So in completing my first half ironman last weekend I was pretty happy with my overall time of just under 5:23, but a week has gone by and figure that by next year I can get under 23 minutes. Is this a feasible goal? I’m about a year and a half into tris in general (that being my third ever…) so I feel like there’s still tons of room for improvement.
my times were
Swim 40:12
T1 1:16
Bike 2:48:13
T2 1:40
Run 1:51:36
I feel as though I can make up at least 5 minutes on the swim (I underestimated my ability and started too far back in the mass start and had to swim through a ton of people) and most of the time in the run. For a stand alone half marathon, I can run 1:27, but after the bike I’m dead. I figure it’s just a matter of doing a lot more “race intensity bricks”. Also, I racing at 5’10 and about 160lbs, with ~10-11%bf, next year I hope to be down to around 150 for the season (I was 210 summer of 05).
Any and all advice is welcome for what I can focus for the rest of this year (I’m only doing an Olympic, sprint, a 10k run and maybe another half marathon) and over the winter to shave off them extra 23 mins.
You need to build up your bike endurance and/or adjust your bike pacing…if you can run 1:27 in an open half-mary, you should be running 1:35, 1:40 at worst for your HIM run split. If the bike is taking that much of you that you can’t run well, you need to bike more.
I wouldn’t necessarily do more bricks, just more long rides to build your bike fitness.
I’m sure it’s quite personal but I took over 25 minutes off in one year. I went 5:25:XX on a flat course last september and recently went 5:00:25 at tupper lake which would be considered a hilly course. I did not taper because this race was part of my prep from IMLP, if it was an A race i’m sure i could have shed a few more minutes. You can definitly do it but it sounds like you need to put some miles on the bike.
Any and all advice is welcome for what I can focus for the rest of this year (I’m only doing an Olympic, sprint, a 10k run and maybe another half marathon) and over the winter to shave off them extra 23 mins.
Focus on:
consistency day after day.
learning how to structure your long rides (well learning how to structure your week, month, months etc would be a good idea also)
long runs are generally never a bad idea but it’s the other runs in the week where you can impact speed
Swim more - I can’t explain how much time can be saved by becoming a better swimmer. You can buy all the aero goodies in the world, but learning how to knock 5-7min off you swim time is much less expensive and nets you a bigger time gain.
Last year I went from 5:17 in my first half to 4:56 in my second.
I always start way out to the side at the front and settle into a nice cruise from the start. I decided to push the bike more the second time around and still had enough to do a 1:42+ run.
Francois had me doing a short bricks (with intensity) twice a week and LONG bricks, which included continuous long periods of HIM pace, alternating with OD pace bike) on Saturday followed by a long run on sunday. The long run included alternating HIM and OD pacing for the middle hour of the run. This gave me the confidence and endurance to do a harder bike and still have a lot left for the run.
With a 1:27 open half marathon your run is already there. The big secret about half Ironman is that if you want to run close to your half marathon open time, all you need to do is bike bike bike bike bike. Ride long, ride hard, ride short. Leave the car in the driveway and bike everywhere possible. If you can do 6 months of 300-600K per week (I’m not kidding about the 600), you’ll be running sub 1:30 off the bike. You’ll also bike faster. Its not a wonder that pretty well all the fastest age groupers at half Ironman around here are also Ironman athletes. They are all biking LOTS.
Aside from that, with a 1:27 half marathon engine, you should be able to get that swim down to sub 36 in the near future. Just find a good coach, do lots of one on one technique work to eliminate your macro flaws and then swim 10-20K per week once the major flaws are taken care of.
If you do both (and I realize everyone has finite time), sub 4:50 is certainly in the cards.
I will definitely heed the advice about bike bike bike bike bike and bike more for sure, the only tough part will be biking for commuting, working 44hrs a week and going back to uni in the fall means I gotta get from A to B ASAP, but will do it as much as possible. As for the swimming, I improved huge (last summer I did a sprint, 500m swim on a 2:50 pace…) over the winter from a once a week master’s class so I will defnintely be going back for more of that in the fall, funds permitting…
Just curious also, how much do you think a 10 pound drop in bodyweight will affect performance, especially on the run? I think this alone will help huge too…
The big secret about half Ironman is that if you want to run close to your half marathon open time, all you need to do is bike bike bike bike bike.
Dev, I think the reason that that is a secret is because it is wrong. You need to, as with all other triathlon distances and as desert dude said, commit yourself to a balanced, consistent training program.
I bet you can. I am 38 years old, and I went from a 5:34 in my first 1/2 in March of 2006 to a 4:50 on the same course in March of 2007. For me, it was a case of consistency, frequency, volume, lots and lots of bike-run bricks, and a three or four swim lessons.
Hi Muffintop, I do agree to some extent, but a time comes in the program (especially for Bizzy living where it is minus 20 for four months), when you have to put the running in a bit more maintenance mode and really ramp up the bike. Our biking season barely starts in the middle of April around here, so you get Nov-Mar to really focus on running. Unless you have great hampster genetics and want to stay glued to a CT and mentally burn out, most of the guys here just can’t get enough riding in over the winter. Even right to the end of April most mornings hover around zero to 5 C…but yes, you can’t stop running and do have to maintain some semblance of mileage and consistency, however, for most athletes living up here, you have to spend a really focused time in may and June on the bike if you plan on rocket times in July (given the minimal biking that most end up doing in the winter…).
I understand that Colorado Springs is not exactly excellent for winter bike training, but it is possible to bike on many days through Jan-Mar. Here is is pretty impossible on a road bike, unless you want to slide out on ice and get run over by a car
OK, I can get on board with a focused period of biking in may and june, i know how the old cycling fitness can drift away during the winter months. I thought you were suggesting more generally that the key to running well in a triathlon was to stop running so much and bike more, which as a general purpose training strategy I don’t really agree with. But a focused period of training, yeah, for sure.
There are much more qualified people already posting in this thread, but I’ll give my input as well. What the hell is up with your swim? Man, that’s slow. Get in the pool more and you can drop 5-7 minutes easy. Swim at least 3 times per week. If you happen to get injured at some point, get in the water 5 times a week and you’ll see your swim times come down pretty quickly. The only HIM that I’ve completed is Buffalo Springs 2006 which isn’t a nice course. I went about 29min on the swim, 2:45ish on the bike, and 1:50ish on the run for a total time of 5:08 so very similar times to you. Since you have about 20 pounds less than me, it won’t be an exact comparison. I can go about 1:40 in a half mary so doing 1:50 in a HIM isn’t great, but isn’t bad. Considering that you’re much faster than me in a half mary, you should do more bricks and train your legs to run fast when they are tired. Another option is to go slower on the bike to not fry your legs for the run.
Hey Muffintop, I guess my first post skipped the part (an assumption) that he should get the bulk of major running base laid out over the winter when biking lots is kinda impossible around here. But to your point, amidst all that big biking, for at least a couple of weeks in May and June, there needs to be huge cycling volume with a big running volume week piled on top. This will teach him how to run on continuously semicooked legs
Hey Muffintop, I guess my first post skipped the part (an assumption) that he should get the bulk of major running base laid out over the winter when biking lots is kinda impossible around here. But to your point, amidst all that big biking, for at least a couple of weeks in May and June, there needs to be huge cycling volume with a big running volume week piled on top. This will teach him how to run on continuously semicooked legs
I can’t wait! I’ll be living downtown by then, right by all the great pathways, trails and about a 10 minute ride to the gats! So I’ll pretty much have NO excuse.
The big secret about half Ironman is that if you want to run close to your half marathon open time, all you need to do is bike bike bike bike bike.
Dev, I think the reason that that is a secret is because it is wrong. You need to, as with all other triathlon distances and as desert dude said, commit yourself to a balanced, consistent training program.
Too bad nobody ever clued me in to that secret either. I must not have gotten that memo.
I just did a massive HIM PB on 40% less riding than last year, and ran about 6-ish mins off my (estimated) open half mary time in spite of having gut issues for the first 8m of the run.
Bike volume is totally overrated (well, at least for HIM and under).
To the OP - ideally you should be able to run within 3-6 mins off your current half mary best as a good HIM run. So obviously you have a lot of room for improvement there.
Failure to be able do that is first and foremost a bike pacing error, unless proven otherwise.
Being more fit on the bike always helps of course, but regardless of your level of bike fitness, you have to ride at an appropriate intensity (as a % of whatever your max bike fitness is; power meter people use % of FTW as the basis for this sorta calculation), such that you can still run well afterwards.
At the risk of plagiarising Rich Strauss even more, there is no such thing as a good bike split followed by a bad run split.
Im in the same boat as you, I did a 5:15 last year, I swam a 33,bikes a 2:37, and ran a 1:59. My open half Marathon pris low like yours, so, over the next 16 weeks, im working on biking every day, trying to get up to around 250-300 miles a week so that when my race comes at the end of october, ill come off the bike and be ready to really run.
Definitely. A big part of it is the training tips and stuff like that which you will get a lot of. But a big part of it is also believing you can do it. I think sometimes things like the 5-hour mark become a big mental obstacle. You need to make sure that you don’t get that in your head. 5 hours is a long time, but you can also push yourself surprisingly hard for that amount of time. When you go out to race, don’t be afraid to give’r and go after it. You may shave a whole lot more than 23 minutes off. Don’t be afraid to “risk.” That is my tip. Have confidence in your training and see how far it will take you.
I did an Olympic today and here were my times/paces
31:59 (2:08) - 1:11:08 (33.7) - 42:43 (4:17)
Now before you all jump all over me for my swim time, it is messed because there is a HUGE run from the beach to transition, it sure as hell wasn’t a blazing fast 1500m, but it certainly was faster than 2:08… First out of the water was 1:43/100m, who can normally do abour 10seconds faster per 100m…
Main thing that I was pleased with was my 10k off the bike… given that I took a spill in transition… a big one, hurt my damn foot, and lost about 30 seconds and half my fluids for the bike, oh well…
