Questions I get asked most
If you're thinking about working with me, these are the questions I get most often from age-group triathletes, busy professionals and masters athletes training for IRONMAN, 70.3 or a marathon. If yours isn't here, tell me about your race and we'll talk it through.
For training questions rather than coaching ones, like how much volume you need, how to structure a season and how to fuel an Ironman, see Triathlon training questions answered.
How much training volume do I actually need to finish a 70.3 or Ironman?
For a 70.3, 8 to 10 hours a week gets a working athlete to the finish. For a full Ironman, most age-group athletes prepare well on 10 to 14 hours a week of targeted training. You don't need 15 to 20 hours of generic volume.
What each session is for matters more than the weekly total. Every session in your plan has a job, built around your physiology.
Why am I so slow during my Zone 2 (aerobic) training?
Because the aerobic engine is still being built. Most busy athletes find Zone 2 frustratingly slow, so they drift into the middle: too hard to recover from, too easy to lift threshold. Hold Zone 2 honestly and your pace at the same heart rate climbs over a build.
How do you adjust my training if I have heavy work travel or back-to-back meetings?
A fixed spreadsheet plan breaks the first time work does. Tell me about your week in TrainingPeaks: the long-haul flight, the big deadline, the bad sleep. I move sessions and adjust the volume and intensity to the body you have that day.
How do we prevent overuse injuries like soleus tears or Achilles tendinopathy?
A desk all day, then a hard run in the evening, is how a lot of calf and Achilles injuries start. Your first block builds run load gradually, with strides and short hills before any hard running. I check every long run against your recent longest, because one big jump is where many of these injuries begin.
Do I really need a power meter for my bike?
Yes, if you're serious about racing well.
Heart rate is a lagging metric on the bike, influenced by heat, caffeine, sleep, and stress. Power tells you the exact mechanical work you're producing right now.
It lets me prescribe intervals precisely and gives us the data to map your race-day pacing. No power meter yet? Your rides run on heart rate until you get one.
I don't want to do a lab test. How do we establish my heart rate zones?
You don't need a lab. Age formulas like 220 minus your age are often well off for trained athletes. Your first weeks include field tests: a 20-minute bike test, a run threshold test and a swim test. They set your zones from your own numbers.
Is strength training necessary, or will it just make me heavy?
Hypertrophy needs a calorie surplus and heavy lifting you won't be doing while training for an Ironman. The strength work in your plan is short and targeted. It builds back what desk work and repetitive training take away, and it helps your running economy. Done properly, it makes you faster.
What makes coaching different from an online template or an app?
A template doesn't know you're tired. It doesn't adjust when your resting heart rate jumps, and it doesn't read your files to see why you faded in the last 5 km of a long run. You're paying for nine seasons of pro racing, a plan rebuilt every week from your own training data, and a race plan built around your numbers.
How do you track my progress without me having to race constantly?
Benchmark tests are built into your training blocks, so you don't have to race to see progress. Racing adds fatigue and often breaks up a build. I compare your pace at a fixed heart rate, or your power at threshold, across a block to see how you're adapting. The data tells the story without a race number every weekend.
What is the most common mistake people make on race day?
Executing on emotion instead of the plan.
High achievers get to the start line, feel the adrenaline, and abandon their prescribed power and heart rate caps. They burn through their glycogen in the first two hours and walk the marathon.
I build your race plan from your training data. Your only job on race day is calm, calculated execution of those numbers.