Is the swim ruining my run?

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi all, there seem to be some experienced and knowledgeable athletes on this forum. So maybe some of you guys can have a go at my problem.

I’m just starting out in triathlon, but am a relatively experienced runner (about 30k-40k a week) compared to biking and especially swimming. I did a short distance last year in august, and I just did a sprint triathlon last week. 37 years old by the way.

Long story short, in both races I got nowhere near to my running potential. Based on my brick-training efforts, I kind of assumed last year that I would be able to run at at around 110% compared to my 10k PB pace (43:30 at the time). I disappointingly finished the run in 55 minutes, after slowly fading in the last bike section and feeling completely out of energy for the entire run, needing a couple of walk brakes just to make it to the finish. I assumed it to be a nutritional issue. I consumed one single gel, which was not before T2 as I forgot to take it with me on the bike. Maybe drank a bit too little as well (about 400ml, with a SIS hydro Go tablet). Total time: 2h20m.

In preparation for the sprint race last weekend I did some extra bike-run brick workouts to get a feel of the appropriate pacing. Biking hard for 20-25k, then a tempo run just about approaching the red line at about 4k. Most of these sessions I could keep a 4:10/k running pace after a 36.5km/h ride. So I figured that would be a good baseline for the race.

Nutrition would be fairly straightforward for a sprint distance (500m, 20k, 5k), as I planned to finish in about 1h05m I only took some water on the bike. I did about the same routine as I normally do before a 10k race, taking enough calories at breakfast, and plenty of water throughout the morning, some energy drink, a banana and some pancakes. I ran a 42:20 10k one month ago with this approach, still feeling quite energetic after finishing so I was pretty confident I could repeat the same routine for this distance.

So what happened was basically the same as last year. Swimming actually went better than expected, coming out of the water mid-pack as I could draft nicely for the better part of the course. I deed feel a bit out of breath and slightly woozy the first 3k on the bike, but i could pick up the pace quite easily without over-exerting myself, eventually averaging 36.5. So by this time I’m pretty pumped about how it was going. I even held back on the bike as I was eager to kill that run. I was hoping to tun the 5k under 21 minutes (maybe 22 as it was pretty hot), but eventually finished it in 27 minutes after, again, a couple of walk breaks. First 1k is always a bit weird, so I was running about a 4:30 pace, waiting for the legs to kick in as they usually do in training, but the opposite happened. Finished in 1:11:30.

So I’m now slipping into a bit of a confidence issue. I’m doing a short distance (1k 40k 10k) in about two months again, and I had been telling myself that as long as I got the nutrition right, it could only go better than last year, but now I’m mot so sure anymore. I’m sort of hoping now that I’m just unlucky having bad days on both my first and second triathlons, but I rarely have a bad experiences running 10k up to 16k events, so I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do. Some races are better than others of course, but I have never needed any walk breaks. Admittedly temperatures rose to 26 degrees Celsius during the event, so my intended run pace might have been a tad ambitious.

So i’m trying to figure out what;s going ion here. Are race conditions getting in the way of performing on par with training? Or could it be the swim that’s coming back to haunt me during the run. I haven’t got around to doing three legged bricks in training yet, as they are quite bothersome, and can be a bit challenging logistically. I guess my best bet is to bite the bullet, and do some of these to figure out if it’s actually the swim killing my running pace. Any other thoughts? Thanks

2

Bricks are overrated.

How much are you actually swimming? “coming out of the water out of breath and woozy” tells me that you overexerted yourself on the swim. That can create a hole that is impossible to dig yourself out of in a sprint distance…

3

Not too much i guess, two times a week typically, some weeks once. Most of the time i spend around 45 minutes in the pool per session, totaling anywhere from 800m to 1400m depending on the focus of the sets i’m doing. That includes the warmup, cooldown tough.
I should be getting more long distance swim time in open water now with summer arriving, but i’m still having some technique issues that prevent me from getting into an easy but steady rhythm doing long sets. After 300-400m I tend to start struggling to keep pace because technique starts to suffer badly.

4

Not too much i guess, two times a week typically, some weeks once. Most of the time i spend around 45 minutes in the pool per session, totaling anywhere from 800m to 1400m depending on the focus of the sets i’m doing. That includes the warmup, cooldown tough.
I should be getting more long distance swim time in open water now with summer arriving, but i’m still having some technique issues that prevent me from getting into an easy but steady rhythm doing long sets. After 300-400m I tend to start struggling to keep pace because technique starts to suffer badly.

And there’s your answer… You aren’t swimming enough, either in frequency or the volume per practice. That lack of fitness cascades into the bike, and then doubly so for the run (because you overbiked trying to maintain the same pace you could do when you’re fresh, when you were exhausted from the swim).

Just correcting this statement for you as well. After 300-400 you start struggling to hold technique because you either went out too hard, or you lack swim fitness, or both. Ability to hold technique is a “fitness” issue.

Swim more, work on technique, and build the swim fitness. In your position, the more swims you can do each week the better. Your run is solid, let that take a back seat for a little while and just do enough to maintain. Do that, and you’ll be able to actually swim harder without falling apart and feeling fine when you jump on the bike.

5

Yeah, I guess. It’s just that I was thinking that on sprint distance, aren’t you supposed to swim hard? Regardless of swimming ability, I’d guess a 500m swim will be at least 70% exertion rate. And the bike didn’t ‘feel’ like a struggle. Although that might have been the racing adrenalin. There’s so many mediocre swimmers getting through the rest of the race just fine, I can’t get my head around why it seems to be such a delicate balance for me.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts btw

6

Not too much i guess, two times a week typically, some weeks once. Most of the time i spend around 45 minutes in the pool per session, totaling anywhere from 800m to 1400m depending on the focus of the sets i’m doing. That includes the warmup, cooldown tough.
I should be getting more long distance swim time in open water now with summer arriving, but i’m still having some technique issues that prevent me from getting into an easy but steady rhythm doing long sets. After 300-400m I tend to start struggling to keep pace because technique starts to suffer badly.

I don’t think that’s enough swim volume. I know there are lots of differing opinions on the subject, but I’m definitely a believer that high swim volume is a valuable part of a good triathlon training program (i.e. a minimum of 2-3x per week, 2500-3000m per session; even better would be 12-15k total weekly distance). Aside from improving your swim and ensuring you get your bike fresher (and less woozy or out of breath), swimming more will increase your aerobic fitness (or help maintain it, since you probably have a pretty high bar from running) without the physical stress that weight bearing training (bike and run) incur on your body.

7

yes, but if you have good swim fitness then you can swim hard and not have it wreck the rest of your race, and on top of that, it becomes less of a “delicate balance”. If you’re panting and woozy getting out of the water, that’s killing the rest of the race. Breathing hard is fine, but you shouldn’t have to slow down.

8

Aside from improving your swim and ensuring you get your bike fresher (and less woozy or out of breath), swimming more will increase your aerobic fitness (or help maintain it, since you probably have a pretty high bar from running) without the physical stress that weight bearing training (bike and run) incur on your body. Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that? Without losing too much running fitness that is.

9

Aside from improving your swim and ensuring you get your bike fresher (and less woozy or out of breath), swimming more will increase your aerobic fitness (or help maintain it, since you probably have a pretty high bar from running) without the physical stress that weight bearing training (bike and run) incur on your body. Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that? Without losing too much running fitness that is.

I’d still consider myself a novice at this, so take this with a grain of salt. But if your running fitness is already at a pretty high level, given everything else you’ve said I think you probably would get the most bang for your buck (time efficiency and ROI) from swapping out some of your run time for swimming time. I’m not sure which of your runs would be best to drop though. From my own experience, I reduced my run training over the winter/spring to make time for swimming (from ~3x per week to 1-2x per week) and I’m running as fast or faster as I ever have (with lower avg HR for the same routes I usually do). I credit that almost entirely to the 4-5 hrs per week I get of good swimming.

The other thing is I note that you don’t say much about your bike training. Are you getting enough volume in there? and making sure you get in a long ride on a regular basis (25-30+ miles if you’re racing short course)?

10

If my calculations are correct…you are swimming 100m/3:00(sometimes 100m/5:00), biking 23mph, and running 6:25/mile for your primary training sessions? Are you sure about that?

11

Maybe you are eating too much before the race. Not even marathon runners will eat that much… takes oxygen from muscles to digest

12

Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that?

No.

What you need to do is reorient your perception of “long”. All swim workouts are long, therefore none of them are. Just get yourself in the pool 3x/wk for an hour at a time at a bare minimum and go from there.

13

Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that?

No.

What you need to do is reorient your perception of “long”. All swim workouts are long, therefore none of them are. Just get yourself in the pool 3x/wk for an hour at a time at a bare minimum and go from there.

Forgive me if I’m ignorant. But the longest I race is a 1k swim, in about 18-20 minutes. Still 3 x 1 hour a week is the bare minimum? Year round? Mind you, I’m trying to maximize my running potential, I’m not trying to shave of 10 seconds from my 100 swim pace

14

Aside from improving your swim and ensuring you get your bike fresher (and less woozy or out of breath), swimming more will increase your aerobic fitness (or help maintain it, since you probably have a pretty high bar from running) without the physical stress that weight bearing training (bike and run) incur on your body. Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that? Without losing too much running fitness that is.

I’d still consider myself a novice at this, so take this with a grain of salt. But if your running fitness is already at a pretty high level, given everything else you’ve said I think you probably would get the most bang for your buck (time efficiency and ROI) from swapping out some of your run time for swimming time. I’m not sure which of your runs would be best to drop though. From my own experience, I reduced my run training over the winter/spring to make time for swimming (from ~3x per week to 1-2x per week) and I’m running as fast or faster as I ever have (with lower avg HR for the same routes I usually do). I credit that almost entirely to the 4-5 hrs per week I get of good swimming.

The other thing is I note that you don’t say much about your bike training. Are you getting enough volume in there? and making sure you get in a long ride on a regular basis (25-30+ miles if you’re racing short course)? That sounds hopeful. The bike probably isn’t the problem. My bike run brick trainings are going fine. Even if I do over-distance on the bike

15

Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that? Without losing too much running fitness that is.

All I can do when I read this is bang my head on the desk.

What Eric said.

I’d also add this:

Why would you structure your training around any workout? What makes the long run and intervals so much more important than a 3-5h bike ride or intervals on the bike or better swim training? (bc you need better swim training as well)

Triathlon isn’t about 1 workout or 2 specific workouts every week.

In fact no workout is more or less important than any other workout.

If you truly want to perform it’s the cumulative effect of workout after workout after workout after workout after workout done day after day after day after day after day after day after day after month after month after month after month that will enable you to race well.

June’s racing success (or failure) is brought to you by Jan-early May’s training…(or lack of it).

16

Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that? Without losing too much running fitness that is.

All I can do when I read this is bang my head on the desk.

What Eric said.

I’d also add this:

Why would you structure your training around any workout? What makes the long run and intervals so much more important than a 3-5h bike ride or intervals on the bike or better swim training? (bc you need better swim training as well)

Triathlon isn’t about 1 workout or 2 specific workouts every week.

In fact no workout is more or less important than any other workout.

If you truly want to perform it’s the cumulative effect of workout after workout after workout after workout after workout done day after day after day after day after day after day after day after month after month after month after month that will enable you to race well.

June’s racing success (or failure) is brought to you by Jan-early May’s training…(or lack of it).

Ahhhhh. I love it.

The head banging. And the content.

17

If my calculations are correct…you are swimming 100m/3:00(sometimes 100m/5:00), biking 23mph, and running 6:25/mile for your primary training sessions? Are you sure about that? Those swim times are way off. I can manage 1k in about 17:30 in a wetsuit in the right circumstances. A bit slower in the pool, because my turns are suboptimal and my balance needs work

18

Hi swimbikerunbonk,

It sounds to me like you have some technique issues with your swim that you need to address. Swimming with poor form is exhausting and will for sure impact your bike and run. A few years ago, I could swim 50 metres front crawl but was pretty much exhausted at the end of it, even though I was a fairly fit runner at the time. My dad was into “Total Immersion” and showed me some of their videos and helped me out at the pool. The first day in the water with him showing me how to rebalance my body (so that I was no longer dragging my lower body through the water like a corpse) I swam 2000 metres of front crawl non-stop! I was so damn excited to be able to swim without feeling as though I was sprinting uphill with a hippo on my back that I just kept going! I am still not a fast swimmer (23-26 minute 1.5 k) but with the TI method I can at least get out of the water feeling good enough to be able to hammer the bike/run (which I am much better at). I highly recommend taking a look at some of their videos or getting some private tuition because it might really help you, not necessarily to make you a faster swimmer but to make you a much faster triathlete as you will have so much more energy to put out there on the bike and run.

19

Never looked at it that way, probably because I’m still structuring training around my long run and interval runs. So you’d think I’d get away with skipping the long run a couple of times, maybe throwing in a long swim or two instead of that? Without losing too much running fitness that is.

All I can do when I read this is bang my head on the desk.

What Eric said.

I’d also add this:

Why would you structure your training around any workout? What makes the long run and intervals so much more important than a 3-5h bike ride or intervals on the bike or better swim training? (bc you need better swim training as well)

Triathlon isn’t about 1 workout or 2 specific workouts every week.

In fact no workout is more or less important than any other workout.

If you truly want to perform it’s the cumulative effect of workout after workout after workout after workout after workout done day after day after day after day after day after day after day after month after month after month after month that will enable you to race well.

June’s racing success (or failure) is brought to you by Jan-early May’s training…(or lack of it).

Yeah, I get the point. I guess I need to make up my mind if I want to be a true triathlete, or just a runner doing triathlons every once in a while.

But for the sake of argument. I’m looking for advice about training smarter. Training longer, more often and more consistently sounds like general advice you can copy paste to every topic asking for tips, as long as you’re not overtraining. So maybe some race tactics. Maybe slow down the swim by 2 minutes on a 1k to gain 5 minutes on the 10k run.

Even with my current training volume I feel I should not be underperforming on the run as badly as I am

20

This is turning into a great topic btw, didn’t expect this kind of response.

Thanks for that