Joe Friel’s Blog

Again, I’ve got to apologize for the big gap between posts here recently. The recent sell of our home in Boulder and move to new temporary quarters combined with two book projects and travel has left … [Read more...] about Should You Use Carbohydrate-Protein Sports Drinks?

The chart you see here is for one of my senior athletes from his 2009 state time trial championship, which he won. He didn’t do the race in 2010 due to an early season crash. His 2011 state TT is … [Read more...] about Time Trial Case Study

Once again I must apologize for a big gap since the last post to my blog. It was a busy time last week as I followed the USA Pro Cycling Challenge around the mountains of Colorado with our … [Read more...] about Excellence (Repeat)

Let’s get back to interval training. I apologize for the long delay in posting Part 5. August has been quite busy with my annual bike tour in the Colorado mountains, selling our home in Boulder, and … [Read more...] about Intervals, Part 5

I’ve beat around the intervals bush long enough. Let’s get to what I’m sure you’re most interested in: types of intervals and how to best incorporate them into your training. This is a rather massive … [Read more...] about Intervals, Part 4

Reader Jeff Yielding asked a good question here yesterday. He noted that in Part 2 I said, “If you keep cutting your volume while continuing to train with high intensity, at some point performance … [Read more...] about Intervals, Part 3

In Part 1 of this series on interval training I tried to make the case that intensity, not volume, is the key to high performance. Most athletes measure their progress toward race goals by adding up … [Read more...] about Intervals, Part 2

Assuming you are now in your Build period of training with fewer than 12 weeks until your first A-priority race, now is probably the time to focus on interval training. I want to get into more detail … [Read more...] about Intervals, Part 1

One of the common problems of triathletes in long-course races and runners in marathons is “stomach shutdown.” This commonly happens starting around half way into the bike leg or sometimes as the run … [Read more...] about Stomach Shutdown

I was asked by a magazine today to briefly describe overtraining. That’s a timely question as this is the time of year when endurance athletes are likely to experience this. While most athletes seem … [Read more...] about Overtraining

The accompanying Performance Management Chart (PMC) from WKO+ software is for a road cyclist I coach (click to enlarge). It shows his entire season from last September’s transition period (when he … [Read more...] about Real World Peaking

You may recall that I broke my pelvis in a bike crash back in early April (be careful around car doors that may open!). Since then I've received several emails from other athletes who have also … [Read more...] about Coming Back from Serious Injury

Someone just pointed out to me that I forget to explain what "TSS" is in my post yesterday. Sorry about that. This gets rather hairy with further definitions needed, which I'm not going … [Read more...] about Oops! What Is TSS?

Many successful endurance athletes are type-A personalities. They are driven to succeed. While this is necessary to some extent, too much drive and motivation can lead to disastrous training and poor … [Read more...] about Question: Why am I so Tired?

I’m still getting caught up with work and life in general having just returned from 2 weeks in Switzerland and the UK. So this is just going to be a quicky. It has to do with a study I came across … [Read more...] about Max Heart Rate and Fitness

The above title is the key question that must be asked before starting to train for a specific A-priority race. Many don’t and simply train randomly. That’s works alright in the first year or so after … [Read more...] about What’s Important to Your Success?

I’m at a camp in Switzerland this week with a group of first-time Ironman triathletes. When I do these with Tridynamic,  who manages the camps, we bring in local experts to add depth what may … [Read more...] about Recovery On Demand for the Advanced Athlete

In block periodization, according to Vladimir Issurin in his book, Block Periodization,  there are three mesocycles which are actually quite similar to what is used in linear periodization. They … [Read more...] about Training for Advanced Athletes, Part 5

Block periodization is relatively new. I started toying with it about a year ago. As with all such training experimentation I tried it on myself first. I was pleased with the results. I do a few road … [Read more...] about Training for Advanced Athletes, Part 4

In part 1 I wrote about a topic I’ve addressed here many times before: The limited value of training volume for the advanced athlete and the necessity of emphasizing event-specific intensity, … [Read more...] about Training for Advanced Athletes, Part 3

This post is a clarification of my earlier post on the same topic. I’ll get back to describing advanced-athlete training once I’ve cleared up an obvious matter I overlooked earlier. After part 1 of … [Read more...] about Training for Advanced Athletes, Part 2

Should all athletes training for a given event prepare in the same way? I expect most readers of this blog to answer that with a resounding “no.” It’s fairly obvious that if your intent is to win the … [Read more...] about Training for Advanced Athletes, Part 1

One of the best measures of fitness change is your output-input ratio. That may sound quite technical but you use this a lot when talking about your car. You call it “miles per gallon” or “kilometers … [Read more...] about Speed, Power, Heart Rate and Fitness

So you’re a triathlete who occasionally does 2 hard workouts in a day, or you’re a cyclist doing a stage race with 2 races in a single day. What should you do after the first workout or race to make … [Read more...] about Short-Term Recovery