Nov 3, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min · 13 segments
Exploring the journey and mentality of Alistair Brownlee, triathlon legend. Today, we dive deep into the mindset of Alistair Brownlee, a name synonymous with endurance and excellence in triathlon. As…
Alistair BrownleeGuest
Charlie BellHost
So you trained pretty extraordinary hours for an Olympic distance triathlete, sometimes peaking at 40 plus hours a week, which my understanding is unusually high volume.
Can you just briefly talk us through and acknowledging that a lot of the listeners perhaps aren't familiar with, you know, training for endurance sport, what one of these peak weeks would look like when you were doing that peak volume, how you felt day to day? And also, how did this volume compare against your competitors at the time in terms of what they were doing as well?
Yeah, I saw training for endurance sport effectively as a volume game at the highest level.
You know, your training is a physiological dose response relationship and the bigger dose you can give it, the bigger the response.
So how hard you go for different sports and how long you do it and the response that they have.
And the other is how you build up to that because the body can only take relatively small kind of adjustments in load over time, week to week.
I mean, I remember thinking there was weeks where, I mean, yeah, I was doing nothing apart from training, really.
The classic thing of going training, trying to sleep and trying to eat well.
And almost in my entire training life, I had a relatively seamless schedule, like Monday was the same, Tuesday was the same.
um and so yeah monday at my most could have been a uh run in the morning like 50 minutes an hour or a swim before that so an hour and a half swim 50 minutes to an hour run two plus hour bike ride 50 to an hour run gym tuesday would be hour and a half swim shortish run in the morning hour and a half two hours bike track session run in the evening wednesday would be Like swim in the morning, longer 75-minute run, four-hour bike ride, run in the evening.
So you trained pretty extraordinary hours for an Olympic distance triathlete, sometimes peaking at 40 plus hours a week, which my understanding is unusually high volume.
Can you just briefly talk us through and acknowledging that a lot of the listeners perhaps aren't familiar with, you know, training for endurance sport, what one of these peak weeks would look like when you were doing that peak volume, how you felt day to day? And also, how did this volume compare against your competitors at the time in terms of what they were doing as well?
Yeah, I saw training for endurance sport effectively as a volume game at the highest level.
You know, your training is a physiological dose response relationship and the bigger dose you can give it, the bigger the response.
So how hard you go for different sports and how long you do it and the response that they have.
And the other is how you build up to that because the body can only take relatively small kind of adjustments in load over time, week to week.
I mean, I remember thinking there was weeks where, I mean, yeah, I was doing nothing apart from training, really.
The classic thing of going training, trying to sleep and trying to eat well.
And almost in my entire training life, I had a relatively seamless schedule, like Monday was the same, Tuesday was the same.
um and so yeah monday at my most could have been a uh run in the morning like 50 minutes an hour or a swim before that so an hour and a half swim 50 minutes to an hour run two plus hour bike ride 50 to an hour run gym tuesday would be hour and a half swim shortish run in the morning hour and a half two hours bike track session run in the evening wednesday would be Like swim in the morning, longer 75-minute run, four-hour bike ride, run in the evening.
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