What the U.S. Gets Right About Endurance Training

Consistency, volume, and the power of training environments

Darius Silaghi

 

Arrival: A Different Training Culture

My trip to Boston didn’t begin smoothly…

My flight was cancelled five times, as extreme weather shut down much of New England — a storm locals said they hadn’t seen in decades. By the time I finally landed at Boston Logan International Airport just after 6 p.m., it felt less like arriving at the start of a training camp and more like stepping into something already well underway.

I went straight to Harvard to stay with my close friend and co-founder, Ferenc Soma Kovács.

The next day, however, the first real surprise wasn’t the weather — it was the local indoor track.

Atmosphere

I walked into a facility that, in theory, was just an average school sports hall. Not a futuristic Olympic complex or an overbranded elite center. Just an indoor track in the United States.

And yet, at the same time, 8–10 world-class middle- and long-distance runners were training there.

Grant Fisher, Cameron Myers, Graham Blanks, Hobbs Kessler, Linden Hall, Nozomi Tanaka, Callum Elson, Dina Asher-Smith, Nicholas Griggs — and I could go on.

Being around athletes of that level changes your perception. Not because they look superhuman, but because you realize how ordinary the environment around them feels. There’s no red carpet. Just structured work.

Gordon Indoor Track

The second surprise was the track itself.

By American standards, I’m told it’s not considered extraordinary. But compared to what I’m used to at home, it was better than almost anything I’ve trained on. The quality of the surface. The maintenance. The accessibility. It was simply… reliable.

During the trip, most of my sessions took place indoors: indoor track, treadmill, and some light gym work, mostly bodyweight. Everything was relatively close — similar to home in that sense — but the consistency of the environment stood out.

Vibe

The athletes were relaxed. Open. Calm. No one behaved as if they were at war with the session — or with each other. There was seriousness, of course — but not tension. Training felt more like a procedural, system-based process than an emotional rollercoaster.

I mostly trained in the mornings, with the key sessions completed early. Interestingly, I rarely saw others at that time. Around 11 a.m. or noon, the facilities began to fill up — by then, I was usually finishing.

And in that moment, I understood something subtle but important:

In the United States, elite performance often looks less dramatic than we imagine.

It looks structured, accessible, and repeatable.

 

Four Races: Competition as Stimulus

Training camps are often romanticized. Long aerobic runs. High-volume weeks. Quiet adaptation.

For me, it wasn’t like that. Over the course of the trip, I raced four times.

Four competitions within a relatively short period completely change the dynamic. Racing stops being a single peak moment and instead becomes part of the structure of preparation. The stress isn’t isolated — it layers.

What stood out to me wasn’t how hard the races were, but how naturally everyone treated them, largely because of the abundance of racing opportunities.

There was no theatrical build-up or emotional crescendo.

Athletes warmed up, executed, cooled down, and moved on. The race was a stimulus, not part of their athletic identity.

And that distinction really matters.

In many European environments, racing becomes an emotional event. Something you have to “rise to.” Something you empty yourself into and sacrifice everything for. Here, racing felt far more procedural — part of the training process rather than an interruption or climax.

This changes how you think about load.

If you compete four times, you can’t afford emotional spikes. You can’t afford dramatic recovery crashes. You can’t train as if each effort is a one-time, unrepeatable opportunity — because the system forces control.

Frequent racing quickly exposes weaknesses. If you can’t absorb stress, it shows quickly. By the third and fourth race, I was thinking less about individual results and more about the broader opportunity.

How do you create an environment where racing this often doesn’t feel reckless?

And how do you separate cardiovascular stimulus from mechanical fatigue when the competition calendar becomes dense?

Those questions started to follow me — and at the time, I didn’t yet know that the answer would reveal itself in a rowing boathouse.

 

The Boathouse Moment

One afternoon, I stepped into a full-scale collegiate rowing facility. I expected boats — instead, I was met by a row of machines stretching from one end of the room to the other.

Thirty, maybe forty Concept2 RowERG machines, all aligned in identical formation. Not pushed aside. Not secondary equipment. But the central element of the space.

Rowers moved through them in waves: controlled, rhythmic, with precise load regulation. Some performed long, steady efforts. Others executed structured intervals. There was no particular atmosphere or dramatics — just repeatable aerobic work.

What truly struck me was not the equipment itself, but what the quantity represented.

Forty machines mean forty athletes can train simultaneously, indoors, under identical control. Weather doesn’t interfere. Logistics become simpler. External conditions are far less likely to override the program.

This isn’t about convenience — it’s about a deliberately designed system.

Rowing is seasonal and environment-dependent; you can’t always get out on the water. But aerobic development doesn’t stop during the winter months. Instead of reducing volume, they build infrastructure that allows it to be maintained.

The more I reflected on it, the clearer it became that this goes beyond rowing. It’s about endurance culture.

If you want to build high volume sustainably, you need tools and environments that stabilize the work. You need methods that separate aerobic stimulus from excessive mechanical load — and that ensure repeatability.

For runners, this is especially relevant.

In theory, you can always run. But the question is whether running is always the best solution in every situation. After multiple races and stacked training days, it often happens that aerobic capacity would allow for more workload, while mechanical tolerance is already near its limit. The cardiovascular system is ready to work — connective tissue may need more recovery.

This is where infrastructure becomes truly valuable.

Some athletes will run every easy mile on the road. Others occasionally step onto a BikeErg or choose lower-impact options to maintain volume without increasing mechanical stress. The objective remains the same — only the tool changes.

Standing there in the boathouse, it became clear to me that the United States doesn’t produce strong endurance athletes solely because of talent or mentality, but also because it has built environments where high-quality aerobic work can be performed daily, predictably.

That realization reshaped how I think about my own training. Not because of one specific machine, but because of what it represents: the structural protection of consistency.

 

Why Infrastructure Shapes Training Philosophy

Infrastructure rarely becomes the central topic of discussion, yet it quietly and continuously shapes our decisions.

If you train in an environment where the only aerobic option is outdoor running, your weekly structure will inevitably look different from that of someone who has access to multiple controlled modalities. Not because one approach is more valuable, but because the available tools influence how load is regulated.

High-level endurance systems are built on accumulated aerobic work. They do not rely on isolated peak performances, but on repeatable, controlled stress. Accumulation, however, only works if the body can tolerate it mechanically as well.

Among runners, it’s common for aerobic capacity to develop faster than connective tissue adaptation. The cardiovascular system may be ready for greater load, while tendons, ligaments, and bone structures have not yet caught up. When this balance breaks down, the training structure becomes fragile.

In less structured environments, this often leads to two reactions: reducing volume, or increasing intensity to compensate for the lost work. Both can be short-term solutions, but neither is necessarily optimal in the long run.

With more developed infrastructure, the response isn’t necessarily to reduce aerobic work, but to redistribute it. This is where low mechanical-load tools — such as cycling ergometers or other controlled aerobic options — come into play.

A low-intensity run and a similarly easy BikeErg session may target the same cardiovascular zone. The difference lies in mechanical load and connective tissue stress, which directly affect next-day recovery and overall weekly tolerance.

This becomes especially important during dense racing periods or high-volume blocks, when the goal isn’t a single outstanding workout, but many consecutive days of appropriate quality.

In this context, infrastructure provides decision-making freedom. The focus shifts from “Can I survive this week?” to “How can I maintain rhythm over the long term?” When volume is supported by stable tools, intensity becomes easier to control. Easy sessions truly remain low-load, and hard work can begin from a fresher state.

As a result, training becomes less fragile.

The rowers’ controlled ergometer work and the runners’ deliberate load management are built on the same logic: consistency is not just a mental trait — it is also an environmental condition.

Once you recognize that, you begin to look at your own training environment differently. You don’t just evaluate what you train, but also how the available infrastructure supports — or limits — long-term development.

 

What Does This Mean for the European Runner?

It would be easy to attribute everything I saw in the United States to funding, talent pools, or the collegiate system. These are indeed important factors, but they do not fully explain the difference on their own.

In many European environments — especially outside the largest hubs — training is still heavily dependent on external conditions. Weather influences load. Facility access shapes structure. Track quality determines how intensity can be executed. Infrastructure often acts as a limiting factor rather than a stable foundation.

This is not a question of commitment. European athletes often demonstrate an exceptionally high level of adaptability. However, adaptability and structural stability are two different things.

What stood out to me in the U.S. was not that athletes trained harder, but that their training system appeared less fragile. Indoor tracks reduce weather exposure. Large-capacity ergometer spaces maintain aerobic volume even in winter. Centralized facilities make transitions between running, strength work, and recovery seamless.

That stability influences decision-making.

If an athlete can be confident that the planned work of the coming days can be executed under predictable conditions, there is less pressure to compress load or emotionally inflate intensity. There is less need to “make up for” missed work, and overcompensation becomes less common.

Stress can be distributed more evenly across weeks and cycles.

For European runners, the lesson is not to replicate American infrastructure. In many cases, that simply isn’t realistic. The key is understanding the underlying principle: if long-term aerobic development is the objective, then its sustainability must be protected.

If mechanical durability is the limiting factor, it should be expanded gradually — not constantly pushed to its edge. This may mean consciously moderating running intensity, reducing running volume during certain phases, or partially shifting aerobic work to lower-impact tools.

The difference is not about extremity, but about volatility. Large fluctuations in training are costly: they increase injury risk, disrupt rhythm, and undermine long-term accumulation.

What I saw in the United States was a system where athletes could move through structured weeks, maintain volume even while racing frequently, and avoid panic-driven decisions.

It highlights that, in many cases, the main issue is not a lack of intensity, but unnecessary variability created by the training environment. Once this is recognized, the focus shifts from romanticizing hardship to intentionally designing stability.

 

What I’m Bringing Home

When I think back on the trip, it’s not the races that come to mind first — it’s the rhythm that carried through each day.

Four competitions. Indoor sessions. Early mornings. World-class athletes working in environments that felt completely ordinary. A rowing boathouse filled wall-to-wall with machines designed for controlled aerobic work. Nothing seemed particularly spectacular — and that was exactly the point.

The most important lesson wasn’t about intensity, nor about a specific methodology. I’m not bringing home a new training model, but a slightly adjusted decision-making framework.

I’ve started asking myself different questions:

• Is this session truly building fitness, or just accumulating fatigue?
• Is this weekly structure sustainable, or merely impressive in the short term?
• Am I protecting rhythm, or allowing excessive fluctuations?

The answer is still often running. Sometimes it means being even more deliberate about easy mileage. Other times it means consciously holding back a morning session compared to what current motivation might suggest. And occasionally, it means not running on the road at all that day.

If the goal of a session is to maintain aerobic stimulus while the legs are already carrying load from racing or a dense schedule, there is no professional justification for adding unnecessary mechanical stress. Using low-impact tools in such cases is not a compromise — it’s intentional load management. Durability is not unlimited; it can be developed gradually, but not without risk.

What I observed abroad reinforced a simple principle: the strongest systems are built on repeatability.

Talent matters. High-intensity sessions have their place. Racing sharpens performance. But the foundation of progress is durability — the ability to absorb stress, recover, and return to quality work again.

On the first day, when I stepped into the indoor track and saw world-class athletes training without theatrics or drama, it became clear that elite training often doesn’t look spectacular. It looks structured, controlled, and sustainable over the long term.

The difference between stagnation and progression is often not about doing more work, but about whether you can repeat that work long enough — and at sufficient quality — for it to matter.