The mastermind behind CrossFit Endurance says the best way to train for a marathon is to run less and torture yourself more in the gym. Christopher Solomon laces up for a whole new level of pain. Don't miss a moment of the Tour de France!
Get recaps, insights, and exclusive takes with Velo's daily newsletter. Purchase the Plan Short, intense exercise can give you many of the long-haul benefits of classic distance workoutsβand spare you the chronic injuries and boredom.
You just need the right training plan. MacKenzie preaches that crunch time in the gym leads to faster time on long runs. Women walking home from work literally step over my heaving body. Just two months away from the starting gun for the third A year-old skateboarding powerlifter turned Ironman competitor, he insists that most of us can train more efficiently for punishing distance sportsβtriathlons, marathons, even the Ironmanβby doing less, but doing it much harder.
MacKenzie wants you to stop slogging through all those long, low-wattage runs and century rides, replacing them with the brief, burning workouts he prescribes. His plan, a sanctioned spin-off of the CrossFit boom called CrossFit Endurance , has been gaining popularity with everyone from Navy SEALs to amateur marathoners to stroller-rolling fitness moms, with more than CFE groups popping up in cities worldwide since the program was devised five years ago.
As a year-old, lifelong, injury-plagued runner, I wanted to know, and there was only one way to find out. People on Pearl Street are still rubbing Friday night from their eyes as more than 30 of us take our seats on folding chairs inside a CrossFit gym. Rubber mats carpet the floor. The faint sweaty-sock funk of old exertion is in the air. MacKenzie is six foot two, athletically built, and handsome, with short brown hair and brown eyes. He can also be intimidating, perhaps because of his self-confidence, which is abundant, or his tattoos, which are numerous.
