The FLARE Framework
Five pillars for endurance performance, borrowed from the flight deck.
Developed by Steve Barbour, 2026. Free to use.
Why it exists
Most endurance athletes don't underperform because they lack a plan. They underperform because one part of their preparation is quietly broken, and they spend their energy improving a different part. The athlete who loves structured intervals adds more intervals. The athlete who enjoys the gym adds more gym. Meanwhile the thing that's actually failing sits there untouched, because nobody named it.
Aviation dealt with this problem decades ago. You don't take off because most of the checks passed. You work through a defined list, and any single failure stops the aircraft on the ground, regardless of how good everything else looks.
FLARE applies that logic to endurance training. Five pillars, one gate, and a habit of looking at the failing one rather than the comfortable one.
Consistency is the frame, not a pillar
None of the five pillars matter if the work keeps getting derailed.
Consistency isn't something you do. It's what the other pillars produce when they're working, viewed from a distance over months. That's why it isn't in the acronym. It's the score, not the lever.
The airworthiness gate
Before the five pillars, one question: are you fit to train at all?
Illness. Bloods. A live injury. Low energy availability. These aren't things to optimise, they're go or no-go. An aircraft with a failed check doesn't fly a slightly reduced sortie. It stays on the ground until the fault is cleared.
The gate is also what stops FLARE becoming a scoring exercise. You don't average a red against a green. One red grounds the session, and the coach's job is spotting which one is red before race day does it for you.
The five pillars
F - FUEL
Definition: Energy availability, in-session carbohydrate, hydration and electrolyte status.
The question: Are you fuelled for what you're about to ask of yourself?
What red looks like: Sessions that fall apart in the last third. Persistent afternoon fatigue. Training fasted by accident rather than by design, week after week.
L - LOAD
Definition: The training stimulus itself. Volume, intensity, distribution, progression and specificity.
The question: Is the dose right for where you are and what you're building towards?
What red looks like: Every week looking the same. A build that never actually builds. Or the opposite, a jump in volume that the rest of the pillars were never going to support.
A - ARMOUR
Definition: Strength, tissue capacity, durability. The physical robustness that keeps you available.
The question: Is the dose right for where you are and what you're building towards?
What red looks like: Every week looking the same. A build that never actually builds. Or the opposite, a jump in volume that the rest of the pillars were never going to support.
R - RECOVERY
Definition: Sleep, rest and the conditions in which adaptation actually happens.
The question: Is the training you've done turning into fitness?
What red looks like: Working hard and getting slower. Resting heart rate drifting up. Sleep that's the first thing sacrificed to protect the session.
E - EXECUTION
Definition: How well the plan gets delivered. Across three timescales.
Daily: adherence. Did the work happen when the week moved?
Session: technique and intent. Was the session executed as written, at the right quality?
Race: pacing and decisions under fatigue.
The question: Did what was prescribed actually get delivered?
What red looks like: A well-designed threshold set executed with a collapsing swim stroke. Easy runs that creep into moderate. Sessions repeatedly pushed to tomorrow until the week has no shape left.
A note on the name:
Everything upstream sets up the approach. The flare is the part you still have to execute, and executing it badly puts you in the ground regardless of how good the approach was.
How to use it
Thirty seconds, once a day.
Rate each pillar red, amber or green. Log it somewhere you'll see the trend, not somewhere you'll forget it. I put five colours at the end of every Strava workout description, one per pillar, in FLARE order.
Two rules make it work:
One, score honestly. The value is entirely in catching the pillar you'd rather not look at.
Two, look at the pattern, not the day. A single amber means nothing. The same pillar sitting amber for three weeks is the reason your season is about to go sideways.
Over a block, the colours tell you something no training log will: not what you did, but what was limiting you while you did it.
What FLARE doesn't do
FLARE is a diagnostic and a shared language. It tells you where to look.
It is not a training plan, and it won't tell you what to prescribe once you've found the problem. That's coaching, and it's a different job.
It also excludes things you can't change. Genetics, trainability, age. They matter, but a pillars model is about controllables, and adding things you can't influence only dilutes the ones you can.
Where it came from
FLARE was developed by Steve Barbour in 2026.
I'm a serving RAF pilot with an MSc in Human Factors in Aviation and several years delivering human factors training on fatigue, decision-making and just culture. I'm also a British Triathlon coach and an age-group triathlete and runner. FLARE is what happens when those two things are applied to each other.
It sits above two other models in the same architecture. PACED handles in-the-moment decision-making, and ASA covers athletic situational awareness. Both nest inside the Execution pillar. A formal paper situating all three is in development.
Use it freely. Attribution appreciated.
If you'd rather not self-diagnose
FLARE is free to use, and plenty of athletes will run it themselves perfectly well.
If you'd rather have someone else spot the red pillar, that's what coaching is for.