Endurance Nation | Triathlon Coaching, Ironman Training, Half Ironman, Beginner Triathlon

Making improvements to your training approach is a critical annual exercise if you are looking to improve. As coaches we perform the same review, although we have the benefit of looking at training and results from a detached perspective. And our top change for the 2012 season is a big one: we decided to eliminate brick workouts (aka running off the bike) as a “special” workout.

After years of reviewing results and the feedback of our athletes, customers, and comparing both with our own training and racing experience, we have come to the conclusion that brick workouts become less valuable as the distance of your goal race increases. In other words, they are more relevant to sprint triathlon training than your next Ironman.

Brick Workouts Have (Limited) Value for the Long Course Triathlete
Before we go further, let’s be clear that there is some value to running off the bike on tired legs.

1. Mental Value: Feel it, taste it, experience it so that your first experience with running off the bike isn’t on race day.
2. Pacing Value: Learning the disconnect between Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and Pace. You’ve just been pedaling a bike for hours and now you are running. It’s very common for you to feel like you’re running at 8:00 per mile pace, only to actually be running at 7:30 per mile pace or faster.In addition, because everyone around you is running too fast, you are getting a lot of feedback that this “too fast” pace is the correct one. In fact you’ll most likely feel as though you’re not running fast enough!  A brick run will help you experience this disconnect without the pressure of a race. It will also build your confidence to run your pace vs the pace that everyone else is running in the first critical miles on race day.
3. How Do I Get My Legs Back” Value: It’s important to learn how to adjust your running form in the first couple miles in order to get your running legs back. A few bricks can help you develop and refine your own strategy to achieve this.

Become a Faster Runner by Creating Opportunities to Run Faster on Fresher Legs
Inside Endurance Nation we define fitness as the ability to do work. The “work” referenced here is the effort required to propel you down the road on the run, up mountains on your bike, or across the pool. Increased fitness then is the capacity to do more work.

The purpose of every single workout is essentially to increase your capacity to do work, and it’s under this lens that the value of a brick workout quickly disappears. Simply put, very often a brick run for the long course triathlete is a relatively slow run on tired legs. We’ve learned that the best way to become a faster runner is to create more opportunities to run faster on fresher legs.

Long Course Running is about Race Execution First, Fitness Second
There is no doubt that long course triathletes are very fit people. They swim, bike, and run a LOT, and they are doing a LOT of brick runs. But the vast majority of long course triathletes are under-performing — running slower than their potential — on race day, especially at Ironman.

Our experience across thousands of Ironman and 70.3 finishes since 2007 says that the majority of the time, failure to run to your potential on race day is a race execution issue. This is accomplished by either riding or running too hard, especially in the early stages of each leg of the race.

• The Bike:  Riding the first 45 to 90 minutes of the Half Ironman or the first two hours of the Ironman bike too hard, especially when hills and headwinds are present.
• The Run:  Running too fast in the first three to four miles of the Half Ironman or the first six to eight miles of the Ironman.

Just stand on a random hill on any Ironman bike course and you’ll see the majority of the field crushing it, working much too hard. Next, stand at mile one of the run course — you’ll think that the majority of the field is going to run a sub 3:30 marathon because there sure are a lot of folks running sub 8:00 miles. But then go out to mile 18 and you’ll see these same very, very fit people running dramatically slower.

Yet after the race, the discussion around under-performance turns away from strategy to fitness. This is because triathlon culture presents training and fitness as the answer to questions about speed and performance vs becoming a smarter, better executing long course triathlete.

Running Off the Bike is an Issue of Skill
As a triathlete fit enough to ride and run, you have no issue getting off of your bike and actually running. The challenge lies in being able to synchronize how you are working (input) with how fast you are actually running (output). One brick run where you realize that your actual pace is significantly faster than your perceived pace is enough to drive home the lesson.

For most, the initial transition about bike to run is about finding their running stride. Learning how to get from the funny post-bike leg feeling to a smooth running stride is an individual process  that, once learned, is effectively ingrained in your brain.

While running with your proper form is more efficient, it’s not necessarily any faster than the early time you spent running off the bike (as that’s usually faster than desired). If anything, finding your “run legs” means settling down into a pace that’s appropriate for the race itself.

The Wrap Up
We realize that two triathlon coaches telling their athletes and readers to not run off the bike…is very unusual! We have reflected on what we’ve learned in our nearly 20 years of Ironman coaching, over 40 personal finishes, thousands of athletes coached and dozens of races observed.

In summary, we’ve learned :

• The vast majority of the time, under-performing the run is the result of overcooking the bike or the first quarter to one third of the run.
• If you want to run fast you need to create opportunities to run fast, on fresher legs, vs slowly on tired legs.

Interested in learn more?
Go here to download our Brick Adjustment Guidelines, a FREE resource we’ve created to help you integrate these ideas into your training plan!

Go here to listen to the podcast Rich and Patrick recorded to accompany this article.

Endurance Nation Triathlon Coaching
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As part of our most recent rewrite our entire triathlon training plan suite (OutSeason, Half and Full Ironman), we decided to eliminate brick workouts (runs off the bike) as a “special” workout. After years of reviewing results and the feedback of our athletes, customers, and comparing both with our own training and racing experience, we have come to the conclusion that brick workouts hold little if any benefit.

In fact, they should be entirely avoided unless your daily schedule requires you combine your bike and run workouts! Here’s why we think you should consider making the same change.

It’s about Race Execution, Not Fitness
The triathlon space is culturally conditioned to seek out a training or money solution to a perceived problem or issue: I had a bad run at Ironman X. In order to fix this, I must train more/harder/differently to fix it.

However, our experience says that 95% of the time failure to run to your potential on race day is a race execution issue — usually riding or running too hard, especially in the early stages of each leg.

As athletes we have over 40 Ironman and half-Ironman finishes between us. As coaches we have nearly 20 years of Ironman-specific experience, having coached over 400 Ironman finishers in our years as one-on-one coaches before founding Endurance Nation in 2007. Endurance Nation is now over 500 athletes strong, with over 1000 full and half Ironman finishes in 2011 alone. Finally, Rich and/or Patrick have been at every US Ironman since 2007 to witness how the race plays out for front/middle/back of the pack athletes in all age groups.

This is a LOT of data about what works and what doesn’t work. Our conclusion is that while a poor run is often determined to be a caused by a lack of training or fitness, the truth is that it’s usually a race execution issue:

• The Bike: Riding the first 45 to 90 minutes of the Half Ironman or first two hours of the Ironman bike too hard, specifically hills and headwinds.
• The Run: Running too fast in the first 3 to 4 miles of the Half Ironman or the first 6 to 8 miles of the Ironman.

There is No Magical Run-Off-the-Bike Fitness
A run off the bike is nothing more than another run on tired legs. Before we go further, let’s be clear that there is some value to running off the bike on tired legs:

• Mental Value: Feel it, taste it, experience it so that your first experience with running off the bike isn’t on race day.
• Pacing Value: Specifically, the disconnect between Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and Pace. You’ve just been pedaling a bike for hours and now you are running. It’s very common for you to feel like you’re running at Pace X, only to actually be running at Pace Y. Generally, Y is faster than X and, because everyone around you is running too fast, you are getting a lot of feedback that Y is the correct pace, that you’re not running fast enough and that X, the slower (correct!) pace, is wayyy too slow! A brick run will help you experience this disconnect and build your confidence to run your pace vs the pace that everyone else is running in the first critical miles on race day.

But once you get these two points above…you get it. Continuing to do brick after brick after these lessons have been learned is the training equivalent of hammering a nail that’s already in the wall: easy to do yet causes peripheral damage and yields minimal results. As coaches, we’ve learned that the key to becoming a faster runner is to create opportunities for you to run faster on fresher legs.

Bricks and Running Off/Near the Bike in Endurance Nation
So, for 2012, this is how our squad, and our training plan customers, will be executing their runs “near” their cycling sessions, in order from most to least preferred:

• Separated by Several Hours — An AM bike followed by a PM run.  For example, rather than doing a hard 1hr bike followed by a 25-30’ run, you can now do that 1hr bike and then run later in the day or evening for 30-45 minutes, very likely at a faster pace and with better form than that traditional AM brick run.
• Run First, then Bike — Coach Rich experimented with this in 2011 while training for Ironman Wisconsin. Coffee then run 45-60’ at Easy to Marathon Pace. Have breakfast then do his normal Saturday or Sunday ride. Observations:

• Was able to run MUCH faster, in cooler temps and on fresher legs vs the traditional post long ride brick.
• The run had very little impact on the quality of his bike.
• However, nutrition did need to be carefully managed for rides over about 3hrs: you’re burning ~700-800 calories before breakfast, then eating about 600-800 calories before jumping on the bike to burn another 2000-3000+ calories. As a result, you really need to pay attention to properly fueling yourself during the ride. This is a good thing as every long ride should be an opportunity to practice your nutrition!

We realize that two triathlon coaches telling their athletes and readers to not run off the bike…is very unusual! We’ve received some “colorful” emails and we welcome your comments below!

We look at it this way: We can do what everyone does, giving you what you think you need because it’s just how things have been done, or…

We can reflect on what we’ve learned in our nearly 20 years of Ironman coaching, over 40 personal finishes, thousands of athletes coached and dozens of races observed.

What we’ve learned and how we apply it:

• The vast majority of the time, under-performing the run is the result of overcooking the bike or the first quarter to one third of the run.
• If you want to run fast you need to create opportunities to run fast. We do that by creating for you more opportunities to run faster, on fresher legs, vs slowly on tired legs.
• The address the mental and proper pacing issues by:

• Putting “big days” into your training plan. A “Big Day” is a 30-60’ swim followed by a 3-4hr bike and a 30-60’ run. “This is what it feels like to put it all together across a long day, this is what it feels like to run on tired legs. I get it. Done.”
• Teaching you how to execute the half and full Ironman bike and run. With over a thousand race day data points this year alone…TeamEN has a well-honed race execution system and every EN athlete races on the shoulders of the hundreds who’ve gone before him.

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“Should I walk the aid stations at my next Ironman run or just run through them?”

We’ve been recommending a run/walk strategy for our athletes and at our “Four Keys” pre-race talk for years. It works and these are our thoughts:

Run through the aid station to the last water, gel, coke, sportsdrink guy/gal, whatever your needs are for that aid station. Get it and walk for 30 steps:

• Last means you’re not tempted to walk allllll the way through the whole aid station. They can be big. You’re now, hopefully, walking among people who are running = a reminder to start running vs keep walking like everyone else.
• 30 steps is a hard, non-negotiable number that removes you from the decision to start running again. 30 steps takes about 15-18″. Maybe later in the race you start running after 30″ vs 30 steps. Whatever, pick a non-negotiable something that removes your will from the decision to start running again.

Walking for 15-30″ at the aid stations then becomes:

• A tool for slowing you down early on the run. Stand a half mile to a mile out from T2. From the looks of it, about half the field thinks they can run a sub 3:15 marathon, as hundreds drill it at sub 7:30 pace…until they end up walking 10 miles at 17′ pace. Walking the aid stations slows you down, separates you from these people who are running too fast, and focuses you on your race, a 140 mile TT, not a race to the fastest mile 8 run split, where the wheels begin to fall off for many.
• A reward for continuing to run between the aid stations. As the run develops:
  • At first you won’t need to walk the aid stations, at all. You don’t think about it until you’re in the aid station.
  • After about mile 8 or 10, you’ll start looking for the next aid station (ie, permission to walk and take a short break) about 7-8 minutes after you’ve left your last aid station.
  • Then you start looking for it at 6 minutes out.
  • Then 4 minutes out.
  • Then 2 minutes out.
  • Then 30 seconds out.
  • Giving yourself permission to walk the aid stations, beginning with Mile 1, becomes a reward for continuing to run between the aid stations. The mental conversation becomes “Body, STFU. Keep running, don’t slow down, and I will reward you for that effort over the next mile by letting you walk 30 steps at the next aid station. That’s the deal and we only have to play this game for another 6-8 miles. Suck it up.”

Walking then becomes a tactic, to keep you running and not slowing down between the aid stations, vs a failure.

Next time you go for a long run with friends, do this 1 mile on, 30″ off (walking, not standing) thing. See just how little space they actually gain on you, how quickly you can get back up to pace, and long you can maintain this total pace vs them slowing down. That slowing effect is much greater and much more likely on the IM marathon.

I have a Garmin 310 and I walk 30″ every mile on nearly all of my training runs. I have one display screen that gives me current pace, cummulative distance, time, blah, blah and another that gives me current pace, lap distance and average pace of the lap. I hit the lap button at the end of the mile and see myself walking for 30″ at about 17-18′ pace. When I start running, my avg pace for the lap is…17′. But it quickly spools down until by about .5-6 miles into the interval I’m back at the average pace I would be at anyway, had I not taken a 30″ break. Each time I do and see this, I gain confidence in what the numbers tell me. I’m also able to reset my focus on form and pace cues that I hold for 1 mile and then reset at the start of the next interval.

In summary, walking 30 steps or about 30 seconds at every aid station, beginning with Mile 1:

• Breaks the run into 26 x 1 mile boxes, within which I focus on making the best decisions possible — what to eat, what to drink, pace up/down this hill, focus on my cadence, footstrike, running form and other easy to flake on cues.
• Is a tool for slowing you down at a time of the race when nearly everyone is running too fast. Don’t try to beat a guy running 7:30′s by running 7:20′s. Do your thing, ignore him, run/walk your 8:40′s and catch him at mile 20 when he’s walking or under a bush. The IM run course is littered with the bodies of very fit people walking the IM marathon after having run much, much faster in the first 6-8 miles and refusing to walk. How’s that strategy working?
• Becomes a reward for continuing to run between the aid stations.

We’ve had Ironman athletes of all flavors set huge run PR’s and Kona qualify using our strategy. It works!

Rich Strauss

Endurance Nation Triathlon Coaching
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In a recent blog post I challenged the old skool scheduling of the long run on Sundays following the traditional long ride on Saturday. I’d like to stir things up again by encouraging you to stop running longer than 2.5hrs in your weekly long run.

Ironman athletes will often receive advice from old skool training partners or coaches pretending to know the Ironman game that they should schedule a weekly 3hr long run. This one piece of advice is probably the single most high risk, low return, ruin-your-training-week thing you can do to yourself.

Very Low Marginal Benefit
We schedule our Ironman athletes for 2-3 x 2.25-2.5hr runs during their training for their goal race. You, or your coach, feel you need to do 3hrs. So let’s talk about what benefits you receive from that additional 30-45′ of running. But first…we’re going for a bike ride.

I email you on Friday to say we’re riding 2.5hrs on Saturday. But when I show up in your driveway at 7am Saturday I say “change of plans, we’re riding 3hrs instead.” Now, in your mind, is there a material difference, a significant marginal benefit, between a 2.5 and a 3hr ride? I would argue no, these rides are, for all purposes, the same ride, one is just 30′ longer. No big deal, I know that 30′ isn’t going to make or break my performance on race day, 6-12 weeks away. So if this is true on the bike, why should the run be any different? Is running 30-45′ longer on one run per week, for about 4-6wks of your 20+ weeks of Ironman training going to create a material difference on race day? I sez no.

Very High Marginal Risk/Cost
However, in my experience, your additional 30-45′ of running comes with a very high marginal risk of injury and potential cost to downstream workouts:

• If you’ve run 2.5hrs and then run 3hrs the next week…you know things hurt a lot more, and much more quickly, then in the first hour of your run. In other words, the difference in how you feel between minute 30 and minute 60 is…meh. 60 – 120′? 2 x “meh.” But things just get exponentially harder after 2hrs…and 2 x exponentially between 2.5-3hrs. Sorry, my Math for Marines class is limiting my use of math metaphors to accurately describe how much more crappy you feel after 3hrs vs 2.5hrs   If you’ve been there…you know what I’m talking about!
• This “exponentially more crappy” effect has a HUGE impact on downstream workouts, especially if you’re still doing your long runs on Sunday despite my advice in my last blog post! Your body doesn’t magically reset itself to “recovered!” on Monday morning just because you turn the page on another training week. If you continue to do stoopid stuff on the weekends (6hr long rides, 3hr long runs), that stuff will absolutely effect your downstream workouts: your Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday sessions become compromised. You may be able to get back on track by Thursday, just in time to do the same stoopid stuff to yourself again…the cycle just repeats itself week after week but, hey, you’re following your training plan, hitting all the workouts and getting in the scheduled training hours. When you’re asleep under your desk at lunch on Monday…how’s that working for you?

So what do we get when we put our no-Sunday and no-3hr run guidance up against your old skool, free training plan, coach-who-thinks-he-knows-Ironman training advice?

• You: long run on Sunday after a long ride on Saturday = another opportunity to practice running, slowly, on tired legs. At some point in your training the combination of the length of the Saturday and Sunday session begins to significantly impact downstream workouts. In my experience, this bumping of heads begins to happen at about a 3.5-4hr long ride + 2hr long run. As you go north of this point, standby because next week is really going to start to suck. You begin to lock yourself into a cycle of crappy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday workouts, “maybe” digging yourself out your hole by Thursday…just it time to put yourself back in the hole by the weekend. Congratulations, your fitness is now treading water, if not going backwards!
• TeamEN:  Monday works with Tuesday works with Wednesday, etc, with the composition, timing, and volume of every workout carefully planned with much consideration given to how it ALL fits together across the training week. By separating the long run from the long bike, the TeamEN athlete is running on much less tired legs, enabling them to sustain higher paces during their long run. By limiting the volume of the run to 2-2.25, 2.5hrs at the most, that long run is able to accommodate some “get-faster” run training: half and full marathon paced intervals within the long run. Most importantly, the TeamEN athlete has effective Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday sessions.

Yeah…I get a little hot over this Sunday, 3hr run stuff   In my opinion, it’s the coaching equivalent of bloodletting and drilling holes in people’s skulls to let the evil vapors escape. Please, please stop doing it!

Interested in learning how to not continue training stoopidly?
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Many Ironman athletes, training plans, and coaches schedule the weekly long run on Sunday after a long bike on Saturday. The reason is often given as “you need to practice running on tired legs.”

This is NOT a good idea and here’s why:

• A long run on tired legs is just another opportunity to practice running slowly on tired legs vs running more quickly on fresher legs. The best way to become a faster runner is to create opportunities in your training week for you to…run faster, not slog through a run on wooden legs!
• The recovery cost of a long run done on Sunday, for example, after a long Saturday bike is much greater than that same run done mid-week. The net is that Monday, often Tuesday, and sometimes Wednesday’s workouts begin to become compromised, especially as that weekend volume gets up to a 4-6hrs long bike on Saturday and 2.5-3hr long run.
• Any long run in training will have at least an hour or more where your legs feel Ok. That is, they feel like you’re starting a long run after a long bike the day before. Contrast this to Ironman race day, where you’re coming right off a 112 mi bike after a 2.4mi swim. After you get your legs back a bit, by about mile 6 or 7, your legs will now feel like, at best, about mile 15 of your best long run…then it just gets harder. My point is that your tired legs on Sunday long run isn’t even close to what it’s going to feel like on race day…so why bother?

I made the switch with my athletes to a mid week (Thursday or Tuesday) long run in ’02 or ’03, I believe, and never looked back. By separating the long bike from the long run:

• The long run can now accommodate some get-faster work.
• We can separate the long run from the long bike with a no-legs day on Friday.
• We weight the cycling to the weekend. A 3hr semi-long ride on Sunday has a MUCH lower recovery cost than a hard 2.5hr Sunday run = much lower chance that it, and it’s combination with the Saturday ride, will affect your early week workouts the following week.
• Finally, it may create a social opportunity for you on the bike on Sunday — a Sunday ride with friends. Riding with other athletes, especially those stronger than you, is a very, very valuable opportunity that we encourage our athletes to seek out.

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