Knowing when to go "that deep" is v. imp through one's career in endurance sports and more so after a certain age (that age will vary upon the athlete's specific makeup).
At this point in my life, those deep, deep efforts are (usually) reserved for racing.
This IS a problem when you don't race all that often.
Getting to that point when you are just under the edge, and then sustaining that output, I think, even for 60 plus athletes is a trainable skill. I just have to figure out how I can set that up in my training....mainly with running because Zwift can do it for me on the bike + I swim with a squad and Jonny 0 and his mercenaries can treat some sets like life or death races.
Over many years of mistakes which have led to over reaching and overtraining, ignoring the nervous system was costly.
In my younger years, I had the power, speed and endurance. I’d continually rev the body, always pushing hard. Easy days would only happen when I was fatigued.
These days, intensity control is at the forefront of my mind. I actually find that these days that it’s my brain that doesn’t want the high heart rate, therefore any red zone work is mainly done at half marathon pace and this revolves more when the brain is ready.
Fortunately as I’ve lost a lot of power and speed, I can’t dig deep like I once could. I’m rectifying this as of last week in the gym, but that’s another story.
I’ve had times on the treadmill, where I almost get a compression on the brain or a brain fog during the interval. It’s a sign that it’s time to call it quits. I’m not physically tired, but my brain doesn’t want to go there.
Thanks, your writing’s just confirm everything I’ve experienced. I’ve read and been across endurance sports as a fan boy since 1990.
Never has anything I’ve ever read continuously nail it and give assurance to people that what they feel and should consider are experienced by others. Yourself, Alan cousins and Inaki are just amazing resources .
Thankyou and merry Christmas and a happy new year to you and your family
Thanks for sharing Gordo. Wonderful to see how training works at this level of mastery. I'm interested in the relationship between emotional stability and intensity and which way the causal chain (is it more like a feedback loop?) goes. I think brain chemistry has more to do with our abilities to adapt than we might think. I've observed over the last year that my nervous system whisper 'thank you' and I relax when I've been in a super intense situation (1 rep from failure on set of 5 squat for example) whereas it's noticeably stressed after an hour on the bike sub threshold. We may have less control over these things than we think. I found this article interesting https://www.theinertia.com/surf/the-five-elements-of-athlete-its-all-about-neurotransmitters/
Knowing when to go "that deep" is v. imp through one's career in endurance sports and more so after a certain age (that age will vary upon the athlete's specific makeup).
At this point in my life, those deep, deep efforts are (usually) reserved for racing.
This IS a problem when you don't race all that often.
Getting to that point when you are just under the edge, and then sustaining that output, I think, even for 60 plus athletes is a trainable skill. I just have to figure out how I can set that up in my training....mainly with running because Zwift can do it for me on the bike + I swim with a squad and Jonny 0 and his mercenaries can treat some sets like life or death races.
The run efforts take me longer to recover from. They feel more intense for a given heart rate.
I’m like you and use the group for swim/bike efforts.
G
Over many years of mistakes which have led to over reaching and overtraining, ignoring the nervous system was costly.
In my younger years, I had the power, speed and endurance. I’d continually rev the body, always pushing hard. Easy days would only happen when I was fatigued.
These days, intensity control is at the forefront of my mind. I actually find that these days that it’s my brain that doesn’t want the high heart rate, therefore any red zone work is mainly done at half marathon pace and this revolves more when the brain is ready.
Fortunately as I’ve lost a lot of power and speed, I can’t dig deep like I once could. I’m rectifying this as of last week in the gym, but that’s another story.
I’ve had times on the treadmill, where I almost get a compression on the brain or a brain fog during the interval. It’s a sign that it’s time to call it quits. I’m not physically tired, but my brain doesn’t want to go there.
Thanks, your writing’s just confirm everything I’ve experienced. I’ve read and been across endurance sports as a fan boy since 1990.
Never has anything I’ve ever read continuously nail it and give assurance to people that what they feel and should consider are experienced by others. Yourself, Alan cousins and Inaki are just amazing resources .
Thankyou and merry Christmas and a happy new year to you and your family
Thanks Nenet
Very helpful, thx
Thanks Nick.
Thanks for sharing Gordo. Wonderful to see how training works at this level of mastery. I'm interested in the relationship between emotional stability and intensity and which way the causal chain (is it more like a feedback loop?) goes. I think brain chemistry has more to do with our abilities to adapt than we might think. I've observed over the last year that my nervous system whisper 'thank you' and I relax when I've been in a super intense situation (1 rep from failure on set of 5 squat for example) whereas it's noticeably stressed after an hour on the bike sub threshold. We may have less control over these things than we think. I found this article interesting https://www.theinertia.com/surf/the-five-elements-of-athlete-its-all-about-neurotransmitters/
Thanks for the article link - I'll give it a read.
Wishing you all the best for 2026!
Gordo