All Day Endurance

The Long Game

One workout can tell me something. 6 months starts to paint a picture. 6 years tells a story.

Athlete development isn’t a collection of impressive sessions. It’s the gradual change in what an athlete can adapt to, repeat and eventually express in competition.

The clearest progress isn’t always a power or speed record.

It’s holding form later.

It’s fewer interruptions.

It’s better judgment.

It’s making more good days than trying to have epic ones.

That’s a lot harder to put in a highlight reel.

It’s also much closer to what we’re actually trying to build.

18 years of coaching and plenty of my own mistakes as an athlete.

I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things during that time.

I’ve become considerably less interested in finding the perfect workout and considerably more interested in understanding the athlete doing it.

Training matters.

So does judgment, consistency, ex*****on, confidence, attention, recovery, ego, enjoyment and everything that goes on the rest of the day.

Medal Monday 🥇🙌

Brad Galbraith bringing home some hardware as the 2026 Gravel Duathlon AG 🇺🇸National Champion with an impressive 4th place overall at 60years young

Up next: Zofingen Powerman World Championships🇨🇭

Goals are about outcomes. Systems are about behaviors.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

— James Clear

For an athlete, the goal might be to qualify for a championship, set a PR, make a national team, or become a better athlete. Those goals are important because they provide direction. But on a random Tuesday morning when you're tired, busy, unmotivated, or training isn't going well, the goal itself doesn't do much for you, but your systems will. Your systems are the things you've put in place beforehand: when you train, how you prepare, how you fuel, your sleep routine, your recovery habits, how you communicate with your coach, and what you do when things get disrupted.

For endurance athletes especially, success isn't one extraordinary training day or decision. It's hundreds of fairly ordinary decisions, good not great days repeated, all made easier by having good systems in place to begin with.

Medal Mondays 🥇🥈🥉🙌

Don Gallagher and Eric Fayard representing as usual at IRONMAN Triathlon

Kristin Nicole Barry Chose violence twice at the Hot Inferno 25k and 30k Trail races

Erica Szilagyi Checking that Boston Marathon box one more time at the Jack and Jill Marathon

Dan Lockhart crushed the Half Marathon

Wendy Drummond surprised herself but not us winning her AG at the Elder Creek 50k

Comparison is arguably the thing affecting your growth in endurance sports the most.

In a world full of constant social media content without having full context, we have been trained to think this way. Snapshots of others success, epic training and race days, power, pace, speed, and heart rate data, and the list goes on. Some athetles may gain confidence by dropping training partners or winning a workout. Other times it can be losing confidence due to having a bad day or others having a great day. Both of these are fragile. It means your own confidence depends entirely on others. Real confidence is independent.

Although comparisons don’t stop with others. We might also compare today’s version of ourselves with a previous version from weeks, months, or years ago. It’s exhausting, and taking away from what matters for real long term growth.

In a recent endurance training study athletes performed the same training plan for 8 weeks and measured several markers of performance. They followed that up with 8 weeks off, and then repeated the same training plan from the initial 8 weeks. What they found was that no one adapted the same twice. Athletes who responded well the first cycle did not respond to the 2nd and vice versa. What the research does not show are lifestyle and psychologic factors. Some of the differences were surely physiological, but a lot of this variation is due to the changes in the athletes outside of the training plan. Life stress, sleep and diet, but also perception and joy.

The reason I mention this is the role comparisons play. Letting go of constant comparison can not only help you as an athlete, but will free up energy in all areas of life. Over nearly 20 years of coaching endurance athletes the thing I see regularly when athletes are at their best is being in a place of mental freedom, happiness and flow.

Noise and Signal - First, we have Noise:

Ten Things to Avoid
These are the factors that often lead to over-analysis, stress, or wasted effort.

1. Social media and comparisons: Comparison is the thief of all joy and progress. Content is everywhere, but context is hard to find.

2. The "optimal" anything: Marginal gains from the latest shoes or gadgets are negligible compared to consistent training.

3. Short-term fluctuations: Daily data points are noise. Focus on long-term trends, not the speed, pace, or power meter reading from a single off day.

4. "The Flaw of" Averages: A plan that doesn't account for your specific life stressors, level of development, and needs. You are similar to other athletes, but not the same.

5. Inconsistency: Stick to your coaching plan and established principles. Stay the course. Check out from social media if you need to.

6. Training Zones: While the physiological reasoning behind zones is sound, they are often miscalculated. Most athletes would do better to focus on perceived effort and the specific intent of a session rather than on small differences in HR, pace, or power to stay in a "correct" zone. All intensity ranges are valuable when applied with a clear purpose.

7. Perfect workouts: Consistency beats intensity. A "good enough" session done consistently is infinitely better than a "perfect" session that leads to poor sessions later or limits you from addressing things outside your comfort zone.

8. Negative self-talk: Recognize that your brain will move towards patterns and habits. Often ones you don't want. Work to interrupt the internal dialogue, not with brute force, recognize it, and build the skills to move through it. Having negative thoughts isn't failure. Recognizing them and slowly regaining focus is another rep each time.

9. Over-analyzing: Don't let the data paralyze you. Data is a tool, and not your only tool.

10. Noise: The goal is not to eliminate noise, but to become so clear on what matters that the noise loses its influence.

2026 All Day Endurance - Team Gear 🔥🔥

🚨Shop closes tomorrow at midnight!

🎉 Party shirts are limited edition. Available this year and this year only.

Zoot Sports - All Day Endurance 2026(29887)

Passion vs Purpose

Passion is often about us. What we want, what we feel, and what we hope to accomplish. Purpose is bigger than that. Purpose stays focused on the work itself, and the process required to improve. Passion can be loud, emotional, and impatient. It wants results now. It wants recognition, and it wants to skip steps.

Long term performance won’t come from emotion alone. It comes from discipline, consistency, and the ability to keep showing up when motivation fades.

In endurance sport, ego can cause us to obsess over things we desperately want, but don’t have. Purpose keeps us grounded in ex*****on and process. The athletes who last are not always the most passionate. They are often the most steady, calm, and persistent. Less “look what I’m going to do.” More “focus on today’s work.” A craftsman mindset focuses on building something meaningful over time.

One session, one repetition, one decision at a time.

Inspired by “Ego is the Enemy”
by Ryan Holiday

She has 50 minutes a day to train on weekdays while working a full-time job and somehow keeping me and my family alive, which may be the hardest endurance event of all. She maximizes every minute, makes the most of her weekends, and never (rarely 😉) complains.

And somehow, in the middle of it, she hops on a plane, flies across the country, and goes out to crush ultramarathons. She must have a good coach.

Congrats, Crystal! I could not be more proud, excited, or grateful to witness all that you do. Incredible day today at the 50k 👏