I’m a pretty big guy (6’2, 215# right now and trying to get back to 200), and I came from a cycling background into Tri, and over the winter I was out for about 5 months with shoulder surgery, PT, etc. and I’m trying to regain some shred of fitness. I’m basically a MOP triathlete–a FOP cyclist with BOP swims and runs.
For as long as I’ve cared about it, my running speed and my bike speed are EXTREMELY far apart. I’ve turned a 23mph oly bike split, only to run at 9-9:15 for the run–unfortunately, that’s a good 10K for me. My last marathon was 4:30 and by half PR was 2:15. Again, NOT fast. Some of the problem was pacing on the bike, but even when I tone down the bike split I’m a dog-slow runner. I started wearing Newtons because I was a hardcore heel striker, and while I did say goodbye to knee, hip, and back pain, I didn’t see a huge speed boost (although there was a little–hard to tease out since I was training pretty hard at the time too).
The guy who did my tri bike fit (Greg Combs at http://www.velosmart.com --great guy if you’re in NC) also does run gait analysis and I’m hoping this will help, but I’m looking for some specific recommendations for workouts that specifically improve turnover and overall speed. I know I’ll never be on the podium but I’m just trying to get my run more in line with my bike in terms of what I feel I’m really capable of. I know there’s no magic solution and I need to hit the hills/sprints/VO2Max intervals more, but I want to be smart about it so I don’t go too crazy with the speed training. I really just want to come off the bike and quit hemorrhaging time for the duration of the run. I feel like with a LTHR of 180 I should be capable of more.