Loving It

I like no nonsense high ROI stuff. Work, play, personal – doesn’t matter. I like performance benchmarks.

My career depends upon it. In an industry that too often hides behind legal documents and errors & omissions insurance, my group delivers performance guarantees. We can’t fall prey to doing things just because popular trends or conventional wisdom say so. Our decisions are made on case-by-case analyses: On data that we’ve measured or our vendors have measured and, then, specifically applied to our clients’ particular situations. By doing things that way we uncover a lot of myths. We prove a lot of industry-wide sacred cows wrong (not our goal, it just works out that way). Many within the green building industry aren’t ready to accept our assertions because they sometimes defy convention, so we’re left serving a minority of intensely loyal clients; a loyalty developed out of proven performance.

So it is with my multisport training.

Conventional triathlon training wisdom would have me coming out of the winter with a huge “base” comprised of long hours of easy swimming, cycling, and running. Most training guides and >$500 per month coaches preach this old school philosophy, saying the method provides metabolic benefits like increased capillary density and fat burning capacity. I’m sure that’s great for folks who choose to burn 15 to 20 hours (or more) per week in pursuit of athletic domination. I don’t want to do that. I have a career, a family, and like to stay connected to my community. This triathlon thing keeps me sane and provides an appropriate competitive outlet, but it’s ultimately just for fun.

Enter the coaches and athletes at Endurance Nation. I just completed a 20 week “out season” plan that had me cycling and running very hard for six to seven hours a week - Pretty countercultural in endurance sport circles. At the conclusion of that 20 week period, my cycling threshold power is:

• 20% higher than it was at the beginning of the program.
• Just 5 watts shy of my all time high.
• Just 12 watts short of my lifetime peak goal.

Additionally, today I ran the hilly Caesar Rodney half marathon in Wilmington, DE. I broke my previous personal record for that distance by more than 2-1/2 minutes. I didn’t taper for the race and I did my final painful bike test less than 24 hours earlier.

Not bad for a 42 year old fella on the first full day of spring, eh? I’d say the guys at EN are on to something. Wonder how strong I’ll be this summer?