Hello. I am curious to know the weekly running volume you guys do to prepare for half-ironman races. I am racing a few halfs next year (did one this year) and running is by far my weakest sport. Do you run more in the off season? I am currently running 30-35 miles a week (up from last year’s 20) and want to build up to 40-45.
I’m sure everyone will say bike more to make the run easier; ie - its better to get in 150 miles biking and 25 running during the week than 100 biking and 35 running, for most folks anyway … Those numbers sound like plenty unless you are out to crack 90 minutes off the bike. A 90-100 min. long run, lots of frequency (run 5X a week), lots of bricks (even if the run is 2-3 miles) & speed or tempo 1x a week all help. good luck & happy training!
Last season weekly peak run volume was 35 miles
This year will be 40 miles
Bike was about 180 a week in season, 20 miles off season
Swim in season was about 8K off season was 14K
I’m about a 5:10 HIMer
jaretj
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Hard to say where to start without more info. What’s your straight up 1/2 marathon time? What was your HIM run split? If those are fairly close, I’d say work the run. If those are far apart…you probably lack bike fitness, and spend all your race fitness capital on the bike. That’s a wild stab, though…given the lack of info given…too many variables left unaccounted for.
Never done a straight 1/2 marathon. I am planning on doing that, and a few 5 and 10ks in the coming months. I did 5:23 on my first half with a 27 min swim and a 2:40 bike. If you do the math, you can see I fell apart on the run. I think you are correct, I used up too much energy on the bike. More bike miles is certainly in the plan for this year. I know more of everything is what I need to get faster. Just curious to know roughly how many miles per week you guys run. Thanks,
biking more will yield benefits to a certain point. But, sooner or later, if you want to run faster you need to run more, both frequency and volume. I don’t care if your biking 500 miles per week and only running 20 your half time will never come close to your potential. But if you ride 250 and run 40 I think that would yeild a much faster B&R time than 450 and 20 B&R.
I’d suggest a frequency of 5x per week with one long run in the 12-15 range. The rest of your runs could be in the 4-8 mile range, something like 4, 8, long run call it 13, 7, 5 arranged to fit your life. After your long bike you could do a 10-15min easy transition run for extra frequency and volume.
Last season I averaged right at 41 miles per week for a 48 week period. I had a couple of two-week 50mi/wk blocks thrown in for some run emphasis periods. I am a 1:15-1:25 straight up 1/2 marathoner… this year probably would have been closer to 1:15, but I didn’t run a 1/2. The only 1/2 split I would have run this year was my DNF at Duathlon Long Course Nationals, so who knows how that would have turned out. A race rehearsal 1 month before pointed to a 1:30-1:40 split, if I got things right at the race. This year I plan on averaging 45mi/week…with a couple of run-emphasis blocks of 60mi/week…but I am doing an IM this year, along with several of the 70.3 series. I should add that I averaged right at 200mi/week on the bike as well. I’ll bump that to 220/wk this year to meet IM demands. So for me…40mi run/200mi bike works well for HIM type distances…a bit more for IM type distances. The USMC demands 50 hours per week, average. Its tough to balance any more than that with family/work/training/other…
I have always felt like you need to look at the time you will be spending at each event and plan accordingly. Thus, if I am going to be riding 2:30 and running 1:30 then I would portion out my time with about 2/3rds riding and 1/3 running. So if you have 10 hours then ride 6 and run 4. If you have the history of run mileage then I would continue that up to 20 hours a week thus, 12 and 8. If you have not done so much running, then I would add run miles more slowly and pile on the bike miles which you can do easy as long as you pay attention and don’t overtrain.
I would guess most triathletes that don’t come from a running background don’t run enough. Which is why their run suffers in tri’s no matter how many miles they ride.
Chad