Episode 17: How to Pace a Hilly Race or Run
One of the hardest skills for any endurance athlete to master is pacing, and when you’re running a hilly event or participating in a bike race with a lot of elevation changes, pacing gets more difficult.
In this episode, Chris walks through the pitfalls athletes often fall into, the biggest of which is the “fly and die” approach where the athlete hopes to “bank” time by running harder or faster early in the race, hoping that when they inevitably slow down (because they went harder than they trained to run) that the time they banked will still keep them within their goal.
Sadly the endurance gods know what you are up to and will exact a cost in return…plus interest. In less nerdy terms this is called “blowing up.” Chris offers advice on how to avoid this ignominious fate and provides an example from the Portland Shamrock Run, where one of his athletes paced the race to perfection. You can see that athlete’s workout file below.
Episode 16: What is Progressive Overload and How Can You Actually Use It?
“Progressive Overload” is a topic that gets tossed around a lot in endurance circles, but, just as with other topics like “FTP” or “core strength” or “recovery,” progressive overload is more nuanced and complex than it first appears.
At it’s most basic application, progressive overload is “the steady and systematic increase in training load in order to continually force an athlete’s body to adapt and develop in the ways we want it to develop,” but how we apply that concept can get hairy pretty quickly.
In this episode, Chris defines the term, walks through different methods of measuring training load, explains the mechanism for getting your body to “adapt and develop,” and then offers practical suggestions of how to incorporate progressive overload into your own training or coaching of others. He rounds out the show with different subjective markers you can track in order to discover if your training is working or not, and when you should assess that training.
If you want to use Chris’ totally bonkers Session RPE training load calculator, you can find that here: https://tinyurl.com/bdekecsr
Episode 15: The Norwegian Method with Author Brad Culp
Chris sits down with Brad Culp, author of the 2024 Book The Norwegian Method: The Culture, Science, and Humans Behind the Groundbreaking Approach to Elite Endurance Performance. After some book-nerd talk about the structure Brad and his publisher chose for the book (the first few chapters provide a brisk but necessary and engrossing history of Scandinavia’s Viking culture and boatbuilding technology), Culp explains what he sees as encompassing “The Norwegian Method.” He talks about Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iten, Olav Aleksander Bu, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and the other less well-known forebears of The Norwegian Method. Culp recounts what he saw while reporting on and then writing about some of the greatest endurance athletes of our moment, and talks about how amateur endurance athletes can incorporate some of these training strategies without hurting themselves.
You can pick up Brad’s book on Amazon, and find him over on X.
Episode 14: Basic Training | How Noob Gains Happen (and then Stop Happening)
Remember what it was like when you had just set out upon your endurance journey? At first everything felt incredibly hard, but after a short amount of consistent training things started to feel easier. Those, our friends, were your “Noob Gains,” or the improvements that happened in the first months (or years) of this new habit.
Today on The Infirmary we explain how and why Noob Gains happen and offer some guidance for those who are in this very fun and satisfying period of training. We also talk about ways to avoid the pitfalls of this leg on the path to faster, happier, and healthier athletics. We close the episode with a warning around the ways unscrupulous companies try to take advantage of you while you’re living your Noob Gains life.
If you’re already an experienced athlete, please think about passing this episode along to someone who has just begun, since doing so might save them from injury, burnout, or worse.
Episode 13: How To Approach Getting Faster, Part One, w/Phil Batterson, Ph.D.
Chris sits down with Phil Batterson, Ph.D., host of the CriticalO2 podcast and physiologist for Moxy Monitor. They have a discussion about the oft-discussed “Art and Science of Coaching,” focusing on what coaches can learn from physiologists and vice versa. It’s a fascinating conversation that ranges from debunking long-observed tenets of the coaching world (FTP = 95% of 20-minute power, for one, and why 2mmol/l and 4mmol/l aren’t gospel) to best practices for improving your ability to make decisions in your training.
Episode 12: How to Build an Annual Training Plan that Actually Works
In this episode we talk about the importance of annual training plans for athletes and coaches, focusing on the need for clear goals and structured training blocks. We break down the types of goals you should use in your annual plans—outcome, performance, and process—and explain how to effectively build and manage a plan based on those goals. We give you three different examples of annual plans and offer hints and tips about how to use them to best effect: your performance and your happiness.
We also answer a great listener question about the significance of accountability in coaching, contrasting it with feelings of shame that can arise from missed workouts or unmet expectations.
Episode 11: Build the Engine First with Joe Howdyshell
Chris sits down with Joe Howdyshell of Summit Endurance Academy, a mountain sport coaching company based in Breckenridge, CO. What is a “mountain sport coaching company?” Joe (also known as @badasscoach on Instagram, although these days you can find him over on Substack talking to athletes) primarily coaches sports such as Ski Mountaineering (SkiMo for short), mountain biking, and mountain running.
“I work with athletes who want to play in mountains that look like the ones around me,” he says, although he’s also totally comfortable coaching road cyclists, triathletes, and more traditional endurance endeavors.
As with many coaches, Joe’s path to where he is today would be best described as “meandering.” No shade, there—most of us who work in the endurance world took a…circuitous path to our current situations. Joe came up as a runner, and then a cross-country skier, and finally a SkiMo athlete. He has bachelor and masters degrees in exercise physiology, so he knows his stuff, but as with the coaches at Campfire, he tends to keep the athlete first and the training minutiae second.
Instagram
Summit Endurance Academy
Substack
Work with us! If you heard something you liked today, join us! We’re always taking on new athletes, and you can book a free call to chat about your training here.
Episode 10: How to Develop Mastery in Endurance Sports
What is “mastery,” and how can we develop mastery in endurance sports? What even IS mastery? What does it look, sound, or feel like? In this episode, Chris walks through what mastery is and how you can begin to build mastery in your own sports.
If you’d like to learn this process through reading, check out our series on Mastery over on Medium. The link here is a friend link, so you’ll be able to read for free. Want the free PDF that helps you out with this? You can grab that here.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
And, finally, if you’d like to talk to us about coaching, we’d love to chat! You can book a free training analysis here, getting some outside eyes on what it is you are doing.
Episode 9: How To Get Lean and Fast at the Same Time w/Alex Larson
Chris sits down with Alex Larson of Alex Larson Nutrition (ALN) about how she ended up in this role, why training in a fasted state is so unproductive, how she works with clients and athletes to “support endurance athletes with practical and simple nutrition advice for lifelong health and performance,” (ALN’s mission), and a whole bunch of poop!
Alex talks with us about how she achieves behavior change with her athletes, why she would like to shift away from the word “diet,” and why restricting food isn’t the mindset we should adopt around eating and fueling.
You can find Alex at Alex Larson Nutrition and on Instagram and Facebook @alexlarsonnutrition, playing with three kids, or watching all the Star Wars intellectual property she can get her eyes on.
Episode 8: How Linsey Corbin Reviews a Year
Linsey Corbin has been one of the most consistent professional triathletes of all time, qualifying for Kona 14 times, winning eight Ironman events, and managing to show up year after year even while dealing with Injury. Linsey walks us through her process for reviewing the past season and looking forward to the next year, and she shows us how she bridged that sport-specific process to her life outside of sport.
After we chat about year-in-review processes, we answer two questions from our Campfire Endurance athletes, one about knowing WHEN you should train again after a difficult session, and also if using a little barefoot running can help your run form.
If you are interested in becoming a Campfire athlete and being able to ask us anything you want (and maybe hear your question on the air), you can chat with us about one-to-one coaching, Team Campfire, or attending one of our camps. Book a free call here.
Episode 7: How to Train to Give Yourself a Chance to Qualify
Now that Ironman World Championship season is over for the year, after the women raced in Nice last month and the men just raced in Kona, we thought it would be helpful for those of you excited about those races to hear what it takes to qualify for them.
Too many athletes believe that qualifying for races such as Kona, Nice, and Roth (all long distance triathlon) requires speed. It doesn’t. Qualifying for these races (which is another way of saying “executing this difficult distance effectively”) requires a physiology that doesn’t slow down.
In this episode, which is the audio from a webinar our owner, Chris, gave a few times in October, we walk you through a common misconception about long course triathlon racing and how to change your training so you can give yourself the best possible chance of qualifying.
If you would like this content as a video, you can watch the presentation over on our YouTube channel.
And, finally, if you would like the presentation from this webinar, you can grab it here.
Episode 6: Take It Seriously, Hold It Lightly with Annick Chalier
Many endurance athletes think that the path to success is a kind of inflexible and unrelenting grind, resulting in all sorts of toxic sayings such as “HTFU,” “No Pain No Gain,” or “Rise and Grind,” but the best performers in the world have a much more compassionate, curious, and patient approach.
We sit down with Annick Chalier, who has been a Campfire athlete for over a decade and a Campfire coach for the past two years. Annick came to endurance sports after deciding to get sober, spent some time as a triathlete, and then found her endurance calling, cycling. She has raced professionally domestically and abroad, won the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association’s road championship in the elite women’s field, and ridden her bike farther than this particular podcaster can count.
Annick’s journey inspired our topic today, as in her early years in the sport she could be somewhat severe towards herself during training and racing. We talk about how that changed and her consistent progress towards being happier, faster, and healthier.
After we wrap up that conversation, we give you some ideas as to how you can set yourself up for success this coming winter when you are forced to take the bike indoors.
Episode 5: How to Arrive (and Thrive) in Kona
It’s a tale as old as…well, it’s probably around 40 years old, but for a sport as young as ours, that’s fairly venerable: a hard-working triathlete puts in their time over the course of a season, qualifies for Kona (or Nice, which is a really great site for a world championships, go ahead and @ us), and then, through a combination of poorly timed heat acclimation, arduous travel, wide-eyed enthusiasm, panic training, expo smorgasbord, and terror ends up performing far below their potential. Today we’ll be talking about how to navigate the veritable gauntlet of triathlon’s big show and perform to the best of your ability.
Episode 4: What is Fatigue Resistance, and How Do I Get More of It?
Fatigue resistance is an idea that has been around for a long time, but it’s having a bit of a moment recently. A few companies are trying to develop fancy metrics like “durability” to measure (or, um, monetize) this concept.
We don’t need to monetize it. Fatigue resistance is a simple concept, one that it is easy to track and train. Listen here to learn how.
Episode 3: Training and Racing through Pregnancy with Emily Arcuri
Chris sits down with elite amateur and Campfire Coach Emily Arcuri to talk about training and racing all the way through 32 weeks of pregnancy. Emily offers three different periods of her journey and thoughts about what you should expect if you decide to follow her example.
Episode 2: Strength Training Simplified with Adam Goulet
Chris sits down with chiropractor and Campfire coach Adam Goulet to talk about Ironman Texas and why Ironman is "one and done" for Adam, but then settle down to business to talk about strength training for endurance athletes.
You'll learn that you really don't need to worry about "bulking up" as an endurance athlete who lifts, and the four different major movements every endurance athlete should incorporate into their training routine.
Episode 1: Three Years to Ironman?
Chris talks through just WHY it takes so long to prepare correctly for an Iron-distance triathlon. We also talk about the great Gordo Byrn and his influence on proper conditioning within endurance sports.
Gordo's substack, Endurance Essentials
Gordo on Rich Roll's podcast