I am okay in the water and decent on the bike. I’d often climb to the top 10 on sprints and olympic distances when cycling, but I’d loose everything on the run, which is frustrating. I run 10K in about 46 mins and 5K in 22 mins, so average at best. I’ve been told that to get faster, I’d have to do intervals, which I’d have to admit I don’t do. I tried to do so in the past for a short period, but stopped because I didn’t like it and can hardly imagine it will gain me more than a couple of seconds. My question is, if it’s actually possible to win a significant amount of time doing intervals (or any other sort of training) or that I should accept that I am just a slow runner? I of coarse Googled this question and I’d only found that intervals will make you faster, but I can’t find by what. Seconds, minutes? I understand that this depends on many many factors and that it varies from person to person. But there are probably people on this forum who have practical experience with this? How mutch did you gain?
I am now only running at a steady pace. Mostly as hard as I can. For cycling and swimming this is no different. Except for the MTB, the trails I do are designed for intervals, so that’s the only interval I do.
Consistent interval training, tempo runs, running at faster paces will make you a lot faster.
I had similar times to you maybe around 2018, since then I have joined a run club and done dozens upon dozens of pure running races, countless club interval sessions (weekly), group runs etc and have now run multiple sub 18min 5kms, sub 37min 10kms and am aiming for sub 3hrs at London this weekend (I ran Manchester marathon in 2018 in 3:59)
In terms of triathlons I think running is where you can do the most damage, as a terrible swimmer, above average cyclist but a pretty good runner I will literally run down hundreds of people purely because I can hit 90mins for the half off the bike pretty consistently.
Of the three disciplines I think its the most important to be good at.
yeah joining a running club was the best thing I did, I’m crazy competitive lol so id see people who i think should be running slower than me and I’d do everything to beat them and you end up just getting slightly faster than different people over the months and years.
When I first started id see all the skinny guys running in the fast groups and think id never get to that level yet now I can toy with some of these people in races and beat them quite easily.
The massive amount of cross training helps as well as they are pure runners, if they do 1 interval session a week with a tempo ill be doing double that because I also do the same on the bike
When I was active in triathlon I went from 46 min 10K to mid 42’s and 22-23 min 5K to low 20’s. My HIM runs went from 1:55-2:00ish to mostly under 1:45 and as low as 1:38 That’s as good as I got with the time I was investing into running.
It was 30-35 miles a week. Included 6 weeks of ~15 minutes of fast 2 to 4 min intervals then 12ish weeks of 40 minutes worth of threshold intervals. On Sundays I would either run long easy (2hrs) or a long run (2hrs) with 20 min of threshold intervals. Everything else was easy running.
My best years came from doing that after spending 16ish weeks over the winter running 45-50 miles a week.
I never considered myself as a good runner but I got to a point where not many people passed me during the triathlon run.
@elecious
Sounds good! I am now overtaken left and right by the small and skinny guys. I am not fat at all, but I did play rugby for ages and did a couple of years of boxing and kickboxing so I am a little more muscular than the average triathlete.
@satanellus
Good point! I am 40 years old, so I guess I am not the youngest. On the other hand, Jan Frodeno is my age I am 181cm (5’11) / 79KG (175 pounds). My chest is 112cm and waist 88cm, so I am not skinny or fat, but I do not have the average triathlete physique. I am now running two times 10KM to 15KM per week (same pace, over and over again). Next to that road cyling (slow pace), TT-ing (as hard as I can once a week), MTB-ing (I guess this should count as interval, also once per week), fitness (strength 3 times per week), swimming (two times per week as hard as I can). As you can see, there is no thought behind any of this. I am just doing what I like combined with the necessary. I have no complaints when it comes to cycling or swimming. Because of the pandamic I was not able to swim for over half a year and I did not loose a second on my 1500m swim. Cycling I am pretty okay. I average 40 kmph on an OD (including start / stop / cornering / etc.).
@jaretj
Sounds good, that’s about 10% faster. To me that’s worth the effort of training different / longer. But I am not going to do that if it will gain me 1%. Of course I’d understand it’s different for each and every individual and I’d might gain 0%.
What is your age and height and weight? What is your sports background. Did you play any soccer, tennis, basketball where there is a lot of running involved, or are you coming from a non running background.
I am exactly like you. I am a 22 min 5km guy and come off at FOP overall in most regional races after swim and bike, but go backwards on the run big time. But I am 55 year old and recovering from some serious injuries and around 8 lbs over my race weight in my 40’s when I was running running 1:25-1:35 in half IM’s depending on course. Back then I ran 2500km-3000km per year. Today I am back to doing that, mileage, but I am just older and broken. I don’t really see a path for me to get back to sub 1:40 half IM even if I loose the 8lbs which I likely cannot I am swim racing and doing a lot of upper body work.
I think some of it is the starting point from other sports, body composition, the work you want to do to run more and the body composition you are willing to get to.
You can see an example of what Jaretj put himself thru to get down sub 1:40 in half IM’s. 50 mile per week is a solid amount of running
At simplest level, you’ll get faster by either running more miles, running more frequently or running harder
Any of the three can probably deliver demonstratively better results for you. For me, slowing down on most runs, adding more days of running and then asking just a bit of speed worked well. Too much speed work, for me, didn’t work
a good starting point would be trading one strength session for a third run. keep one of the runs “as hard as you can” and ease down the other two, about 1’ per km slower than your 5k race pace
@elecious
Sounds good! I am now overtaken left and right by the small and skinny guys. I am not fat at all, but I did play rugby for ages and did a couple of years of boxing and kickboxing so I am a little more muscular than the average triathlete.
@satanellus
Good point! I am 40 years old, so I guess I am not the youngest. On the other hand, Jan Frodeno is my age I am 181cm (5’11) / 79KG (175 pounds). My chest is 112cm and waist 88cm, so I am not skinny or fat, but I do not have the average triathlete physique. I am now running two times 10KM to 15KM per week (same pace, over and over again). Next to that road cyling (slow pace), TT-ing (as hard as I can once a week), MTB-ing (I guess this should count as interval, also once per week), fitness (strength 3 times per week), swimming (two times per week as hard as I can). As you can see, there is no thought behind any of this. I am just doing what I like combined with the necessary. I have no complaints when it comes to cycling or swimming. Because of the pandamic I was not able to swim for over half a year and I did not loose a second on my 1500m swim. Cycling I am pretty okay. I average 40 kmph on an OD (including start / stop / cornering / etc.).
@jaretj Sounds good, that’s about 10% faster. To me that’s worth the effort of training different / longer. But I am not going to do that if it will gain me 1%. Of course I’d understand it’s different for each and every individual and I’d might gain 0%.
For that part in bold, the only way you can find out if what works for the entire world works for you is if you try!!! Your percentage improvement may vary. But give it a try or you will never know.
Intervals will help but you’ll likely see an improvement from adding two more easy runs, maybe after the bike sessions.
A lot of people hit shorter distance PBs in marathon training cycles, indicating volume and frequency are probably the most important things if you don’t come from a running background.
I saw my best running times when I ran the most - kind of a ‘duh’ moment. Around four years ago I focused after tri season on setting a 5k PR. I ran 7 days a week (from September - December) with Wednesday being 5k and 10k speed intervals - up to around 16x 400 at 15 seconds faster than goal 5k pace. I also did a long run up to 15 miles each week that had tempo mixed in (maybe 2-3 x 2 miles tempo). You have to put in the work to see the results, but you really don’t need a ton of speed work. The other five days of running were all pretty easy, but I also added strides at the end of a couple of runs each week - something like 6-8x at 30 seconds/mile faster than 5k pace. I was able to get a PR by around 15 seconds (17:33) after all of that work, but I felt like I underperformed in the race I targeted (it was like 10 degrees F on race day with some wind in sections). I’d love to get back in that kind of running shape - maybe an off season goal in my mid 40’s!
As others have said, your biggest gains stand to come from developing your run-specific aerobic system. The most injury - proof way to do this is by running more often, slower, and shorter distances, and only then, when you are comfortable with much more volume than you run now, to add speedwork such as intervals. E.g., try running 5k 6 days/week at 75% your max hr as a starting point. Build to longer runs, then add speedwork.
Consistent interval training, tempo runs, running at faster paces will make you a lot faster.
How you get faster at running is you put more kms into the legs, not by running faster during training. Slow it way down and slowly increase the number of kms run over time. It takes a while to get there, but you’ll be faster in the long run.
I found mixing paces in run training really works. It’s good for the heart rate management too. I have a lot of runs in my program where you are moving from zone 2 up to zone 4/5, down to zone 3 and then up to 4 again. Found once I was up to speed my heart rate was tracking perfectly where it would be for the paces.
I found it was very easy to make significant and quick gains with intervals. Holding onto them gains with consistency was key and a bit more tricky.
I also run hills and do a lot of trail. This helps immensely with strength. Another one relatively ignored factor is running downhill, hard. Smokes your legs but that eccentric load is great for running in general
I mean, yeah, with 22/46 PBs we’re talking minutes. Running is no different from swimming + biking. Workouts + volume = figuring out your potential. I like the advice someone else gave about finding a running club. A group that does a once a week workout would be very beneficial for you. It’d keep you honest/accountable if you can’t get through something like that on your own. I would also recommend running after your longer bike sessions. Even a short 3k-5k range run just to get your body in the habit of running tired. We never run fresh in triathlon. Your training should reflect that.
I went from 1:50 half mara pace to 1:35 (c2hr to 1hr41 in 70.3) aged 44. And in reality I was stronger/faster than that half time showed as it was first run 1 month after an Ironman. That was off baselines from 10+ years of constant training throughout my 30s. In training I was running comfortably at 4:30/km pace for long intervals (10km) and recovery was 4:45/km. So yes, you can take a lot of time off.
You’ve two distinct schools of thought above- constant miles and build strength to avoid injury, and do intervals to get the intensity up without the miles that cause injury. And the answer is possibly dependent on your body and no-one on the internet can tell you that.
What I personally found was that the intervals helped nail my technique. And so then I was running more efficiently at the steady pace. I couldn’t run sub 4:00/km pace with my old flappy feet technique, so the intervals got me running the ‘right’ way. My coach would often insert intervals into longer runs. So a typical weekly set was 10min warmup, 6 reps of 1km at 4:20, 1km 4:40-4:50, 15 cool down. Long runs would be 10km at 5:00, 10kms 4:50, 10kms 4:40/km.
Someone else mentioned joining a running group. Let’s be honest, as triathletes the best way to be a better swimmer is to join a master swim squad. Best way to improve the bike is to get out on the road bike with the roadies. And guess what? For the run, it’s no different IMHO.
Consistent interval training, tempo runs, running at faster paces will make you a lot faster.
How you get faster at running is you put more kms into the legs, not by running faster during training. Slow it way down and slowly increase the number of kms run over time. It takes a while to get there, but you’ll be faster in the long run.
True to a point, but I think as triathletes we have a little more constraints than pure runners who have more time to run.
I know volume is king, but what happens when the volume needed doesn’t allow to you bike and swim effectively.
I’ve been running according to Daniels Running Formula book for a while now. I’ve gotten much faster on volume alone, but I there’s a limit to in season training. This year I’ve felt a bit plateaued. I ended up hiring Matt Hanson to coach me for Kona thinking he could teach me a thing or 2 about running. I’m still running easy but almost every run has some speed in it. At minimum its 30s strides, and a lot of times we have ramping paces. 20min ez, 20min med, 20min hard. 5x5min with the last effort being max. Or a long run with a 2x 15min ramps to threshold. At first these workouts felt like they were killing me especially in the heat. But then it really started clicking and I felt fast. The discomfort started to feel normal and tolerable.
I am 181cm (5’11) / 79KG (175 pounds). My chest is 112cm and waist 88cm, so I am not skinny or fat, but I do not have the average triathlete physique. I am now running two times 10KM to 15KM per week (same pace, over and over again). Next to that road cyling (slow pace), TT-ing (as hard as I can once a week), MTB-ing (I guess this should count as interval, also once per week), fitness (strength 3 times per week), swimming (two times per week as hard as I can). As you can see, there is no thought behind any of this. I am just doing what I like combined with the necessary. I have no complaints when it comes to cycling or swimming. Because of the pandamic I was not able to swim for over half a year and I did not loose a second on my 1500m swim. Cycling I am pretty okay. I average 40 kmph on an OD (including start / stop / cornering / etc.).