Won't work. It's the theory of sports specifity. In order to be proficient at a sport and ultimately excel, you have to do that specific sport. The only thing you'll accomplish by running short and fast is likely injury. To get better at running, you have to run. That first means acclimating your body through slower runs. Then you build distance and add in speed. The same goes for cycling. If that were not the case, you'd have a lot of single sports specialists winning multisport events all of the time. I realize that there are some exceptions (i.e. Steve Larson), but for the most part its true. Think about the converse: elite marathoners becoming strong cyclists by only doing a short hard rides...

It could work for short triathlons BUT:

1. Running uses different muscles to biking and these need to be trained. Try running off the bike to see what I mean.

2. The pounding that the bones/ligaments etc take whilst running is something you need to get used to.

3. You run the risk of injury if you try to run hard and fast before having a good base.

Colin

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Bollocks....I'm knackered - Eammon

I'll buck the trend and give you the advice that it may work. I think that short interval training sessions will give you improvements in your running form that will allow anyone with good cardio-fitness to run fine for sprints and Olympics. However, getting in a "long" run of 7-10 miles consistently in addition to some interval training will give better results. If you are going to race anything longer than Olympic distance you have to get used to the pounding in order to do well.

As long as you're not supid with your milage and don't break yourself, then doing bricks at near race pace would be the most effective way to run fast off the bike with an absolute minimum of training, yeah.

But running's fun.

possible but unlikely. As a fit runner, I found that there weren't any shortcuts to cycling well - short hard bike rides did not help. Run fitness does not transfer to cycling fitness, so I doubt it will work the other way either.

Also remember that in Oly distances, after swimming and riding hard for 40k, it's unlikely that you will be running 'fast', as such. Personally I slow down by 2-3min off of my standalone 10k time, and it took several years to bring that down from 5-6 min off.

Plus, going short and hard on the run without first conditioning the bones and muscles by going long and easy, is a good recipe for injury.

All that said, Larsen seems to do just fine with bike mega-mileage and the odd run..

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"It is a good feeling for old men who have begun to fear failure, any sort of failure, to set a schedule for exercise and stick to it. If an aging man can run a distance of three miles, for instance, he knows that whatever his other failures may be, he is not completely wasted away." Romain Gary, SI interview