Great series of posts. Apparently this managed to quiet the ever present h2o. Glad to see the arguments from him haven't changed one single bit in 3+ years.

this was very helpful. if you're still around, thank you for this. i thought i'd read this thread in years past but don't remember your post.

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

This is a great thread for many reasons. It took a few sittings but over the last 24 hours I read every post.

I am in the middle of a Run Focus (I did not exceed 100 miles in any month last season, November was my offseason except for the last week so only 25 miles, but December was over 150 miles, and January - March should each be over 200 miles) so reading these threads is extremely valuable. The only added twist that I have with my running plan is that in my intermediate runs (8-10 miles) I try to run at an increased cadence (180 vs. 168 or 170). Based on my heart rate this creates a little bit more stress than I would like, but I think that it is necessary and my heart rate is coming down during these runs.

I really appreciate you bringing this back. I read this a while back and used it over this off season to get ready for a marathon at the end of this month. I was nervous about my bike and run coming back but feel reassured by your post. Ive been averaging about 40 miles a week for the past 4 months and I have never felt so good about my running legs. We will see how it worked on the 24 in Miami then IMLP.

I'm always open to trying new things and after a complete shit year in 2015 from run problems, I don't remember how but I saw a post by DD and remembered this thread. No way I would have done this a few years ago as evidenced by my posts. I've lived in the 30 mpw world for about 5 years. I'm now in 45-49 AG.

I started in October and pretty much followed a 4/60/80 format. Swim 4 miles a week (2 swims), run 60 miles a week (7 runs over 6 days), and ride 80 miles per week (3 rides). My run plan was prepared by our local run guru that I trust and don't get me wrong it is very structured. The runs ALWAYS gets priority. If a day was a double, the run was always first. Some really fast. Some at tempo. Lots really easy with some short strides. I added on my swims and runs. My bike was two one hour rides hard (90-100% FTP) and one two hour ride at 70.3 pace. Swim was my normal masters stuff. I'm running a marathon in Phoenix in a month to complete the journey. I have no doubt I am faster now than my peak running shape in 2010 but will keep the marathon paced moderate as I have a big year planned for tris.

My FTP is up slightly from what was a record bike power year for me, but those weekly 60 minute hammerfests have really help my engine. I do one 60 minute per week at FTP. I could only do that every 2-3 weeks last year. Those rides would shell me last year and part of me was wondering if the smallish run base may have been to blame (meaning I was really taxing my legs on my runs with a smallish base and that was impacting my bike engine).

Regardless, I'm almost done with this and it worked big time for me. More important than my run pace, my run base, how my bike and swim are still good/great, I'm 100% healthy and have never felt stronger. That was why I did this "test".

Thank you for the kind words Kathy. Still around, mayor of fact I just signed up for my first 140.6. I immediately turned to Desert Dude for coaching.

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http://bigmikega.wordpress.com

Hahaha wow I forgot all about this thread. Yeah I just make the choice to ignore him now. It's not worth the effort.

Here is some info I ran across this morning while doing my usual Sunday skim of research...maybe skim is the wrong word since it's usually around 90min worth of skimming.

http://bjsm.bmj.com/...rts-2015-095788.full

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Any chance you could post a few of the sites you skim weekly

Thanks

Brian - Just discovered this thread a few days ago and I'm going to give this challenge a go.

I'm a FOP swimmer/cyclist who typically loses ground on the run. In essence, I get to count calves as they run by me. Some of it is certainly over-biking, but when you know the calvary is coming, my goal was to put as much time into the groups behind me as possible and then hang on...sometimes it works, but other times it's frustrating.

For this challenge I feel like I can swim 10K per wk (3x per wk), bike 5 hours p/w, and get in 50 miles of running as prescribed (6-6.5 hours).

My question is in regard to cycling...do you recommend any days of effort (LT or higher work), or do you look at all of the cycling to be supplemental to running?

I understand the goal is to fully immerse oneself into 4 months of big boy running. It works perfect for me, to train my weakness and race my strength. I'm looking forward to posting some positive results in late February.

+1 Mayo!

How did your year go?

Thanks for finding this and replying so I could find it too. I haven't spent that kind of time running in a few years, and I want to try it too. I figure I'll spend the rest of this month building up my run legs a bit and then start my first 200 mile month in November.

That's a solid amount of training, are you in the S. hemisphere? ~ 14-15hr, well now that I add it up it's not a lot or training.

I'd not do anything that compromises your run training too much, that should be the priority.

If you look at some recent research it showed that you only have to do a vo2 workout every other week to maintain that aspect. Now it was in footballers not triathletes but I suspect it's going to carry over.

If you've never run this sort of volume, don't underestimate how crappy your legs are going to feel in week 2 and 3. But by 4 or 5 they should come around.

And that # doesn't have to be 50. it could be 40 or 60 or it could be one week at 45 one week at 60. The main thing is to run more frequent and get more miles in than you've done in the past few to 3 to 4 or so seasons.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'm in the same boat - I averaged 30-35 mpw last winter. I'm not a great runner by any stretch - PR's were 36:30 10K, 17:55 5K, 1:25 Open Half, but that was about 6 years ago.
Presently, I'm closer to a 39:XX 10K, 5K 19:00 and Open Half in the low 1:30's guessing 1:32-33...so I need to really focus on getting back to pure running, as those numbers are not getting it done.

Thanks Brian - appreciate your advice on how this plan works best.

I'm in the Southern part of the Southern Hemisphere - Atlanta.

I've never had that type of consistent volume before - usually in the 30-35 mph, going up to the low 40's but certainly not over the course of time we're talking about..so it will be a challenge, but one I'm ready to tackle.

I'm going to go "all in" on this and give it a shot. This will certainly give me more miles than I've had in the last few years, and I have to admit I like to train the things I'm a little better at - so cycling and swimming started taking a priority over running. And my results speak to that...I'm tired of staring at calves passing me on the run.

I'll provide some feedback in 16 weeks.

Just wanted to bump this thread and say if you haven't been doing this then you're missing out. Holy crap I'm amazed at the progress I've made already.

I had built up to 40mpw base BarryP style in winter/spring 2016, but never did any tempo or anything. I did see some gains, hit 6:17/mi at a sprint after running at 7:00/mi the previous fall. Ran OK at my first IM, but ran very conservatively.

This summer I did a bike focus since it's hotter than balls in Texas, ran solely on the treadmill and looking back didn't do too good getting my miles in. After seeing this thread in early October I committed myself to getting up to 50 mpw by the end of the year and then start to work some tempo and maybe speed work in.

Here's my mileage progress:




So I hit 50 mpw by the first full week of December by adding no more than 10% each week, and even throwing in recovery weeks. I added tempo 1-2x/week starting after Christmas.


Just to give you an idea of the progress, I ran a 10k Turkey trot and avg. 6:33/mi and my HR was over 180 before the first mile was over and stayed there the rest of the race (max is 186). I was redlined. This past week I ran 4 miles off the bike (90 min 80-85%), avg. 6:33/mi and my HR barely made it to 170 by the end of the run when I was doing closer to 6:15/mi. It was amazingly easy, I was just cruising.


Yesterday I was curious what it would take to get my HR up to 180 now since I have a race this weekend, so towards the end of an "easy" 10 mile run I ran a fast mile at gradually increasing pace. It took hitting 5:45/mi for the last 1/4 mile before I could get my HR to 180.


This past winter/spring when I got to 40 mpw, I could run ~8:00/mi pace at around 150 bpm but it would creep the longer I would run, I think that had to do with my form deteriorating, not sure. This morning I ran ~9 miles at just over 8:00/mi and my HR avg was 134 bpm. This is crazy.


I have a sprint Du this weekend 2m/10m/2m, and then a half marathon next weekend, I'll report back.

Great stuff, challenge accepted!
Thanks Brian

WOW it's been just over 11 years since I wrote the initial post. My how time flies and the concept is still as relevant, maybe more so as it's become more challenging to KQ with more races and less slots per race.

If anyone has more questions on how to do this, post them and I'll circle back to them this weekend.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

How do you incorporate this much running with swim and bike? so much of the race(Oly,70.3 and mainly IM) are so bike heavy. Do you train less bike sessions during the week but in those sessions the duration is long? I.E. 3-4 bike sessions at 1:30-3hr? to make up time? Im just curious how to structure that much running with the amount of frequency needed.

When I was building miles, I went down to two 1 hr bike sessions during the week and one 1.5-2 hr ride on the weekend. I swam about the same as normal, 2-3 times per week but wasn't a nazi about getting hard or long sessions in. Only goal was to get in the pool.

after I hit 50 mpw for a few weeks I started adding cycling volume back in. Added another weekday ride and lengthened some of the weekday rides and lengthened the weekend ride. Started trying to get more volume in my sessions in the pool too but nothing dramatic.

Ok, following up.

Duathlon: 6:12/mi, 26 mph, 6:13/mi. Fastest I'd ever run in a sprint before was 6:17/mi and I'm pretty sure I overbiked a bit in this duathlon (garmin/powermeter issues, didn't get any data).

Half marathon: they moved the date for this race to next weekend due to shortage of police in town this week with the super bowl going on. I can't race it next week so I just went out and ran one by myself.

Remember I set a 10k pr at a turkey trot last November of 40:43. I've never ran a standalone half and haven't ran a standalone 5k either. My best HIM run is 1:50.

So I wasn't really sure how to pace this thing. Figured with that and since I would be by myself I'd start conservatively around 6:40/mi. Ran there the first 5 miles or so no problem. Finished up running the rest around 6:30/mi for a 1:25:58.

Since I've never run one of these standalone I'm not really sure what it was supposed to feel like, but it surely didn't feel hard. My legs started to feel beat up the last couple of miles but that was it.

Anyway, I'm rambling at this point. Moral of the story is that this shit works!

Looking at the math of all this I have a few questions....

200 miles of running at an average pace of 9:00/mile is 30 hours per month, or 7.5 per week (just running). Given many amateur athletes highest volume weeks in the year might be 12 on the low end, up to 16-20 on the high end, is this a proper progression building in during the dark, cold, winter months? With 4x sessions of swim, bike added in plus 7.5 hours of running this build will get athletes to a minimum of 13.5 hours if they do 45 minute sessions of swim/bike added in.

How does one incorporate this into their week, with a 45 hour work commitment that has them on their feet and very active during the day working split shifts of 8-10 hours/day over a 10-14 hour period w/o commuting time factored in?

Do you consider treadmills to be incorporated into this?

How does one add in 4x/swims per week, when a 45-60 minute swim takes about 2 hours from leaving house/work to pool and back? Do you sacrifice a 25 minute minimum run to get this extra swim session in?

Would you recommend this for someone who has a previous month record of 120 miles but ZERO injury history? Any recs on running surfaces during the week, especially being in a northern snowing climate for not 6-10 weeks?

Why long run up to 2 hours? What's the value in a 2 hour long run versus 3 hours of running within a 12-24 hour time period?

What is your basic percentage of intensity distribution of run in a week? Based off HR, pace, or RPE?

Is this practical going into their first race of the season in May?

How does age factor into this. Would you chance this for 20 y/o m/f vs 40 vs 50, 60?

I don't disagree with anything you say, but I see this as borderline over the top of what many amateurs can practically do with the addition of life stress balanced into the equation.

^^these are the questions we need answered

He's saying swim and bike a total of 4 times combined. Not 4 swims plus 4 bikes.