"Grind Guy" vs. 60 rpms
Ironman finish line on 5:39 per week
“Ironman. That’s the pinnacle of endurance.”
That’s what Chris told me.
But when he looked up how much time he needed, his life math didn’t add up.
Two kids
A demanding career
A wife, hobbies, family cabin weekends
He didn’t have 15 hours of free time per week.
So he figured an Ironman wasn’t for him.
Until he joined Tribal.
And realized he could make the 5 hours a week he did have, go farther.
Chris kept hitting the wall
Chris is a grind guy.
He grinds at work. He grinds in workouts.
He can grind his way to success.
But when he started riding beyond 2 hours, he realized something we all learn in endurance.
The grind stops working.
Quads blasted. Body shot. Stomach starving.
His first instinct was to do what most of us do:
Grind more.
(And he thought maybe he needed to raise his seat).
I saw something else that needed to change.
Better technique
Before I show you what we changed for Chris, I need you to understand this larger principle.
Because if you’re a busy dad trying to do big things on limited time, this is your highest ROI.
You can bypass the need to do tons of long stuff if you get better at the skills of your sport.
For Chris, this was bike cadence.
Stop riding slow and sloppy
When I looked at the data from Chris’s long ride, there was one glaring issue:
He was riding at 60 RPM.
Way too low.
For beginner endurance athletes, any cadence under 80 rpm =
torching your quads for no reason
energy leaks in your pedal stroke
fading more every hour
You need to get out of grind mode and start developing skill.
For Chris, this meant his rides got specific cadence targets.
long rides targeted 85+
weekday interval rides targeted 90+
easy recovery rides targeted 95+
Here’s what happened next:
This took 3 weeks to fix for good.
But there was still one more leak to plug.
Fuel to the finish
Once we fixed his cadence issue, we had one more key issue to fix.
He was mailing in his fueling in the last hour of his rides.
Huge mistake.
He was finishing with no energy.
It’s the same issue I’ve seen a hundred times from guys going long for the first time.
You get to the last hour and think: “that’s good enough”
Wrong.
Especially if you:
want to finish feeling strong
have specific run paces you want to hit off the bike
are training to do the longest run of your life after the longest ride of your life
Chris did not need to ride harder or push more watts.
He did not need to grind.
He needed a simple process to follow. Which for him, was:
keep your cadence up
fuel through the finish
THESE ARE THE ONLY TWO THINGS HE NEEDED TO DO TO FINISH AN IRONMAN ON 5 HOURS PER WEEK.
He did that. And he became an Ironman.
On 5 hours and 39 minutes of training per week.
What he said after the race:
“I don’t care what anyone says.
Crossing that finish line. The red carpet.
With my kids cheering me on.
That was the best.”
This is possible for you too.
You don’t know what you don’t know
Chris is one of the best examples of a 5 Hour Athlete I have through 6+ years of endurance coaching.
He’s living proof: fix 1 or 2 things in your process and you unlock the '15-hour goal' in a third of the time.
So here’s my question for you:
What could you accomplish if you knew the 1 or 2 things you needed to focus on?
I have two open slots for 1 on 1 athletes.
This is for you if:
you want to do your first 70.3 or Ironman in 2027
you are wasting time reading about training philosophy online (and not taking action)
you have been training consistently, but aren’t getting faster, better, or more confident
you do well when you have a plan you trust and just need to execute
Not ready for 1 on 1?
The easiest way in is our next team challenge.
Same principles, with a team around you.