I’ve come to triathlon from a basic running background. As a runner, very middling. During my first few triathlons (middle and full distance) I was running closer to the front of the pack (for someone in late 30s now early 40s). I sucked at bike, so worked hard on the bike. Now bike is coming along lovely, but my running has tanked. I skip runs due to tired legs and life, prioritise bike. Then I started just running easy, trying to get as many as I could a week. My pace has fallen right off. Easy running hasn’t help me (probably due to too low a volume) and now hard runs feel really hard, whereas I used to run faster, easier. So, my question to those on here who favour triathlon to pure cycling. What are you doing about running? Particularly those doing 70.3 and full distance races? Do you follow the TR plan? Do you swap it out for something else, if so what? What kind of volume are you doing, both running and cycling? Thanks!
I can only share what works for me. For reference, I do mostly 70.3 tri’s and have cracked AG top a few times, usually running FOP overall. I use the TR plans for macro-periodization and to structure my bike workouts and have a coach who fills in run and swim workouts. My typical run progression looks like this:
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Off-season, depending on race date throughout winter until February or March I do almost exclusively low intensity noodling. I need this to remind myself why I like running, I can’t go through the hurt of speed work all year round. Instead I focus on raising my volume to 50k+ per week. I focus on frequency and try to have at least one run of 15k+ per week. I don’t shy away from the occassional social very long trail run with friends (50k max).
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In race season I start with a mileage baseline of 40-50k which i don’t progress all that much overall. during a typical week I’ll have a long run on the weekend progressing quickly to 1:30h max duration. One threshold session that progresses weekly from 51k on 2 rest all the way up to 33k on 4 rest, intervalls typically 10-20sec/km below 5k pace. If I feel good I’ll have another intervall session of <1k intervals where I don’t concern myself too much with actual pace but focus on excellent form and leg turnover. Most of the time I just pick a random workout from Jack Daniel’s 5k plans with no particular order or progression, these are “playing around and having fun” workouts. The rest is one or two easy short runs to keep frequency up, like getting fresh rolls for breakfast or running home from the pool. I don’t do brick runs except one before taper week to make sure I got my pacing right and rarely if ever do extended tempo runs because they come at a terrible progression/recovery ratio for me.
On a flat course this program reliably delivers a sub 90 run split off a 3.1 w/kg ride.
I this thread you can see a few different approaches, I did some high volume low intensity in Q1 then switched to Garmin Coach run plans (10k and half mara) for Q2/3
Now I’m doing low HR for Q4