Each athlete is responsible for finding his or her own optimal work/life balance. At 80/20 Endurance, we’re always rooting for the life side of this equation, so we heartily endorse the decision PJ Beer and his wife, Amy, made to move back home to Ireland from London when Amy became pregnant with the couple’s second child. Prior to the move, PJ had been in a rut with his running, grinding his way through races of up to a half marathon in distance and then struggling to resume training afterward. Deemphasizing work in favor of life changed all that, according to PJ, who says, “We both kicked off with running again and fell in love with it, for real this time.”

Not long afterward, PJ heard Stephen Seiler discuss the 80/20 training method on a podcast. “I heard the phrase ‘keep the easy days easy and the hard days hard,’ and it seemed to make complete sense,” he recalls. PJ’s first 80/20 Endurance marathon plan resulted in a finish time of 3:07, a 24-minute personal best. But it wasn’t just the end result he was happy about. “I felt really good each week, rarely feeling overtrained, if at all,” he says. “I was able to recover well.”

At just 30 years of age, PJ can look forward to many more breakthrough performances, and he hopes to see others do the same, explaining, “I would definitely recommend the plans to anyone that needs a really good plan but wants the freedom to train without a coach for a very reasonable price.” PJ might also suggest that you work a little less and live a little more!