So I'm signed up for Ironman 70.3 Virginia for May 2019, this will be my third 70.3 over about a 2 year time span. I'm 26 and was a collegiate swimmer so my plan is to just do maintenance stuff (to nothing at all) in the pool until a few months out when I'll start working speed back in. My bike is getting stronger, averaged 23mph at Eagleman this last year, so I'm planning on following the 70.3 base, build, specialty progression in TrainerRoad which will start up in a little under a month.

Now running is where I need to improve the most and it's what's holding me back the most. I'm by no means an expert runner, 5k is around 22:20 right now, and in Olympics this year I've been around a 48 minute 10k. So I would like to really focus on running this off season and into 70.3 VA. I would like to set a goal of sub 20min 5k by Springtime as a benchmark for my running progression, but I'm struggling trying to periodize my running training over these next 7 months to get me to that goal. I know once I'm in the build and specialty biking periods it'll probably be harder to make bigger run gains, so I'm trying to utilize these next 8-10 weeks to really focus on running.

Does this plan make sense? Any recommendations to how I should go about training my run over these next few months? Any running training plan recs? Any other running recommendations or training recs in general?


Misc Stuff: 70.3 Swim @ 1:23/100yd, Current FTP 265, 5'10" 162LBS, realistically never consistently done 20+ miles per weeks in the past