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Race Day Pending 🇸🇪👊

10:05 kick off over here (09:05 UK time)

Sweden preps gone swimmingly well, spa day, little shake out run and watching the proper athletes.

Let’s SAV IT

Luke Dalton
Optimal Sports Performance

Recently I did a podcast with my good mate Gurm. We chatted training, business, life and all sorts. Looking back, there are a few answers I probably could have given a bit better if I’d had more time to think about them.

But I suppose that’s the point of a podcast. It’s just a conversation.

One question that stuck with me was:

“What’s the biggest misconception people have about owning an independent gym?”

My answer at the time was how bad the money can be… and whilst there’s definitely some truth in that, on reflection I think the biggest challenge is finding the right people.

The right staff are incredibly hard to find.

People who’ll get up at 5am, lock up late at night, work weekends, take responsibility, put members first and genuinely care about helping people improve. People who understand that in this industry nobody owes you clients. You earn them. Day after day. Year after year.

The best coaches don’t just know their stuff. They live it.

Fortunately for us, we’ve been blessed with an unbelievable team. In fact, every coach we’ve got was hand-picked. I approached every single one of them because I knew the sort of person they were long before they ever worked here.

So when I posted earlier apologising because we’re having to shut for parts of the weekend whilst all our coaches compete, maybe sorry isn’t the right word.

Maybe we should be proud.

Proud that we’ve built a gym full of people who don’t just coach fitness, they genuinely pursue it themselves.

This weekend we’ve got coaches and members taking on District L and HYROX World Championships. That’s pretty special.

So let’s celebrate fitness, celebrate each other, and send it. 🫶

Biggest 9-day training block I’ve completed in a long time.

75 miles on the pins
4 hours getting massive
A couple of HYROX sessions thrown in for good measure

The legs are absolutely cooked, but that’s the point.

Now it’s time to freshen up, sharpen up, and spend the next two weeks getting ready to chase Dalts around Stockholm for first orders.

It’s been a cracking week all round. New hairlines, huge sessions from the team, The 10th Hour release (a first release SOLD OUT), and some truly horrendous sweepstake teams drawn.

Mucho Gracias

Safe, ya’ll.

One thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that people are competing far too often.

Another HYROX.
Another race.
Another event.

Every few weeks they’re back on a start line chasing a result.

The problem?

Fitness takes time to build.

Real adaptations happen over months, not days.

When you’re constantly racing, tapering, recovering and starting again, you never really give yourself long enough to train.

You end up staying roughly the same fitness level whilst hoping for a different result.

Most people don’t need another event.

They need a longer training block.

A period of consistent work without interruption.

Build. Recover. Adapt.

Then race.

Because the biggest breakthroughs usually happen when you spend less time competing and more time preparing.

Supercompensation only works if you give it time. 🫡

The biggest training block of my year kicks off now.

I’ve just ticked off the first two sessions:

* Saturday: 1 hour aerobic run
* Sunday: Full body strength workout

The next 7 days look like this:

* Monday
* 10 mile run with 4 x 4 minutes at HYROX effort
* Tuesday
* Full body strength workout
* 30 minute easy bike
* Wednesday
* 10 mile run with 8 x 2 minutes at HYROX effort minus 10 seconds
* Thursday
* HYROX doubles-specific session
* Friday
* Off / recovery day
* Saturday
* 3 hour trail run at easy effort
* Sunday
* 30 miles around the Wrekin (around 8,000ft of elevation)

Total volume for the 9-day block should land somewhere between 75-85 miles.

From here I’ll have two weeks of lower running volume heading into HYROX Worlds before ramping things back up again for the final push into the 100 miler.

Training for events like these is always a balancing act between volume, progressive overload and recovery. The reality is my training hasn’t been perfectly linear. I’ve had ni**les, holidays, colds and all the other stuff that comes with real life.

I’ve been training consistently for more than 15 years. Missing a week is rare. This wasn’t built in six months—it was built through thousands of ordinary sessions stacked together over time.

Fitness isn’t built by the perfect week. It’s built by stringing together enough good weeks for long enough that what looks like talent is usually just consistency.

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.”

I think life works the same way.

Most people wait for one big breakthrough while ignoring the power of ordinary days. One workout. One better choice. One disciplined moment when taking the easy option would’ve been easier.

That’s how people change. Quietly. Repeatedly. Over time.

Most quit before the rewards show up because effort and outcome don’t seem connected yet. But they are.

Everything compounds: your habits, mindset, standards, and the days you show up when you can’t be bothered. Especially those days.

Then one day the gap between you and your old self is huge, and people call it luck or talent when really… you just kept stacking days.

That’s the real compound interest. 🫡

First up - HYROX.

I haven’t really had much time to taper and, as much as I don’t want to downplay Worlds, it hasn’t been the main focus… getting ready for Brecon has.

That said, running’s feeling good, I’ve put in plenty of work on the ergs, and the next four weeks are all about adding in another threshold session and getting stuck into more sleds.

The goal’s pretty simple - head out to Sweden and absolutely send it. We know we’re still a fair way off the top guys, but if we can beat our qualification time, learn a few things to help others, and mix it up with some big dogs, then that’s exactly what we’re going there for.

Brecon… these next nine weeks are HUGE.

I’ve been dealing with a bit of an Achilles ni**le, so the run volume hasn’t been ideal, and I’ve had to swap a few hours each week onto the bike instead. But over the next few weeks, the plan is to hit two big volume blocks (around 70 mile weeks) and recover as well as I can in between.

Doing the recce the other week, I found out that around 50% of the field don’t finish and the average completion time is 35 hours. This race is seriously no joke. Brecon is bleak, brutal, and I’m going to be deep in the trenches for a long, long time… but honestly, that’s exactly where I want to be.

See what I’m made of.
See how far I can push it.
And hopefully cross that line in one piece.

Properly fired up to get after it these next couple of months.

SAV IT 🚀

Compound Fitness on film 📸

What a bloody week yet again

10th hour
Hyrox Berlin
Deadly Dozen UK Finals
Cupla Ultras
Rain Hill Trails
DAD mode

Staying humble for all the opportunities you lot give me and each other 🫶

Take a bow team 👏