I'd say you are being very short sighted. I've taken entire winters (~4 months) off from swimming/biking and just ran.

There was a strong correlation between the winters where I xc-skiied the most and elevated my cross-country skiing to it's highest level, thus swim/bike/running the least, and having some of my all-time best triathlon performances 6 months later in the late summer!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I wouldn't advise anyone stop running. It is one thing to improve your running then get your cycling back up to previous levels in a short time but if you stop running your cycling legs will take a hell of a long time to re adapt to running.

Remember cycling and swimming are not load bearing. If you don't run and just swim and bike your heart and lungs might be ok but your legs will not just lose the muscle adaptation for running but all the connective tissues, even the bones get weak.

I wouldn't advise anyone stop running.

I guess you missed the line:

"The one difference between a run focus and a focus on the bike/swim is that I would never stop running completely, as building up the run from scratch is a pain (literally) and has a high probability of resulting in injury. If you could do 4 easy miles 3X a week, you would find that getting your run back on would be a far easier endeavor. "

I wouldn't advise anyone stop running. It is one thing to improve your running then get your cycling back up to previous levels in a short time but if you stop running your cycling legs will take a hell of a long time to re adapt to running.

Yes!

Given what I see in triathlon right now( lots of run under-performances), a vast majority of triathletes would benefit massively from a block of just running, with a high frequency ( 5 - 7 days/week) of running, done the right way. Of course many over-think this. However, I almost gaurantee stand-alone run performance improvemnt, and with the addition of balanced triathlon training, improved triathlon running performance after 1 - 3 months of the right kind of run focus.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Completely agree- in 2012 I spent 3 months exclusively running, something I had never done because I swam in college and raced tri all summer. Halfway through that run block I brought my 5k down from 18:3x to 17:4x, and finished the block by taking my half marathon time from 1:28:xx down to 1:22:xx. Still left me 3 months to train for a March tri, and after about 2 months my swim/bike fitness was nearly leveled off at where it was the year before, and running was better than ever. People worry too much about losing hard earned fitness!

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Tim Russell, Pro Triathlete

Instagram- @timbikerun

I'd say it also depends a lot on overall volume. if you are doing 20h/week over the winter doing all that only in the pool or running is probably not such a good idea (and doing 20h on the trainer would just be mad)
on the other hand if you only have 8h/week I would advise everyone to go and do a swim focus as 7h swim + maybe 2*30' run can lead to huge improvements compared to maybe 2h swim + 3h run + 3h bike.


also Kienle used to stop biking between October and Febuary (ok maybe some MTB but don't know) untill like 2009 when he turned 100% pro.

Really? Do you have any further info on that like a source or something? Would be very interested in that information.

Doctor's orders for no ride/run took me out for 4 months, then an additional three weeks with nothing at all post-surgery. As a life-long cyclist, I recover there quickest - I only trained for a month before first event, and that was 2-3 times per week at most.

I figured your handle was at least somewhat tongue in cheek, if you're serious enough to be a regular on ST. I think I know what you meant though. My progression was very similar - mid-pack out of the water, crush the bike, reasonable run.

The whole tri experience changes once you start coming out of the water with the lead group AND you can maintain that position on the bike. People other than my wife and family started cheering for me along the course. It was disconcerting, but very cool!

Meanwhile someone else posted this:


I would agree with that 100%.

a vast majority of triathletes would benefit massively from a block of just running, with a high frequency ( 5 - 7 days/week) of running, done the right way.

Whats the right way?

Low intensity, not going too long, staying on soft surfaces and so on.

Whats the right way?

Like many things triathletes tend to over-think things.

They want a program. They want specifics. They want numbers.

With apologies for flogging the blog, I outline the generalities here - http://stevefleck.blogspot.ca/...nning-frequency.html

If you are obsessed by having more info, seek out BarryP's posts on here - Barry does go into a bit more detail, but it's more or less the same as what I suggest.

It seems counter-intuitive, but perhaps the most important runs during these training blocks are the shorter runs on the days you don't really feel like running or feel you don't have time to squeeze a short one in but do.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

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OK...are we talking about just running 6x wk at an effort level/duration that would render no bike or swim. OR Are we talking about a more moderate level of intensity/duration that could render running 6x wk, bike 2x, swim 2x. In my mind, those are two entirely different thing. The latter is run focused, the former is strictly a hard run block.

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Here - the question really starts to diverge based on your background and what your goals are.

I would generally advocate doing at least one bike and swim workout a week, and then running as many days of the week as you can.

SF

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I spent the entire off season last year doing swimming 95% of the time as I was still not comfortable with my competition times. I did over 15k a week from October to March and then I began my regular structured training an extra 6 weeks out (14 weeks total) from my premier event for 2014. I found that not only had my swim times come down drastically but I also had increased my run pace and FTP over the previous year.

I think like a lot of things this is very individual and for all I know had I balanced the training I may have come out in the same boat. For me it worked and I placed on the podium several times in my AG this year with especially fast run leg at every competition I had this year. I woudl recommend looking at which sport among the three you're the strongest and most naturally gifted at (if any) and cut back on that in favor for the other two. Perhaps don't cut out 2 of the 3 and do a singular focus but do a pyramid where you do something like 75%, 20%, 5% volume wise. Then with the 6 week lead in focus more on reversing that before settling into a fully balanced plan.

I'm no coach so take it or leave it but it worked for me ...

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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"

I tried the 100 run challenge last winter and saw a performance increase in all 3 sports once the season got going. I am trying the same thing now with a bike focus (cyclocross) block. Thanks fleck for the motivation!