Endurance 101 - Edition 12 - Endurance Principles for a New Era

Active Living Active Living
5 days ago
3 min read

2026 represents a fundamental shift in the South African endurance calendar.

In the first half of the year alone—particularly in the Western Cape—we now face an unprecedented concentration of major events: Full Ironman, the Cape Town Cycle Tour, Two Oceans Half and Ultra, the Cape Town Marathon, and Comrades. These are not minor races. Each demands a peak, each carries a physiological cost, and together they redefine what a “season” looks like.

This new reality demands a return to first principles.

The Cost of Performance: Understanding Load

Every endurance outcome is the result of training load balanced against recovery capacity. Load is cumulative and includes:

Volume and intensity
Racing frequency
Strength and conditioning
Life stress, travel, and sleep disruption

The body adapts when load is applied consistently, not aggressively. When load exceeds recovery capacity, performance doesn’t plateau—it declines.

In a compressed calendar, restraint becomes a performance skill.

Consistency Is Still the Primary Driver of Fitness

From my own experience, nothing has produced durable performance like consistency. Not heroic sessions. Not emotional training blocks. Just showing up, week after week.

Technically, this means:

Progressive increases in chronic training load
Fewer interruptions due to injury or fatigue
A deeper aerobic base that transfers across distances and disciplines

Motivationally, it requires trusting work that doesn’t always feel impressive.

Fitness built slowly is fitness you can rely on.

“Nothing in Too Much” Is Not Conservative — It’s Strategic

The idea that success comes from extremes is one of the biggest myths in endurance sport.

Nothing in too much is not about doing less—it’s about doing enough, consistently:

Enough intensity to stimulate adaptation
Enough volume to build resilience
Enough recovery to allow absorption

Too much intensity blunts aerobic development. Too much volume increases injury risk. Too many races drain both physical and mental reserves.

Balance is how you survive—and thrive—in a crowded season.

Racing Is Not Training (Unless You Truly Make It Training)

In a year like 2026, many athletes will say they’re “using races as training.” That approach only works if the event is actually executed like a training session.

If you choose to treat an event as a training run:

Stick to planned effort, not race-day emotion
Ignore the watch and the crowd-induced pace spikes
Accept being passed without reacting

A training run with timing mats is still a training run. The moment you chase positions or time, the physiological cost changes.

Learning to Run in Crowds Is a Legitimate Skill

That said, I do advocate using events—especially large ones—as specific preparation.

Running in dense crowds is a skill, not an accident:

Thousands of feet around you
People pushing, crossing the road, or stopping dead in front of you
Navigating road furniture, lifting your feet over dreaded cat eyes
Holding form and rhythm under constant disruption

For many athletes, this is one of the most stressful parts of racing. Practicing it in lower-priority events builds confidence and efficiency when it matters.

Use Groups and Buses Intelligently

Learning how to run in packs and use buses is another underappreciated performance skill:

Reduced wind resistance
More stable pacing
Lower mental load

But it requires discipline. Sitting in a group that’s slightly too fast is not free speed—it’s deferred fatigue.

Again: nothing in too much.

Recovery Enables Consistency

Adaptation happens during recovery, not during effort.

Sleep, fuelling, hydration, and mental decompression are performance variables. In a stacked calendar, they are what allow consistency to exist at all.

Skip recovery, and everything else unravels.

Longevity Is the True Measure of Success

The athletes who will succeed in this new era are not those chasing every start line, but those who respect the long view.

My own experience has reinforced this repeatedly: when I train consistently and avoid excess, I progress. When I chase too much—too many events, too much intensity, too little rest—I stagnate or break.

The lesson is simple, but it must be repeated.