I’m super excited to start training for both Everesting 29029 and this 50 mile ultra marathon. And those events are taking place in mid-October and then mid-November, so I’m starting to really plan and come up with my own custom training plan for both the 50 mile ultra and 29029.
What I wanted to do is talk about a couple of key principles that I have that I’m thinking about when designing this training plan and thinking about, how am I going to be successful in these next two endurance events?
I want to share this so that anybody who’s listening to this, if you’re thinking about signing up for an endurance event or if you’re thinking about taking on a big challenge, I think there’s going to be a few things in here that are going to help you. You basically got three key principles to keep in mind when you’re taking on a big endurance event or a big project, whatever that is, in your life.
Principle #1 – Begin With The End In Mind
Let’s dive in with the first one. The first one is, just begin with the end in mind. This is such an important principle with training, but also with success at anything that you’re trying to do at life.
The first question that you need to ask yourself is just, “What does success look like?” For me, I can’t just focus just on Everesting 29029, that’s the first event that’s going to happen in mid-October, because for me, being successful is ultimately being successful at my 50 mile ultra marathon, which is after Everesting and then also being successful at Everesting.
So I need to begin with the end in mind, which is, I need to basically train for the 50 mile ultra and then work myself backwards from that.
That is really the first concept in mind is, you really want to ask yourself, “What does success look like?”, jump to the end and pretend that everything goes perfectly well and you have an amazing experience, what does that look like?
Then, once you know what success looks like at the end, that’s when you can start to put a plan in place for that. That’s the first thing is, I can’t just focus on Everesting 29029 because if I just focused on that and I just trained for that, then I may not be thinking about what I’m going to need to do to be successful for the 50 mile ultra, which is only four weeks after that first endurance event.
Principle #2 – Find Your Mentors
Then, the second principle that I wanted to mention is that you need to get advice from somebody who’s done this event before and been successful.
What I did as I’m thinking about a training plan for a 50 mile ultra marathon is, I started doing a few Google searches and I found a few things. And then, I also bought a book that had a ton of reviews on Amazon and I compared the two.
And then, what I did is, I went into a Facebook group of trail and ultra runners and I posted and I said, “Hey, I’m thinking of doing these two different, doing a combination of these two different training plans, what do you all think? Has anybody trained, has anybody been successful in a race with these plans?”
And I got hundreds of comments from people who were saying, “Yeah, I use that and it worked for me. Yeah, I use that and it worked for me. Yeah, I did that and it worked for me.” I basically got validation from people who had used the exact same training plan that I did and been successful at that specific event. That’s another tip that you can use if you’re trying to take on an endurance event.
Principle #3 – Adapt Strategies To Your Lifestyle
And then, another thing that came from that Facebook group, but it’s also something that I’ve experienced in training for other races is the third principle is that you want to adapt the training to your actual lifestyle. Okay, so what does that mean? If I were to just blindly go off of this training plan that was created, it may not be ideal for me, so I need to figure out, what is something that’s going to work with my schedule and my lifestyle?
A couple of different things that jumped out to me about looking at some of these training plans. Some of the training plans had longer runs on Mondays. For me, with triathlons, Monday is usually one of my busiest days at work. I work full-time, I have a pretty demanding job, I take it very seriously, I want to be successful at that, so what I do is, I have Monday be my rest day because typically, Saturday and Sunday, which is when I have a little bit more time, that’s when I’ll do my longer runs and my longer workouts. That’s just one example of that, but there’s a number of different ways that you can adapt a training plan or whatever somebody has come up with to your actual lifestyle.
Basically, my goal is to train for this 50 mile event and then have the Everesting 29029 be part of my training for that. I’m going to do a few episodes this week talking about my training plan for the 50 mile ultra and I’ll go into detail about that. And then, I’ll also go into detail about my training plan for Everest because through 29029, they are putting out content and they share training plans for you and they have a community and they have a coach who’s super helpful, so I’ll be sharing a little bit more detail about that so you can understand what that looks like.
How To Apply This Principle To Your Goals
The best part about these three principles is that they apply no matter what you’re trying to accomplish in life.
For me, this is something that works for my endurance event, but let’s pretend that you’re not training for an endurance event, let’s pretend that you’re trying to maybe write a book or create an online course. These principles still apply.
Begin with the end in mind, what is your book or your course going to look like when it’s finished? Talk to me about the cover, the front page, the back page. What’s the table of contents? What’s it about? What’s the format? What types of stories are you going to tell? Is there going to be a workbook? Are there going to be exercises? Are there going to be videos? You can begin with the end in mind, what does success look like? Who’s going to buy it? Where are they going to buy it? How are they going to access it? How are they going to hear about it? You can begin with the end in mind and you can jump to the end and think about that.
And next step is, once you have a good vision of where you want to go and what you want it to look like, you can try and get advice from somebody who’s done this before and been successful. You can reach out to your network and see if there’s anybody who’s written a book or created an online course that’s just like you and reach out to them as a mentor and have them help you. Or maybe you can do what I did, which is just post in a Facebook group and try and get some advice from people who are willing to help.
And then, that last tip of adapt it to your lifestyle. How can you make writing fit into your lifestyle? How can you make creating that online course part of your lifestyle? Is it something that you’re going to need to do in the morning? Is it something that you’re going to need to do on the weekends, maybe at night after the kids go to bed? Try and find ways to make the process of preparing for that book or that course fit into your lifestyle.
Bringing It Back To You
How are you going to apply these 3 principles with a goal that you have?
Comment below or send me an email at mario@endurify.co to get in touch!