Progress Update - How It Is Going

It has been almost 9 months since Gordo Byrn started coaching me.

In the early days, I shared how I set up my training structure per week. The goal was to get 10-11 hours of training per week.

My basic week structure at that time was the following:

• 3 swims

• 2 strength sessions

• 3 runs

• 2 bike rides

• Daily mobility/stretching (10 minutes before sleep)

The whole idea was to budget the time to train without jeopardizing my other responsibilities.

Gordo says “training is 10% of our lives, we get to use that time only if we focus on the other 90% - family, life, sleep, other things”. He is absolutely right.

I am so lucky with my wife who helps me to create space for my training.

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So far, it has been slow but a good progress.

Training hours per week averaged about 11 hours per week.

This graph shows how many hours I trained per week and it was about 11 hours. There are two big dips:

• the first one during the Christmas week

• the second one in early April

The Christmas week was supposed to be a good training week in Southern Spain with my family. During our holidays, everyone got sick with a horrible respiratory infection that took almost 3 weeks to come back.

During the April week, I was visiting Uzbekistan, many hours traveling and I fell down into a concrete ditch and injured my knee. Other than that, it has been good 9 months of training.

In the last few weeks, I have been trying to ramp up the volume slightly.

Aerobic Base Building

Since my aerobic base was not strong enough, our focus has been on building the base. In the last 9 months, there have been almost always low zone training. As we can see from the chart below, very little focus on higher zones. I think this was the key to be able to continue with relatively higher volume. If I included higher zone training, it would have cost me more in recovery, thus resulting in lower volume.

Heart rate distribution in all training

I know that almost every training philosophy says we should do higher intensity work.

If you are interested in why we haven’t done much (any) high intensity training, here is a good explanation by Gordo Byrn. The basic idea is one should “earn the right” to do the higher intensity training. You should have demonstrated the ability to train consistently. The same philosophy applies to sport nutrition. You should first create proper fueling needs before adding any expensive gels or drinks.

Distribution of my training volume

As you can see from this pie chart, the majority of the work is done on the bike. Again, in the green zone.

We have had a strong focus on the swim and strength training. If you read my earlier posts, my swim pace in October 2025 was 2:30/100m and max distance I did was about 1000-1300m. Last week I did 3200m averaging 1:50/100m. Yes, there is still a long way to go, but in my opinion, this is really good progress.

The “walk” in the chart is mainly hiking and the other is stretching and mobility.

Over 400 hours of training in 9 months. Nothing close to a good volume that can make BIG changes, but it is more than I used to do in previous years. Progressive overload is the key here. Sudden increase in training volume is a golden ticket to injury.

Energy Turnover

A key indicator in improving endurance is the energy turnover. In other words, how much work we are doing. Mine was under 25000 kcal per month, or 833 kcal per day. I burned over 800 kcal for training. This should be increased to 1500 kcal if I want to see proper results. But again, consistency and patience are two key factors here. We will get there. We have not even crossed 1/3 of the 1000 days training plan.

Subjective Assessment

I feel strong.

Honestly, I feel the strongest I have ever felt in my entire life. It is not only a placebo effect.

A few weeks ago, with a dozen guys 10-13 years younger than me, we did hiking in the Alps. While it was obviously difficult for some of the guys, I felt totally fine and even carried a backpack of a guy for him. I came up first and a younger, lighter, leaner guy than me tried to keep up and he had to stop a few times. That felt good!

The other day, with a friend of mine, we went for a bike ride. While it was a Zone 1 ride for me, he asked to stop a few times. Garmin says my FTP increased from 210 to 238W. I am not 100% sure about the test though. I have never done a proper FTP test yet.

I have a feeling that the average heart rate during the runs dropped. I have not quantified that yet. It probably takes another year or two of training to see a signficant drop in HR for a given pace.

Overall, I feel strong and the coach says this is just the beginning.

I am very happy and positive about the progress.

Enjoy the summer, and most importantly, stay healthy!
Bek