Sometimes it takes a crash to see clearly. Here's how one broken bone revealed the training truths I wish I'd known from day one.

The Moment Everything Made Sense

I was lying on the tarmac, collarbone clearly broken, wondering how a simple bike crash would affect my training. What I didn't expect was that this injury would finally solve a mystery that had plagued me for over a decade.

For years, I'd been battling the same recurring injuries — calf strains, achilles pain, that familiar ache that would creep in during long runs. I'd treated the symptoms religiously: physio, stretching, foam rolling, rest. The pain would disappear, I'd return to training, and within months, it would be back.

It wasn't until 2016, during the rehabilitation from that broken collarbone, that a movement specialist finally identified the real culprit: a chronically tight upper back. Less rotation in my thoracic spine meant my hips had to compensate, which altered my gait, which meant my poor calves and achilles were taking all the strain.

Twenty-two years and 19 iron distance races later, I finally understood what I'd been doing wrong.

The Education of an Endurance Athlete

Looking back at my first iron distance event and comparing it to my most recent, the difference isn't just in my finish time or my equipment. It's in my understanding of what the human body actually needs to perform at this level, year after year, without breaking down.

The truth is, most of us learn endurance training the hard way. We follow plans that worked for someone else, we push through pain because we think it's part of the process, and we treat our bodies like machines that just need more fuel and more miles.

But iron distance racing isn't just about cardiovascular fitness. You're asking your body to hold specific positions for 10, 12, sometimes 15+ hours. You're demanding that stabilising muscles stay engaged when they're already fatigued. You're requiring movement patterns to remain efficient when everything is screaming to compensate.

This realisation led me to examine every aspect of my training through a different lens. What I discovered were five fundamental misunderstandings that had shaped — and limited — my performance for over two decades.

The Foundation I Never Built

In my early years, training was beautifully simple: swim, bike, run, repeat. Maybe some basic strength work thrown in if I had time. The idea of spending precious training hours on mobility work or balance exercises seemed like a luxury I couldn't afford.

I was wrong.

Every morning, I'd roll out of bed with the stiffness that comes from years of repetitive motion. Tight hips from countless hours in the aero position. Restricted shoulders from swimming lap after lap. Limited ankle mobility from running mile after mile on the same surfaces.

But instead of addressing these restrictions, I'd just start moving. A quick stretch here and there, then straight into the day's workout. I thought I was being efficient. Really, I was building compensation patterns that would haunt me for years.

The athletes I see now who are crushing it in their 40s and 50s understand something I didn't: resilience isn't just about how much training you can handle. It's about building a body that can handle that training without breaking down.

They spend 15 minutes every morning on mobility work. They dedicate time to single-leg exercises, balance board work, and functional movement patterns. Not because it's fun, but because it's the foundation that everything else sits on.

The Intensity Trap

Perhaps the most expensive mistake I made was falling into what I now call the "grey zone trap." For years, every workout felt moderately hard. Every ride was at that uncomfortable but sustainable pace. Every run left me feeling like I'd worked, but not like I'd truly pushed my limits.

I thought this was dedication. I thought this was what serious training looked like.

It wasn't until I had a podcast conversation with Stephen Seiler in 2020 that I understood what I'd been doing wrong. Your body adapts to the stress you give it most often. If you're always training at medium intensity, you become really good at... medium intensity.

You never develop that deep aerobic base that carries you through the back half of an iron distance race. You never develop the top-end speed that helps when the pace picks up. Most importantly, you never give your body the recovery it needs to actually adapt and grow stronger.

The polarised approach changed everything. Eighty percent of my training became genuinely easy — conversational pace, nose-breathing, the kind of effort that feels almost too easy. The other twenty percent became legitimately hard — intervals that left me gasping, tempo efforts that demanded everything I had.

The results were remarkable. My easy pace got faster without trying. My hard efforts got harder. Most importantly, I stopped feeling like I was constantly recovering from my last workout.

The Long Game

Iron distance racing rewards consistency above all else. The athlete who runs 20 miles a week for two years straight will beat the athlete who runs 50 miles a week for a few months, gets injured, takes time off, and repeats that cycle.

I learned this lesson repeatedly, but it took years to truly accept it.

I wanted progress every week, every month. I wanted my training paces to drop and my race times to improve on my timeline, not my body's timeline. So I'd push for paces my aerobic system wasn't ready to support, chase training loads my musculoskeletal system couldn't handle, and inevitably end up injured or burned out.

The athletes I admire most now are the ones who've been consistently training for decades. They might not have the flashiest workout posts on social media, but they show up, day after day, year after year. That consistency compounds in ways that short-term intensity never can.

The Symptom vs. The System

That broken collarbone taught me the most important lesson of all: when something hurts, it's rarely about that specific body part. It's about the whole system.

For years, I'd approach injuries like a mechanic fixing a car. Calf hurts? Work on the calf. IT band tight? Stretch the IT band. Plantar fasciitis acting up? Focus on the foot.

But the human body isn't a collection of independent parts. It's an integrated system where everything affects everything else. My calf problems weren't calf problems — they were movement problems. My achilles pain wasn't achilles pain — it was compensation pain.

Now when something hurts, I ask different questions. What movement pattern am I repeating that's creating this problem? What's not moving that should be moving? What's working too hard because something else isn't working hard enough?

The Wisdom of Experience

These lessons cost me years of frustration and countless hours of lost training. But they taught me something invaluable: the difference between training hard and training smart.

Training smart means building mobility before you need it. It means creating resilience alongside fitness. It means understanding that easy days make hard days possible, and that consistency trumps intensity every time. Most importantly, it means treating your body as the integrated system it is, not a collection of parts to be fixed when they break.

I don't regret those mistakes. They made me the athlete and coach I am today. But if sharing them helps even one person avoid years of frustration, then every injury, every setback, every lesson learned the hard way was worth it.

The goal isn't to be perfect. It's to be better than you were yesterday, and to still be improving years from now.

What's the biggest training mistake you've made? I'd love to hear your story — these shared experiences help us all get stronger and smarter.

​

Ready to train smarter? Join the Battle Ready Society — a community built for athletes over 40 who want to stay strong, resilient, and ready for life's challenges.

Join the Battle Ready Society

Thanks for being part of the tribe — I’m here to help you stay healthy, strong, and performing at your best. ​ Simon