I’m doing IM Wisconsin next September and have completed one IM to date (10:43). During that race I ran the first half of the run and blew up on the second. Finished the marathon in just over 4 hours. Bike was relatively strong and the swim was okay. Trying to build my plan between now and then and position myself to run the entire marathon at a 3:30ish pace. Never done a standalone marathon … although I’ve been around 1:30 in halves. 1:36 in HIM.
My thinking is this, focus almost exclusively on the run over the next few months (until March or so). Build up to weekly mileage (based on a marathon-specific training plan) almost exclusively with LSD. Then shift to my broader tri plan and integrate the swimming/biking, which will mean that the weekly running miles decrease at that point. My questions:
How many miles per week necessary for a sufficient base-period marathon plan? (Basically one season of IM-specific training under my belt … before that a year or two of shorter tri training).
How does one figure the correct pacing for LSD?
Is it unwise to neglect the bike/swim over the next few months (except for a few rides/pool visits here and there) … knowing that I’ll pick them up again in the spring?
If I do build a large base of run miles over the next few months, will most of the gains be lost when I return to three-sport training and reduce the running miles?
My personal experience, and I was getting ready for Olympic Distance racing…
I have been running since 1989 or so. I ran around 70 miles per week for probably 10-12 weeks with 5 weeks of build up before that and holding around 50 for several weeks after that. That was a lot of miles. 50 was probably the sweet spot looking back as it would have allowed more swimming and biking.
I ran a good mix of runs with hills, flats, some runs approaching a steady state pace, a run with some turnover workouts. The mcmillanrunning.com calculator is a good reference. The Daniels book also has some good tables for pacing as well. What I found was that my long run pace gradually decreased about 30 seconds/mile over the course of the running.
I neglected my cycling and swimming a fair amount during my run focus, though I still rode and swam 2-3x weekly. It took a shift from running to swimming almost daily to get that back. I never really felt like my cycling came back until very late in the season. That affected my running in races. Looking back, I would have tried to run daily as I did, but cut back on the distance. I would have continued to focus on a 2 hour long run and a mid-week run of 75-90 minutes and make the rest of them shorter. That would have allowed me a little bit more time to swim and bike. That would have made the transition to tri-focus a little more pleasant.
I don’t think that the gains will be lost, but depending on what types of workouts you do during the focus, it will be relatively easy to get fit and fast early on…so I would be careful with the fast fast stuff. It may feel like your focus will be lost later on, but what I found was that once my cycling and swimming caught up, my running felt just as strong as it did during the focus.
That’s a sample of 1. It’s entirely individual, but my goals this year will be to have a more balanced off season that has a run-focused component. I will still try to run daily and swim and ride 3-4 times a week, but they will generally be shorter and more frequent than worrying as much about the really long rides and swims. That is for Oly/Half racing.
Point 3 is largely individual I guess. I did run tons last winter (and starting to do the same this winter). Yet, when TTs started in February, in nearly no cycling, I was riding really well (albeit short TTs over 10k and 20k), even while piling up running miles.