- Running is a crucial part of any triathlon
because, well, it's what we finish with when we are racing.
Now a lot of you might well be wondering what it takes
to step up in distance from say a half Ironman
up to a full distance Ironman and tackle that marathon.
So I thought a great person to speak to is somebody
who's pretty used to running himself
into the winning position of races.
And that is 3 times Ironman World Champion Craig Alexander.
(intense digital music)
Now Craig, an awful lot of people,
myself included when I think back to it,
get a little bit hit up or worried about thinking
about their first Ironman because it includes a marathon.
- Yeah.
- So they might well have done a half marathon,
or a few in 70.3s beforehand, but then they've got to think
about moving up to that full distance.
So have you got any standout tips or thoughts
that you remember having to go with,
go through in that process?
- Yeah, there are, I guess there are a few things
that will hold true for everyone.
Again it's an individual thing though.
I mean, for me, I came from a short course background,
and speed wasn't my issue.
When I stepped up here to race, I was racing guys
like Normann, and Macca, and Faris, and Rutger Beke
who had a lot more, should I say, years of racing Ironman.
- Diesel engines maybe?
- Yeah, well diesel engines,
just a lot more years of racing the Ironman,
so they had a lot more strength and endurance I felt.
They were stronger and had more endurance than I did.
So for me, moving up, that was my focus.
Trying to run a good marathon,
and a good back half of the marathon.
So my focus became more about volume.
Speed was never an issue for me.
It was more I thought I had to build the volume in.
Now when you build the volume in,
you have to be careful obviously to build up slowly,
to be gradual and I think one tip that holds true
for everyone is strength and conditioning.
You know, there's a saying in endurance sports,
"if it looks good, it is good."
So you want to have really good technique
and good fundamentals.
Hopefully you've got good biomechanics, not everybody does.
But there's things you can work on,
there's exercises in the gym, and obviously running as well.
Running hills, there's a lot of things you can do
to build your strength and also improve
your core stability and strength.
So I think anything, this holds true for swim, bike, run,
but if we're talking about the marathon specifically,
anything that involves the same motion
over a long period of time, particularly in a marathon,
we're talking about not so much about speeding up,
we're talking about not slowing down.
So you want to, I guess you're thinking along the lines,
to answer your question, is what are the things
that are going to help me to not slow down?
Good aerobic conditioning, good muscular strength,
and good biomechanics or good core strength and stability.
So that has a performance benefit, if you've got
good efficient technique it means you're efficient.
So you can sustain your output for longer.
But there's also an injury prevention component as well.
If the technique is good, and the core strength
and stability is good, as you up the mileage
there's going to be less chance of injury.
So as an endurance athlete, of course the enemy
is getting sick or getting injured.
You know, the whole premise is you want
consistent training over time.
So I'd say the main thing is
embrace the challenge physically.
Work out specifically what your own
limitations as an athlete are,
and it might be you're an age-grouper
who hasn't got a lot of time to train.
So in that regard, you might want to give yourself
a much longer lead-in to your Ironman.
And build that strength and conditioning
over much more time.
It might be that you've been a collegiate runner
and you have a great running background,
but you're a short distance guy
so you need to build the backend aerobic conditioning.
So I think you need to identify, as an athlete,
where your strengths and weaknesses lie
and address those, and it doesn't matter who you are,
you can never do enough core strength and stability.
I think that efficiency component,
and operating with good functional movement
to prevent injury is always important
in the longer distance races,
and in any kind of endurance training.
- Yeah, so basically really worry about not slowing down,
and that's the back half of the marathon.
- Yeah.
- And to do that, really look at things like core stability,
working the gym, hill reps is a really good one
I heard you say there.
- [Craig] Hill running, a lot of negative split running,
so you do your faster running on tired legs.
- [Interviewer] So out for a half an hour,
back quicker, stuff like that?
- Yeah, and build that into your long run.
I think it's good to replicate the race
without doing the race.
I don't think to run a good marathon
you have to run a marathon in training.
But you have to replicate the similar demands on your body.
Like holding form and pace on fatigued legs.
So do a long run where you just go out
at a certain pace, like very easy,
and come back at your goal or race pace, or close to it.
So trying to hold form and hold your goal race pace
on fatigued legs.
- [Interviewer] And that could also be
as part of a brick of the bike, right?
- Part of a brick, so yeah, you're simulating the demands
of what your body, what you want your body to do,
but in training.
Yeah, so I think running hills is always a good thing.
I used to do a lot of my aerobic easy runs over the hills.
It builds in that natural intensity,
the aerobic conditioning, but also the leg strength as well,
which I think is important.
So yeah, you want to concentrate
on your strength and endurance.
You know, most people, if you've done sprint distance races,
or Olympic distance races, and that's generally
the path a lot of people take building up,
or they do it, like you mentioned,
you might have done a few half marathons or half Ironmans.
The pace you've done in those is probably going to be quicker
than your marathon pace.
So speed's not really going to be the issue,
it's more holding speed.
- And just not slowing down that quickly
over the length of the longer race.
- Yeah, so you want to incorporate things in your training,
and it doesn't matter whether you're a pro athlete
trying to win in Kona,
or you're a first-timer at any event,
core strength and stability; you look at the best athletes,
or the ones who have good outcomes,
whatever their goals may be.
I think that's always time well spent
in the training program.
And it's something you can do at home.
You don't have to go to a gym.
You just need maybe a couple of dumbbells and a Swiss ball.
I mean, you can google core strength and stability exercises
for swimming, cycling and running,
and there's hundreds of them.
There's many great exercises you can do.
- You've got a video for us there Craig?
- Well there's videos...
- There we go.
- a lot of pay per fan videos.
- You beat it to us, yeah.
- But yeah, there's a lot of exercises you can do
where the strength gains you get
translate well into those disciplines
that we use in swim, bike and run.
- [Interviewer] Think I'll go give them a go now.
- [Craig] (laughs)
- Well I don't know about you guys,
but I find those points from Craig really interesting,
and certainly something worth implementing
into a training routine,
so hopefully you guys are able to do that.
And please let us know in the comments section below
if you are interested in taking up his advice.
You should be.
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