If you look at the results of most Ironman NA races, only top 2.5% go sub 3:30 and only top 15% go sub 4 hours. This equates to approximately 8 min to 9 min mile pace. Most people seem to bang off countless miles at this pace in training. They don't need that much "speed" to run 8 to 9 min miles. If you look at an "straight out marathon" 3:30 to 4:00 hours is not particularly "fast". Many atheletes run these times. In Ironman though, these time are actually fairly "exclusive" in the sense that 85% of the field is going slower. If you equate it to marking exams, a 4 hour marathon gets you a 85 percentile score. Not too shabby.

Going back to a few threads I posted last year, I talked about the philosophy of "only so many training + recovery units" that one has. When you are training for Ironman, there are so many workouts that form part of the pyramid that gets you to the race;

1. long run
2. long ride
3. bike hills
4. bike intervals
5. hilly run
6. swim long
7. swim intervals
8. swim-bike brick
9. bike-run brick
10. B races
11. C races
12. run intervals

In putting a plan together, I find that there are only so many things that one can pull off without blowing up and getting totally fried. Some workout require more recovery than others (long runs, run intervals, run hills). Some workouts require more time than others (the 6 hour ride). We're always trying to balance off training time available plus recovery units to be applied to what we do during that training time. Sometimes training time is taken from recovery time (sleep)...not optimal, but we all do it.

We had some jokes running along on slotwitch that its all about being first to T2 and its all about the bike. While we might joke about this, to some extent there is a grain of truth to this. No amount of run fitness will help us if we get to T2 totally cooked. In many years of Ironman racing, I have seen no shortage of sub 2:50 marathoner, come to T2 and then shuffle out a 4:10 or higher (I've done both myself a few times). The swim and bike just took too much out of them.

So while run intervals are great for shorter racing, for Ironman, I have been questioning the value of run intervals. Usually you are doing them on not totally recovered legs, they fry you and take too many days to recover from, thus compromising swim and bike workouts and other runs. Worst of all, you can put all this effort into being a stud runner, only to get to T2 and not tap into that run fitness that you spent so much time honing.

So coaches out there, what type of intervals, if any are your IM athletes doing on the run? My gut says do hill work rather than 6 min mile repeats. We really don't need to be that fast to run 8 min miles (3:30). We just need to be topped up on fuels and relatively fresh coming out of T2. I'm leaning towards doing zero run intervals this summer, saving my fast running for B races, and incorporating hills into all my runs, especially long runs.

I'll do all my intensity in the water and on the bike to try and get me to T2 relatively fresh. I can also recover more quickly from intesity in these two sports.

Thoughts?

Dev