The Reggie Project
One athlete. One ambitious 70.3 goal. Sixteen weeks to find out what the goal would actually ask of him.
Before becoming a T3 athlete, Reggie began documenting his preparation for his first IRONMAN 70.3 on YouTube. He was 30 years old, athletic, active, and ambitious. With a background in cycling, surfing, and sprint-distance triathlon, he set himself a very specific target:
FIRST 70.3 TARGET TIME
What followed was not a perfect transformation story. It was a real training process—ambition, setbacks, pain, coaching, accountability, missed sessions, changing expectations, and the difficult work of learning how to become an endurance athlete.
He Chose the Goal Before He Fully Understood What It Would Ask of Him
Reggie did not begin as an unfit beginner. He had competed in sprint triathlons, raced across individual endurance disciplines, and regularly finished near the front of his age group without structured training.
He had ability. He had confidence. And he was willing to work.
The question was whether potential, preparation, life, and execution could develop fast enough to meet the ambition.
“I Am an Athlete Though.”
Sixteen weeks before his first IRONMAN 70.3, Reggie set himself a very specific target: 4 hours and 19 minutes.
Reggie did not begin this project as an unfit beginner. He had competed in sprint-distance triathlons, raced across individual endurance disciplines, and regularly finished near the front of his age group without structured training.
He had maintained a good level of fitness through cycling, mountain biking, and surfing. In his first episode, he described himself simply and confidently:
“I am an athlete though, so I have my sights set on where I want to place overall.”
His target was ambitious: a 28-minute swim, approximately 2 hours and 16 minutes on the bike, and a 1:28 half marathon.
Potential and Preparation Are Not the Same Thing
When I watch Reggie’s first episode now, one thing stands out immediately: ambition was never the problem.
Reggie already considered himself an athlete, and rightly so. He had experience across swimming, cycling, and running, had performed well in sprint-distance triathlons without structured training, and had maintained a good level of fitness through cycling and surfing.
At the same time, he openly described several important limitations. He could not run much more than five or six miles without pain. His knee became sore during longer rides. Previous mountain-bike crashes had affected his bike position and shoulder.
This is where potential and preparation can easily be confused.
An athlete may have talent. They may be fit. They may be highly motivated. None of those things automatically mean the body is prepared for the specific demands of the goal.
Reggie’s initial instinct was to create structure, train 10–15 hours per week, improve his sleep, and get to work. That instinct wasn’t wrong. But he had chosen the goal before he fully understood what the goal would ask of him.
“Equally Confident and Skeptical.”
The athletic ability was visible. So were the first gaps between Reggie’s ambition and the preparation required to support it.
Early in the week, Reggie ran 10 kilometers at an average pace of 6:47 per mile after an hour of hill repeats on the bike. The performance reinforced his belief that the 4:19 target might be possible.
But the rest of the week revealed a more complicated picture. Of more than nine hours of training, approximately eight were spent cycling. He ran for one hour and swam for about twenty minutes.
“The results left me equally confident and skeptical at the same time.”
Reggie was also trying to solve a growing list of problems. Knee pain. Bike fit. Cleat position. Sleep. Fueling. Caffeine. Alcohol. Swimming. Aerodynamics. Recovery.
He researched. He experimented. He collected more data. He even cut his own cleat shims from an IKEA cutting board. Every new question seemed to create another possible solution.
More Information Does Not Always Create Better Decisions
Looking back, Reggie was already doing something many motivated self-coached athletes do very well: searching for answers.
He noticed knee pain and researched bike fit. He struggled with sleep and researched sleep routines. He bonked on rides and began experimenting with nutrition. He wanted more training data and bought a Garmin. He recognized that his swimming needed work and knew his aerodynamics would eventually matter.
None of these questions were unreasonable.
The challenge was that every problem was being solved individually, without yet having a clear hierarchy of what mattered most.
At the same time, the training itself was heavily weighted toward Reggie’s strength. Athletes naturally gravitate toward what they enjoy and what they already do well. The sessions feel better. The numbers look better. Confidence is reinforced.
But the race does not only test our strengths.
A 70.3 asks the athlete to prepare the entire system.
Reggie had athletic ability and ambition. What he did not yet have was a clear framework for deciding which problem needed attention first, how the disciplines should work together, and how much training his body could absorb consistently.
He was collecting more information. What he needed next was better decision-making.
“Somewhere Between Harder Than I Thought and This Sucks.”
Still training on his own, Reggie’s rapidly increasing workload began to collide with the physical limitations he had already identified.
Two weeks into the process, Reggie was still self-coached. His aerobic fitness continued to give him confidence, but his body was beginning to tell a different story.
After running his fastest 10K of the project and completing his longest run yet, the pain in his right knee and hip returned. A physical therapy assessment pointed primarily toward a simple problem: too much load, too soon.
“My aerobic fitness felt great.”
But fitness was only part of the picture. Reggie was trying to develop the discipline to complete his workouts “no matter what my mind or my body is saying.” At the same time, he was beginning to recognize that there was a difference between normal fatigue and pain that might be causing harm.
When he missed a ride, he felt behind. He tried to make it up the following day despite a sore knee and difficulty producing normal power. The planned swim at the end of the ride did not happen.
The training plan was beginning to feel like a debt he needed to repay.
When the Plan Becomes a Debt
I had not started coaching Reggie at this point. When I look back at this episode now, the difference between aerobic fitness and physical readiness stands out immediately.
Reggie’s aerobic system was capable of supporting relatively fast running. His muscles, tendons, and connective tissues were not yet prepared to repeatedly absorb the rapidly increasing running and training load.
Aerobic fitness and physical readiness do not always develop at the same speed.
This is particularly relevant for athletes coming from cycling or another endurance background. The cardiovascular system may be capable of supporting a relatively fast run long before the body is prepared for the mechanical demands of repeatedly running at that level.
Reggie was also beginning to develop a difficult relationship with the schedule. He missed a ride and felt behind. He tried to make it up. His knee hurt and he could not produce normal power, but he continued because another session was supposed to follow.
The swim did not happen. Now he felt further behind.
Training should create adaptation. It should not become a debt the athlete is constantly trying to repay.
A missed workout is information. We look at why it happened, what the athlete needs now, and what comes next. We do not automatically chase yesterday’s training at the expense of tomorrow.
Discipline is not getting through every workout no matter what the mind or body is saying.
Sometimes discipline means pushing through discomfort. Sometimes it means changing the plan. The skill is learning the difference.
By the end of the episode, Reggie had begun asking a different question. Instead of simply searching for the next solution, he started considering whether he needed a coach to help him understand training zones, intensity, and how to avoid burning himself out chasing an arbitrary time goal.
For the first time, he was questioning whether more information was enough.
“I’ve Been Doing It Wrong.”
After weeks of training on his own, Reggie had begun questioning whether simply training more, pushing harder, and searching for the next answer was enough.
The first weeks had given Reggie plenty of information. He had experimented with bike fit, adjusted his cleats, researched sleep and recovery, explored fueling, tracked more data, and increased his training volume.
He had also experienced knee and hip pain, struggled to balance the growing workload with daily life, and begun questioning whether his training intensity was helping him prepare for the goal—or simply pushing him toward burnout.
“My next goal is to either find a coach or some online resources to help me dial in my training zones and workout intensities.”
This was an important shift. Reggie was no longer only asking how to train harder. He was beginning to question whether the training itself was moving him in the right direction.
More effort was not necessarily the answer. He needed a clearer direction.
Knowing When to Ask a Different Question
I was not coaching Reggie during the first weeks of this project. When I watch these early episodes now, what stands out is how actively he was trying to solve the problems in front of him.
He was curious. He researched. He experimented. He paid attention to his body and collected more information.
But there comes a point where another article, another video, or another piece of data does not necessarily create a better decision.
Sometimes progress begins when the athlete changes the question.
Instead of asking, “What else can I try?” the question becomes, “What does my body actually need right now?”
Instead of asking, “How much more can I do?” we begin asking, “What is most important for the goal?”
Reggie was reaching that point. The next step was to establish a clearer starting point and begin making decisions around the athlete in front of us.
The goal had not changed.
But the way Reggie was preparing for it was about to.
“We’ve Got a Lot of Work to Do.”
Reggie came into our first meeting with ambition, athletic ability, and plenty of willingness to work. What he needed now was a clearer understanding of the athlete he had developed—and what his 70.3 goal actually required.
The day before filming this episode, Reggie completed a blood lactate test with me. It was our first opportunity to look beyond individual workouts and begin understanding how his previous training had shaped his physiology.
The results suggested that Reggie had invested a significant amount of time and effort into developing his higher-intensity, anaerobic qualities. That made sense. His background, his athletic strengths, and his natural tendency to train hard had all reinforced that style of training.
“My coach said you’re going to need a lot of aerobic training at low intensity—kind of shift your metabolic profile to be more of an aerobic athlete.”
For a 70.3, we needed something different. Reggie needed to improve his ability to produce energy aerobically, sustain work economically, manage fatigue, and preserve enough capacity to run after the bike.
“That was really like a turning point of like, oh wow, we’ve got a lot of work to do… and kind of level set my expectation.”
The test did not give Reggie a race prediction. It gave us a clearer starting point.
Clarity Before Confidence
When I first met Reggie, I did not see an athlete who needed to learn how to work hard.
He had already demonstrated that. He was motivated, curious, and willing to train. But the previous weeks had also revealed a pattern: a lot of intensity, a heavy cycling bias, a rapidly increasing training load, and a body beginning to struggle with the demands.
The blood lactate test gave us another piece of information. Reggie’s physiological profile suggested that he had invested a great deal of training into his higher-intensity, glycolytic qualities.
But the goal was a 70.3.
We did not need to make Reggie better at suffering for short periods. We needed to develop his ability to produce energy aerobically, sustain work economically, and arrive at the run with something left.
The goal was not simply to make him fitter. We needed to make his fitness more specific to what he was asking his body to do.
Testing is valuable when it improves the decisions that follow. The numbers themselves were not the coaching. They helped me decide where Reggie’s training needed to go next.
Sometimes clarity is humbling before it becomes confidence.
Ten Hours of Training Does Not Cost Ten Hours
In his first episode, Reggie imagined building his life around 10–15 hours of training each week. Now he was beginning to understand what that commitment actually required.
“I thought 10 hours of training equals 10 hours of time in my week. But really 10 hours of training is like 20 hours cumulative.”
Training created more laundry. Food needed to be prepared. The body needed mobility and recovery. Equipment needed attention. Work still needed to be done.
Reggie was sleeping four to five hours on some nights while working, producing the video series, and training once or twice per day.
Understanding the lesson and consistently living it are two different stages of development.
Coaching did not make that gap disappear overnight. We now had a clearer direction. The next challenge was learning how to execute it consistently.
Making Time for Ironman Training
The training had direction. Reggie understood more about what his body needed. He had a coach and a plan. None of that removed the most human part of the process: the training still had to fit into his life.
A few weeks earlier, Reggie had described the accountability of having a coach as “huge.” His body and mind were beginning to adapt to ten to twelve hours of structured training, and he felt increasingly confident that he would finish the race.
But understanding the process and consistently executing it are not the same thing.
“I’m just not making the time for it.”
Reggie was working. He was filming and editing the video series. He was managing the normal responsibilities of his life. The workouts were in his schedule, but completing them still required him to make decisions about his time every day.
Some sessions were completed. Others were shortened, moved, or missed. The challenge was no longer finding another training plan or understanding his training zones.
The challenge was execution.
Knowing What to Do Is Not the Same as Doing It
This is one of the most important moments in Reggie’s story because the problem could no longer be blamed on a lack of information.
He had individualized training. He understood why we were developing his aerobic system. He knew sleep and recovery mattered. He had experienced the benefits of accountability.
The plan was not the problem.
But a good plan only creates an opportunity to improve. The athlete still has to create the conditions in which the work can happen.
That does not mean life must become perfect. It means recognizing the gap between what we say is important and what our daily decisions consistently support.
A Coach Cannot Do the Training for You
There is a point in every coaching relationship where the athlete understands what needs to be done, but execution remains inconsistent.
That is not unusual. It is part of the process.
I can analyze the athlete. I can build the training. I can adjust the plan when work, fatigue, injury, or life changes the situation. I can explain why a session matters and help the athlete make better decisions.
But I cannot execute the session for them.
This is where accountability becomes more meaningful than simply seeing whether a workout turns green in TrainingPeaks.
We have to understand why execution is breaking down. Is the plan unrealistic? Is the athlete carrying too much fatigue? Has work changed? Is recovery insufficient? Or are we repeatedly choosing something else over the goal we said was important?
Those are different problems. They require different decisions.
Good coaching is not about demanding perfect adherence. It is about understanding the reason for the gap—and deciding what we do next.
What We Do When Nobody Is Watching
High standards are not created on race morning. They are developed in ordinary training sessions, on ordinary days, when there is no finish line, no crowd, and no result attached to the effort.
We learn to arrive prepared. We pay attention. We try to execute the session better than before. And when we cannot complete the plan, we communicate honestly and learn from the decision.
The standard is not perfection. The standard is attention and intent.
Because the habits we repeatedly practice in training eventually become the behaviors we bring into competition.
Reggie had started the project believing that a disciplined training schedule might create more structure in his life.
Now he was discovering that the goal would also ask him to create structure for himself.
The Goal Was 4:19.
The Result Told a Bigger Story.
Reggie did not achieve the 4:19 he imagined sixteen weeks earlier.
He completed his first IRONMAN 70.3 in 4:44:54.
For many first-time 70.3 athletes, that would be an exceptional result. For Reggie, it was more complicated. He had set a higher standard for himself—and the training process had shown both what he was capable of and where the gaps remained.
The Plan Was Only Part of the Answer
Reggie’s understanding of training had changed. He had become more aerobically prepared and more specific in the way he trained.
But the process had also exposed something no lactate test or training plan could solve on its own.
Execution matters.
Reggie missed sessions. He struggled at times to create enough space for the training in his life. The ambition and the daily decisions did not always fully match.
That does not make the project a failure.
It makes it real.
Coaching is not the story of an athlete receiving the perfect plan and becoming the perfect athlete. Development is messier than that.
We assess. We train. We pay attention. We make decisions. We execute. We learn.
And the result gives us more information.
The finish line does not only tell us how fast we were.
Sometimes it shows us what the next version of the athlete will require.
FITNESS × ATTENTION × TRUST
Performance is not built by fitness alone.
Fitness creates capacity.
Attention allows us to understand what is happening.
Trust allows us to execute when the outcome is still uncertain.
Reggie’s story is one athlete’s journey. The questions it raises are shared by almost every ambitious athlete.
What does the goal actually require?
Are you paying attention?
And are your daily decisions building the evidence you need to trust yourself when it matters?