(yawns)
- Morning Trainiacs!
Big workout today.
Check this out.
Five weeks out from Half IRONMAN Puerto Rico,
I think, exactly.
So I've moved the trainer bike
into the background and put the main bike on here
so I can put all of my time in the exact position
that I'm gonna be racing in.
And look at all this nutrition.
For a three hour bike with half of it at race pace,
and then onto a 25-minute run, we have four bottles
of electrolytes, one coke right for the end of the bike
so that I get in my gut exactly
what I'm going to be running with.
And then we have blocks and blocks and blocks and curling.
Race simulation training is underway and it's hard.
But, what we're gonna talk about today is
how running should fit in to a properly designed
triathlon training plan, how frequently,
actually how infrequently, you might be surprised
that everyone from beginners all the way to pros,
like Sarah True, run in a triathlon training plan.
I'm stalling now
(mumbles)
(upbeat exciting music)
(music continues)
(grunts)
- That's a three hour ride, 25-minute run,
just go look at my Instagram post from earlier in the week
where I'll break it all down for you.
And like, how to divy it up based on where you are
in the training season and distance.
I'm shot - it went well, but I am shot.
Meet back up here in a few minutes, okay?
Woo, I feel whole again after a few hours on the couch
and a lunch and a half.
Alright, what we're gonna do here is we are going to be
recording a, come on, get yourself together guys.
We are going to be recording an
audio file for teamtrainiac.com.
If you are on teamtrainiac.com you know that when you get on
there are a series of on-ramp audio files that are
sent out to you, and what I've also done is create
a private SoundCloud playlist so that athletes
on Team Trainiac don't just get all these
workouts served to them, they get essentially
a bunch of one-on-one coaching tips about how to
adjust workouts and the philosophy of my coaching beliefs
and why it's set up the way that it is.
So that everyone understands why
they're doing what they're doing.
Today, we're talking about running because we've got
some questions from people saying
"What if I really wanna increase my run speed?"
"Should I start loading up on about six runs a week?"
Let's get into that.
What's up Trainiacs?
Today I want to talk about running build-up
to improve your running and essentially the lack of runs
that are in the platform.
What you'll see is that there are only a max
of four runs a week, and some people have said,
"Is this really enough to improve my running?"
And the answer is absolutely yes and I want to tell you why.
When I was in Tuscan, beginning of 2019, doing
the How to Run Masterclass with Sarah and Ben True,
what they talked about was: Ben's running includes
one long run a week, one speed workout a week,
and one tempo workout every single week.
But, all of us hear about how elite runners like
Ben True who is the 5k American Road record holder all-time.
He's the reining New York City Half Marathon
defending champion.
He's doing 100 to 120 miles a week running 6 to 9 times.
And we're all sitting here as age-group triathletes
thinking, oh if that's what really good runners do,
that's what I need to do.
But, what Sarah pointed out was all of those other runs,
besides those three long runs,
are really just to build general fitness.
But we as triathletes, we are able to build a massive
amount of fitness through biking and swimming
so we don't need those extra, say, junk mile
or just fitness building workouts
because we've got a huge amount of fitness already.
So we really just need, at most,
three key workouts every single week.
Also elite runners, it's a speed run.
Even distance runners, air-quotes, distance runners
that are doing a 5k, they have races
that last 13 to 14 minutes or elite marathoners
are two hours 10 minutes or under,
whereas in our case, we are out on the road
doing muscle damage, literally physical muscle damage to
ourselves over the course of four, six, 18 hours out there.
So we don't need that twitchy fast ability.
Our training is just different.
We need to build muscular endurance and postural fitness.
Really what we need to just make sure of is
that our form doesn't break down.
And we don't do that by running a whole ton,
we do that by running on tired legs,
we do that with running on hills,
and we do that with strength training.
So instead of just running and running and running,
we kind of hack running and just focus on
the high value things that we do with running.
So, note, none of this includes massive
running volume or massive runs.
We can run on tired legs fairly easily
by running off the bike.
We can run fast towards the end of a longer run,
or on the weekends we can do a really big week
build up a bunch of fatigue in our legs.
And particularly over the final eight weeks of training
that's where we start training a little bit of fatigue
and all of this accomplishes without doing
six runs a week what we need to do as triathletes.
So we know that we don't need to do a ton of running
but is there a benefit to doing a ton
of running as a triathlete?
Well actually Brett Sutton, the coach of World Champions
Daniela Ryf and Chrissie Wellington,
this guy is known for absolutely massive, punishing
amounts of workloads and volume and intensity,
and even he says that running a lot can actually
make you a slower runner, a slower cyclist,
and a slower swimmer because we have such a huge load
placed on our body with swim, bike, run,
ideally strength training already that
that pounding of running places an even greater load
on the body that we can't really absorb so it hurts
our swim and our bike and because it's so hard on the body
we are probably not really absorbing
all of that additional running anyway.
So it's really questionable if it even helps your run
to run that much more.
So I'd also add beyond that, that he's giving
this message to pro triathletes who by nature because
they made it through the gauntlet of years and years
of punishing training, they are more injury resilient
than us age-groupers are.
Now in the case of us age-groupers, we are more
injury prone than the pros, so doing more and more
running is likely going to lead to running with poor form,
leading potentially to injuries which
not only might just not make you faster,
by running more, but it might not even
let you get to the start line.
Or you could even be out of the sport.
So here, Team Trainiac, we recommend
at minimum just one long run a week
that's all you need to do.
Now if you want to push it to a second run a week
and you want to do some really triathlon specific
training and get ready for your races
add one brick run, simple as that,
anywhere from 10 to about 30 minutes.
Nothing too draining because in that long run
in all the workouts if you noticed
there is speed built into that where we finish fast
so that we're accomplishing running on tired legs
and a little bit of speed work.
Add in a brick run and all of a sudden you've got
a little bit of speed work, you've got
the ability to run fairly long.
Where we put that in the week it ends up
building muscular endurance.
Add that brick run in there and all of a sudden
you can run off the bike fairly
quickly for a long period of time.
Now if you want to push that to three runs a week,
include a speed run and all of a sudden, boom.
Once a week, you start building the ability
to have quicker leg turnover that through
the training that we've put together
can start coming into that long run and that race.
So, you can run long, you can run fast,
and you can run off the bike.
Now beyond that, you've really reached
a point of diminishing returns, so adding
a fourth run in that week, maybe,
maybe another brick run, who knows,
but those three runs is really when we go back
to Sarah and Ben True, Sarah True that's about
all she does, is three runs a week.
And we say, well they must be so much bigger.
Well I've seen Sarah with doing some of her
really key workouts, some of her really intense workouts
are as simple as 12 400s.
Her longest run coming into IRONMAN Frankfurt 2018,
her first IRONMAN ever, was just an 18-mile run.
And she said that what she leaned on was all of the fitness
that she built in swimming and biking.
So our philosophy on Team Trainiac
and as a coach, is I have to give what will
work for the greatest number of people
in the greatest number of instances
for the longest amount of time.
Fitness is not built and success is not built by
slamming a whole bunch of work into you
right at the start of a build up.
Fitness, excellence is built by doing the right things
in small doses over and over and over and over
keeping you healthy, keeping you injury-free.
And this creates longevity.
Longevity relates to having good health.
Having good health and doing these right things
over and over relates to speed.
It's also practical for athletes who don't have
all the time in the world to constantly train.
So do you need more than three or four runs a week?
Absolutely not.
Can you get by with one run a week?
Absolutely.
Where's the sweet spot?
Two or three, I'd say.
So when people start pressing me saying
"Well I really want to improve my run,"
we do it by doing the right runs,
making sure that we're fresh when we get off the bike,
doing a little bit of strength work
to make sure that we are posturally sound
and we don't break down and we can grind out
those long miles in the race, and we just
include a little bit of speed, a brick workout
and a slightly longer run every single week.
Don't doubt that's gonna work, because this works
for some of the best in the world that are
placing second in IRONMAN Frankfurt, fourth at Kona
in her first crack at it, and this is what
a lot of pro triathlon coaches do.
So why not do it ourselves?
Alright Trainiacs, that is running.
Go out there and kill it.
And that's it, every single day for weeks
after people sign up for Team Trainiac
they get those audio files and they
get access to the playlist.
We have audio files and video files
all embedded into workouts so there's
explanations of why we do what we do.
There's bonus insider info, videos, and audio files
that kind of just help people understand
generally why we're doing all of this.
If you can understand why you're doing everything
you're going to be a better athlete
because you're going to be able to massage
this and that when life hands you stuff,
you're gonna know how to deal with it.
So that's what running is and go check out teamtrainiac.com.
Go get yourself a 14-day free trial
just kick some tires, give it a try.
Alright?
I gotta upload that to SoundCloud.
Later Trainiacs!