Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
It really depends on your goals.
finish: most likely need volume more so you can accomplish the distance… speed work could increase recovery time needed depending on your base… so yes you could mix it in, but sparingly
Time: Speedwork is great for running efficiency, stride rate, and length… you aren’t using speedwork to increase your 20 sec efforts…but rather all for technique.
If you want to finish but also in your best time you might mix in some strides or tempo work with concious thought on having good form and turnover
Speed work is not just sprints. It’s anything hard that leaves you somewhat drained. From sprints to 800 meter reps, to mile reps, to tempo runs, to hard hill workouts.
All of that speed is good and you should probably aim to do some of all of it in your training. You change the mix depending on the distance you are racing but to some extent, you should aim for all of it. Never start thinking that there is just one type of running (or one type of speed work) you need to do.
If you are training for 140.6, mostly what you need is endurance. That means that most of your runs are going to be relatively easy and your primary goal is volume. But you ***will ***miss out if you don’t do speed work. Make sure you have at least one day a week on which you do something hard.
The pros are that anything that takes you out of your comfort zone and over-stresses your body forces it to adapt. In adapting, it becomes stronger and you become faster.
The cons are that you start thinking “well if a little is good, a lot is better” and then you get religion, do too much speed work (perhaps even at the expense of your endurance) and either lose that endurance or get injured.
The pros are that anything that takes you out of your comfort zone and over-stresses your body forces it to adapt. In adapting, it becomes stronger and you become faster.
The cons are that you start thinking “well if a little is good, a lot is better” and then you get religion, do too much speed work (perhaps even at the expense of your endurance) and either lose that endurance or get injured.
What people forget is that every workout does not need to be a race rehearsal…I totally agree with you about the point related to over stressing the body as what we are trying to do in training is get to physiological adaptations that will result in a stronger body to get to the final race goal. We can get to physiological adaptations through volume, through intensity or a combo of both. Since running is a technical sport (which no one seems to want to admit other than our high school and college track coaches), you can never become a good runner just by jogging slowly all the time just like you can’t become a fast swimmer by swimming slow all the time. Technical proficiency at high intensity also helps technical proficiency at low intensity, so the intensity workouts have the added benefit for a fast means to get to greater physiological adaptations while also improving technical proficiency.
Having said all that, it is totally viable to do a fast IM with only running at low intensity…but you’d have to make sure you swim and bike lots of volume and intensity and get to T2 really fresh by under swimming and under biking!!!
Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing.
Depends on what you define as “speedwork”
Many mistakenly think that anything “faster” than that plodding along, LSD sort of pace/intensity is “speedwork”.
But here’s the thing - the foundation of your full aerobic fitness and capacity is defined by how well you can do in something around a 15 - 20 min effort - so roughly a 5k run or a 15k bike. Maximize performance in these areas and you will be better/faster at the longer stuff.
A rising tide, floats all boats.
But few get this, so back to the plodding along, LSD rut you go! 
Your 10k time is an excellent predictor of your marathon time. The goal of training is to become faster to raise your run fitness and your running MLSS to the highest possible levels you can achieve. Intervals are a very effective tool in doing this.
Even for IM.
You’d do intervals for biking correct? You do those to raise your FTP. Why wouldn’t you do them for running?
Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
Depending on where you are in terms of lifetime running experience, I am a HUGE fan of short strides, both on hills and on flats/downs. Running as consistently as possible is the first goal, so most of that should be easy and on soft surfaces. But lots of great adaptations can come without much injury risk by doing 6 x 15 second uphill strides, or 6 x 100 meter flat ground strides, even approaching mile race pace at the end (jogging around for full recovery between). There’s a lot of “feel” to running fast.
Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
I have never done speed work for any run training, let alone for my 140.6 or open marathons. I passed 400 folks on the fun at IMLT, wonder how many of them were doing speed work. :o)
Instead of speed work in training, run lots of hills. Then race a good number of short distance stuff and open it up.
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If you race short distance, then you are doing speed work.
Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
There are a lot of thoughts out there and I think the answer depends on everyone’s goals. I think the problem with speedwork running is that it tends to be where a lot of injuries get started. I consistency is key you could make an argument that speedwork on the run is just too much risk. You can get the benefit of speedwork for many of the body’s systems just but simply doing it in cycling with much less risk of injury. Most people don’t run to their potential in an Ironman anyway so I think they would be better suited to just doing more swimming/cycling so they can actually run the marathon to their potential.
Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
One man’s opinion, going from having never run ever to running 3:23 off the bike in about 5 years.
Run, LOTS. Do what your legs allow. If they let you go fast, go fast, if they demand slow, go slow, but you need volume, big volume.
In advance of IM A race, I hit 60 and 70 mile weeks. When the volume cranks up, I can’t go that fast, especially if I am hitting 10 or 12 hours on the bike.
For me, it’s about volume, which is about frequency and duration. Intensity is great if you can work it in, but I find it hard to do much intensity when hitting the big volume. I do try to race some 5ks and 10ks to go fast sometimes, but that’s it for me.
Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
One man’s opinion, going from having never run ever to running 3:23 off the bike in about 5 years.
Run, LOTS. Do what your legs allow. If they let you go fast, go fast, if they demand slow, go slow, but you need volume, big volume.
In advance of IM A race, I hit 60 and 70 mile weeks. When the volume cranks up, I can’t go that fast, especially if I am hitting 10 or 12 hours on the bike.
For me, it’s about volume, which is about frequency and duration. Intensity is great if you can work it in, but I find it hard to do much intensity when hitting the big volume. I do try to race some 5ks and 10ks to go fast sometimes, but that’s it for me.
And how old are you?
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Wondering everyone’s thoughts on speedwork (running sprints) for IM distance racing. Pro’s / Con’s. What benefit do you gain by doing them? What do you miss out on if you do not do speed work?
One man’s opinion, going from having never run ever to running 3:23 off the bike in about 5 years.
Run, LOTS. Do what your legs allow. If they let you go fast, go fast, if they demand slow, go slow, but you need volume, big volume.
In advance of IM A race, I hit 60 and 70 mile weeks. When the volume cranks up, I can’t go that fast, especially if I am hitting 10 or 12 hours on the bike.
For me, it’s about volume, which is about frequency and duration. Intensity is great if you can work it in, but I find it hard to do much intensity when hitting the big volume. I do try to race some 5ks and 10ks to go fast sometimes, but that’s it for me.
And how old are you?
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And how fast did the swim and bike go? 
I would think that hills, although not technically “speed” work, have similar physiologic adaptations associated with them. Maybe instead of doing “speed work”, it should just be called “high intensity work” including both hills and speed on the flats since they both improve strength and efficiency.
38 years old now, though I ran the 3:23 off the bike at 37. More recently I ran 3:42but that was Kona.
Choppy violent wetsuit swim: 1:04. Flat windy bike 4:46
Like others said, it depends but I would say it depends a lot more with running.
IMO frequency is the cake (say 5-6X per week) total volume and a reasonable body weight are the icing, and speed work is the cherry on top of the icing. Another poster mentioned “intensity” as opposed to speed, I would agree with this 6X4min pretty hard on the trails is different than 6X1km on the flat pavement or track.
Also if you are stuck in a 7 day cycle (work mon-fri) you could look at overall intensity vs volume on a 14 or 21 day period.
Lots of effective ways to split intensity, you could look at shorter intervals, extension on the long run, mile repeats, hills/trails or strides.
Maurice
38 years old now, though I ran the 3:23 off the bike at 37. More recently I ran 3:42but that was Kona.
Just you wait, I am 57, ran a 3:52 at IMLT. Just did a half marathon in October, 1:24
Was talking to an AG friend of mine today. At my age there are so few racers, let alone many that can run “fast”. When I talk to these older guys,
they all tell me how fast they could run when they were young and how many miles they used to run and how many days a week.
I just suggest to folks if they want to be in this sport for the long run, let alone older not having knee and hip replacements, one might
want to think about how much running, and how one does it, a little.
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Agree, now that I have done it the huge volume way for several years, I am contemplating using that base to transition to a different way (lower miles higher intensity).
It’s going to take courage to abandon something that has worked this far. I am working on getting there. For now, still pretty big miles.