I am a marathon runner just beginning triathlons. I wanted to train for the America’s Finest City Half Marathon through a triathlon trainig program. Does anyone have any advice at what type of program I should do? How many swims/week, bike/week, and runs/week? I am testing to see if I can be faster at running halfs and marathons while doing a triathlon training progam. Thank you for your help.
Specificity. Specificity. Specificity.
Running makes you a faster runner, not swimming and cycling. Try running more, more often and at the right paces.
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I think you can do both. As long as you do sport specific workouts it can be done. The problem is too many people give up their strengths when training for triathlons. You still need to run a long run, a medium long run, intervals,and some tempo work. The bike will also give some strength. Use your swimming for recovery workouts on the days you run long or do tempo work and fit the cycling in on the other days. If you use the right training any program can work. I have used the Daniels program for a long time and just substitute the cycling for the recovery days. You can work hard on the bike and still recover because you do not have impact. It will be a huge benefit to the run leg of triathlons.
I didn’t say she couldn’t do both, I replying to this comment:
“I am testing to see if I can be faster at running halfs and marathons while doing a triathlon training progam.”
She may indeed get faster, but she’d make more improvement is she just RAN.
You can train for a half marathon through tri training and do reasonably well as you don’t need tons and tons of run specific volume and can get away with lots of additional swim and bike stuff. All you have to do is make sure that you run at least a half marathon per week, run hills once a week and do speedwork once a week. Aside from that, do all your volume on swim and bike.
You can’t train for a pure marathon on tri training cause you will lack run mileage to close the race in that final 10K and keep up the speed without fading.
I too have a runner background, and this spring tried combining triathlon training (Olympic distance) with half-marathon training. It ended up fitting together very well. I enjoyed my training weeks. My times improved on all 3 sports and I had half-marathon PR’s.
It was simple. If I was building to a half marathon, I generally ran 3 days per week (long, med/hills/tempo, and short/speedwork), biked twice per week, and swam 3x per week. If I was resting from a half marathon or building up to a triathlon, I cut the running to 1-2x per week, kept swimming 3x, and increased biking (and also did some very short brick runs, usually 10 min., after many of the bike rides).
Caveat: I was always just an average runner, so it was easy to PR at my races with a training regimen of just 3 runs/week. If you are already a really fast runner, you may need more of a run focus to keep improving?
Note I never ran more than 3x per week (except for an occasional run in the form of a 10-minute brick following a bike ride). If you are attached to running more than 3-4x/week, it might be very challenging to fit it all in logistically. (Whether it’s a good idea PHYSICALLY is a question for the professional coaches.)
Other caveat, my bike time did not improve much over the season - not enough biking - so my triathlon time hasn’t improved as much as I would like.
Also, I’m guessing it’s a lot harder to train for a FULL marathon at the same time as tri training. You might have to prioritize one or the other, especially if you want to keep get faster at the run.
“You can’t train for a pure marathon on tri training cause you will lack run mileage to close the race in that final 10K and keep up the speed without fading.”
I disagree with this categorical statement. Having trained/raced both half/full marathons and triathlon during the same seasons I will say that the key to success with the marathon training is to NOT cut out or cut short the weekly long runs in your run schedule. You can absolutely swap out weekly “training or tempo runs” for swim/bike to build your cardio base.
Triathlon has made me a faster and more durable runner than running by itself. In spite of the laws of specifity, the other sports help me recover from the run (especially swimming does wonders for alleviating the stresses of running) and balance out the program for overall greater speed, endurance and durability…If I tolerated run volume well without cross training I’d say you are right, but not in my case…my mechanics tend to break down as I up the run volume much past 30 mi/wk
maybe you should spend more time on your run mechanics then, instead of swimming and biking…
Strangely, if you train properly, your 1/2 marathon running should not suffer that much, but your marathon fitness and performance will. Your true 1/2 marathon performance should tail off a bit, but this is actually the pace that you should be doing a good chunk of your running at. You should be eliminating the other slower run training to get in the swim and bike work outs.
When I started training for triathlons - my 5K performance and my marathon performance suffered the most. My 10 K to 1/2 marathon performance stayed closest to career all-time best times.
Your mileage may vary!
Fleck
I agree with the general sentiment already posted: For all but the very fastest, tri training won’t hurt and may help 10K times and half times.
Not so the marathon. To really do super marathons, 50-80 miles a week are required and that just doesn’t work with lots of cycling.
Last year, I ran a 5K PR on lots of bike mileage and measly run mileage … Two years ago I ran a half marathon PR on moderate run mileage and moderate bike mileage.