Gashman wrote:
JoeO wrote:
You probably won't be able to know what your running ability is until you have a large chunk of time to devote specifically to running and running races. Standalone half-marathons. That's probably the way to get your "baseline" and estimate what you should aim for in 70.3. Telling what you can do for mile intervals is not the way to judge your run fitness or potential. Telling us what you can run in a standalone half marathon certainly is. Your run is solid in the 1:30s but not on par with the other two performances. I don't know if that means you are "underachieving" and I don't think you can either until you can find out your potential in a standalone half.
Certainly your swim is your best event. 26/27 is pointy end of the stick. But your bike is great. You didn't mention what sort of terrain you did that bike on so it's hard to tell but if there even moderate hills, 2:2x is strong. In my experience, it is very rare that someone who can swim that well and bike that well can also run fast.
Bike is flat and fast. It's not a tough course, but I've always been strong on the bike even with little mileage or you could argue that I overbike? And yeah not many guys that are reasonably solid across all 3 disciplines. maybe 3 or 4 of us in the top 20. Top 10 has a couple of elite swimmers, 1 elite runner and 2 elite cyclists (Olympic level), but all of them are weak in at least 1 other discipline. So although I'm not a gun in any of the disciplines I can hopefully go OK by being strongish in all 3. It would be great if I could go OK on the low run mileage I'm doing, it just doesn't sound logical though and there's not much in my training to suggest that it is going OK. I did do an interval set yesterday (an easy set) 6 x 3min @ 6.50 pace, 2min recovery and made those times easily. But lots of recovery.
From the numbers, it sure sounds to me like you should aim to work on the low-hanging fruit and the fruit, for you, is the run. I really think you need to trim that bike and swim back a bit and focus more on running. Whatever you might lose from reasonable drop in swim/bike mileage, I have to think you'll get more back in run fitness.
If it's a point of comparison, you would always smoke me in the swim and on the bike but running, even now in my 50s, I can still manage a half marathon fast that we would likely finish within a minute of each other, if I'm doing my math right. The thing that's kept my my run solid isn't interval work. I don't have nearly the speed I used to. But I do have the endurance because I focus on easy volume and frequency. Until you start threatening sub-1:20 or so, the thing you need in run isn't speed work. It's volume. Anything less than 50 mpw, and I don't fret about the speed.
That doesn't mean I don't do speed. I just don't let it substitute for volume. And for something like a HIM run, I would make a few of your speed workouts be much longer blocks. 2 x 3 miles at tempo/threshold maybe. Or plan a 5k race here or there and treat it like a speed workout.
That's just my experience. (And fast run or not, I can't tell you how many times I've been crushed by terrible runners who swam and biked like monsters.)