Continuing my preparation towards my first half IM in less than three weeks (eep!). I’ve got a good feeling on how I’ll do on the swim and bike, but not so much on the run. I haven’t done a full 21k run (only 15k max), and my brick workouts usually involve a short 5k run after the bike only as I was told pushing further didn’t benefit me at all and wasn’t the purpose of a brick workout.
So, knowing that I will be tired after the swim and bike, how much slower should I expect to go in the run? I know it depends on a lot of factors, just curious to hear from others with personal experience?
Depends how hard you go out on the bike. If you have never even run 21K before and this is your first ever tri, that 13.1 miles is going to seem mighty long. I’m always amazed at how hard 13 miles is after a hard 56 mile bike, 'cause normally I can run 13 miles while training pretty easily.
My advice (since you have no time for some long run adaption) is to go a little slower on the bike than you think you need to and start slow on the run. If you feel good at 10K, then pick it up and negative split the run. Walking the aid stations is probably a good idea as well.