One thing we’ve learned as coaches is never to judge an athlete’s ultimate potential on the basis of their early results. You just never know how much a person might improve!

Consider Viktor Schildt, 32, a runner, triathlete, and CFO in the fitness industry living in São Paulo, Brazil. Anyone foolish enough to have judged Viktor’s potential on the basis of his early athletic results would have egg on their face today. Despite being the child of a dad who ran and a mom who competed in diving and synchronized swimming, Viktor was himself a mediocre youth swimmer who, as he puts it, “won a few medals but nothing special.” In his first 1K fun run, he fell down, got trampled by bigger kids, and cried.

In 2013, Viktor completed his first marathon—a complete sufferfest ending in a 5:04:02 finish.

But my, what a difference an 80/20 training plan makes! Since discovering the method in 2018, Viktor has lowered his Ironman 70.3 time to 4:53:43 (faster than his debut marathon!) and reduced his marathon PB to 3:17:57. He now has his sights set on a sub-10-hour Ironman and a sub-3-hour marathon, and if Viktor were to ask us if we thought he could achieve these goals, we’d say, “Heck, yeah!”