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
With over 500 members, we are the worlds largest and fastest growing long course triathlon team. Go here to create a FREE 5-day trial membership.

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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.

Endurance Nation Triathlon Coaching
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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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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?
Signup for one of our FREE triathlon training seminars. You’ll receive a 10% discount on any Endurance Nation training plan and a FREE Four Keys of Ironman Execution DVD, a $37 value!

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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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photo credit: akunamatata

In a previous post we outlined our recommended means of building run fitness across a triathlon season by emphasizing the importance of building fast over far. If you read that article, then you learned about the hidden cost of volume, velocity vs volume, and the importance of benchmarking. Or perhaps you have reviewed our online training manual (free, here) and seen how we build a season.

And if you are a follower of our blog, then you know we think running a marathon in the off season is one of the biggest multisport sins an aspiring triathlete can make.

This raises the inevitable question: At what point in your year can you actually go long with your running to get better?

Here are some macro level pointers on how we suggest you proceed.

1 — Separate Running from Your Triathlon Training

You can’t just add more running your triathlon training program and expect to see results. You’ll see change for sure, but most of those improvements will be short-term. Other deltas will most likely include sub-par cycling performance and increase levels of mental and physical fatigue.

Start the cycle off right by taking a training break before becoming a runner. Starting a major run block just two weeks after your last race is a recipe for trouble.

At the same time, we encourage you to leave the “Fast then Far” mentality behind for this run focused block. As you’ll only be running, you’ll have plenty of time to rack up the miles and hours. More time spent training means the intensity must come down if you are to absorb it all.

Instead of two hard runs (out of four) in a week, this might mean cutting back to just one short interval run at threshold pace (5 x 3 minutes at Threshold with 2 minutes of rest after each, for example) with the remainder of your runs done in zones 1 and 2. Or perhaps you hold the intensity for the latter stages of your program; maybe you skip it entirely. Only you know what’s best.

2 — Define Yourself As A Runner

Part of the separation process listed above is about finding your own identity as a runner. The running game is different than triathlon in that the type of recovery required is significantly more intensive. The fueling needs are different, both within your workouts and across your day. Take the time to find this niche, as what you think you’ll need (when you start) will ultimately be different than what you’ll actually need (as you evolve).

You should also consider a review of your running technique. After all, if you are going to spend 100% of your exercise time doing one thing, you want to be good at that thing! There are tons of resources available online, from clinics to coaches, from DVDs to mp3s. Explore what resonates for you and spend some quality early time building your new skill sets.

3 — Conservatively & Consistently Conquer Volume

A mouthful for sure, but if you can remember the mantra you’ll be much better off. As a “new” runner the temptation will be there to cook yourself. Road races outnumber triathlons as much as 8:1 in most areas, meaning you’ll have weekday and weekend options to put the hammer down. Resist.

Start your new program with the same number of runs you’ve been doing as a triathlete. Add time to each run then condense that time into a new daily run; then repeat. Good running form is like wine, the longer you give it, the more robust it will be. Once you have been at the new running game for 6-8 weeks, you can begin thinking about doing some longer runs. By longer I mean anything over 90 minutes.

Try not to go crazy. The average triathlete, regardless of goal race distance, spends anywhere from 8 to 14 hours a week training across all three disciplines. By comparison, a high volume running week doesn’t take a lot of time, and it’s tempting to add more to the mix. For someone who averages 8:30/miles, putting in a 50 mile week is only a seven hour undertaking.

4 — Pick A Goal, Not A Race

It’s easy to drop a marathon on calendar in five months, it’s another thing to train for it. All of a sudden you’ll have a goal time and a goal pace. Next thing you know, you are measuring every run against those metrics. Before too long you are burned out and the run project’s a bust.

Instead of just racing, choose non-performance related goals that are consistent with your new approach to running. Maybe aim for a 30-days/30-runs challenge; or maybe try to run a set number of miles for a set number of days (8 miles a day for 8 days). Perhaps there’s a local hill you want to conquer or maybe you want to explore every trail option in the nearby state park. Whatever your goal, make it both challenging and fun.

There’s nothing to stop you from jumping into a race on short notice should things work out, but don’t let it be the carrot/stick that gets you going.

Here’s a quick snapshot of how an Ironman athlete might proceed with a four month run-focused block of training. In this case the athlete builds from four weekly runs with a max duration of 60 minutes for the longest run up to six weekly runs topping out at 2 hours and 20 minutes. It’s assumed that the individual runs will increase in duration each week, save for every fourth week where the volume cuts back a bit to allow for some recovery.

Per the guidance above, this runner doesn’t get really serious about long distance work until after 8 weeks, and any major volume goals (or racing) wouldn’t really happen until that last block.

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The runners had a great day, with perfect temps and perhaps just a bit too much wind — but nothing jaw-droppingly hard. That was reserved for the hills of Newton and the rolling terrain of Beacon Street beyond!

Thanks to all of you: William, Michelle, Chris, Bryan, Matt, Amy, Todd, Bill, Keith & Linda and Mark who made it out to our Team Lunch on Sunday…I hope the food proved to be good fuel!

Here are the numbers for the folks I saw, in alphabetical order. Great job by all on a pretty good / yet tough day. Boston is NOT an easy marathon course and you all did very, very well!!!!

• Matt Ancona: 2:49:40
• Todd DesFossess: 3:29:05
• William Jenks: 3:16:40
• Bill McKinney: 4:02:16
• Greg Rhodes: 3:32:48
• Mark Roberts: 3:54:37

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• Running Potential: “What CAN I run on race day, given current fitness, training, etc?” The best predictor of Running Potential on race day is your VDot score.
• Running Success: “Given my running potential, what WILL I run on race day.” The best predictor of Running Success on race day is race execution skills.

So you show up to T2 with a VDot score and race execution skills. Which is most important?

Race Execution Skills!!!!!!!

All the running potential in the world can’t help you if you don’t know how to execute a 26.2 mile run at the end of a 140 mile day. And the Ironman run course is littered with the shattered bodies and broken dreams of very fit boys and girls…who don’t know how to race. I’ll cover race execution in Part IV of this series, but I just wanted to begin this discussion about how to run faster by driving home the central point of everything I do as the coach of a Team of Ironman athletes: execution, execution, execution.

Jack Daniels Running Formula and VDot
Back in the day, before heart rate monitors, Dr. Maffetone, and 220-age quackery, runners trained by pace. Jack Daniels created a training with pace system, described in his book, the Jack Daniels Running Formula. I HIGHLY recommend you purchase and read his book. The method is simple:

1. Perform a test or race on a known distance, flat course. 5k, 10k, half marathon, etc. This test is the functional expression of my fitness. “However fit I think I might be, whatever my body is doing/can do inside, the functional expression of that fitness is my current ability to run a 5k in 21:30.” This is a hard, objective, non-fuzzy data point.
2. Use his tables (or an online calculator) to extract a VDot, based on your test above. We also extract a Lactate Threshold Heart Rate number from this test and calculate heart rate training zones.
3. From this VDot, extract training paces. These paces are integrated with heart rate training zones. The net is that our athletes train all year with pace as the primary intensity measurement, heart rate as the secondary, and the combination of the two gives them very powerful insight into their bodies.
4. Create a training plan that applies these training paces to achieve your fitness goals.
5. Retest to reassess/reset VDot and establish new training paces, based on your improving fitness.
6. Apply these new paces to your training plan.

With the ever more affordable availability of running GPS units, what’s old is now new again. For nearly three years we have applied the Jack Daniels principles to our Team of over 400 long course triathletes. That’s a LOT of data and this is what we have learned:

Lesson #1: Ironman Running Potential = E-Pace
Timmy trains and trains and trains. About 3-4wks out from Ironman Wisconsin he tests and his final VDot is 52, yielding an E-pace of 8:16/mile. We have three years of data that says his potential Ironman marathon time is 3:36. Timmy then executes his race, based on this demonstrated fitness, his VDot, not hopes, dreams, and “guts.” What you do on race day is a function of what you actually CAN do, not hope/think/wish you could do. Given his running potential, Timmy’s success on race day is a function of:

1. Race execution skills, by far.
2. Running durability, created through running frequency, consistency, and volume, but…

Lesson #2: Running volume is NOT the best predictor
If you want to run fast on race day you need to make yourself a faster runner by…running fast. This is largely counter to the culture of the sport, which preaches becoming a better or stronger (whatever that means) runner by focusing on volume performed at Heart Rate Zone X. There are several fundamental flaws with this volume focus:

1. As you’ve heard us say so many times, if volume is your only solution to a problem (as it is for traditional Ironman training), what happens when you run out of the ability to do more volume? In our experience, the run volume of 90% of Ironman athletes is about 30-35 miles per week. Maybe the occasional 40+ mile week, 50+ are VERY rare. This is just where the volume of most AG’ers sorts itself out, given the need to integrate this with running with swimming and cycling. In short, there are significant get-faster-thru-volume limitations within the context of AG’er Ironman training, ie, you can only do so much volume before your body starts to break down or that volume seriously impacts other workouts.
2. Does not yield very useful race day guidance. After training with volume and heart rate, I still enter the run course on race day without very clear pacing guidance. I’ve run x miles per week…but what does that mean in terms of what I should actually DO on race day? I’ve been training at heart rate X…but what does that mean within the context of the Ironman run, where my heart rate can be significantly different than in training?  Our solution is to combine training and racing into one coherent system: by training with pace I finish the preparation phase of my training with a test yielding objective data — “this is what I can DO with my current fitness.” This data is then plugged into a system that’s been proven across hundreds of athletes.

Lesson #3: Build Fast, then Far
As you know, we preach that if you want to be faster you need to actually MAKE yourself faster. The most effective and time efficient manner to go faster is to spend time…going fast. However, as an Ironman athlete, we also need to build your ability to go Far. Our solution is separate the need to make you faster from the requirement to make you “farther,” by making you faster in our OutSeason, months and months away from your higher volume training. We train all of our athletes to be faster 5k runners in the OutSeason. Yep, I said it. Our Ironman athletes are training like 5k runners for 5mo per year. These athletes then apply this significantly increased running speed to PR’s at the half and full Ironman distance after they build Far on top of this Fast. Please review the testimonials of our athletes.

Lesson #4: Intense Running isn’t as Scary as You Think
Traditional Ironman training says that you’ll instantly implode on your first tempo run if you haven’t first earned the right to run faster by having punched the high volume clock…a lot. Our experience says otherwise:

1. We work within a system (Jack Daniels) that has been proven through the results of literally millions of runners. In short, you always run at a pace that’s appropriate for you, as determined by an actually run test or race. In other words, what you do is function of what you have demonstrated you CAN do. Not a guess, not a SWAG, not hope…but an actual test.
2. It doesn’t take a ton of get-faster training to make you faster. For perspective, as little as 2-4 miles/wk, total, at Tempo pace, can significantly boost your running speed.
3. We’ve learned to how to integrate this get-faster run training within a triathlon schedule. Most notably:

• Our “FAST then FAR” jazz above. This is huge.
• We have figured out and added a “Half Marathon Pace” to the Daniel’s pacing tables. This has been a very useful training pace for us.
• 5k’s as running tests, as they are most repeatable and easy to integrate into an Ironman training schedule.

Rich Strauss
Endurance Nation

Need a half or full Ironman training plan? Ours are in their seventh generation of improvement, used by thousands of long course finishers, age group winners and Kona qualifiers! Use discount code EN10 to save 10%! Interested in learning more about training with pace? Please download our Training with Pace ebook.

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Coach Rich at IMCDA'08

The Ironman run course is where PR hopes and dreams go to die a painful death. The course is littered with the bodies of very fit people who’ve done all the right training, or so they think, but who slow down dramatically on the run. In our opinion, traditional Ironman training has several weaknesses, and just gets several things completely wrong:

• “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” In the Ironman world, that hammer is training and fitness. A poor race is the result of poor training and can only be fixed by…training more. In our experience, race execution is FAR more important than fitness. All the fitness in the world can’t help you if you don’t know to race.
• The hammer above usually has “Volume” stamped on the side of it, the solution to all fitness shortcomings — just throw volume at it! The scenario is this: the Ironman athlete runs, and runs, and runs, counting miles, hours, and strategerizing “how long should my long run be?” Then, before the race, they basically throw a dart at a dartboard to guess their marathon goal time (see below).
• Traditional Ironman thinking doesn’t offer a clear Ironman marathon goal time, based on current fitness, past PR’s, or actual training/racing data. Ask the tri world “I run a 3:45 open marathon…what should I be able to run in an Ironman?” and you’ll get a WIDE range of answers, all vague. This lack of precision, and advice that’s not based on actual data, leads Ironman athletes to often set unrealistic goals for their race. They pace the run incorrectly as a result and implode magnificently in the last 8-10 miles.

We’ve broken the Ironman run down into a three step system, which we’ll share with you in this series:

Step 1: Get Faster.
Within Endurance Nation we prefer, whenever possible, to train and race with power and pace. While a powermeter can be an expensive purchase, the price of running GPS devices continues to decline. The net is that MANY of our athletes train for and race Ironman with pace, creating a tremendous opportunity for us to analyze their data. In Part I we’ll share with you what we’ve learned from the training data of over 400 athletes.

Step 2: Run More Efficiently
You can train your body to run more smoothly and efficiently. However, it’s not as complicated and arcane as the rest of the tri world would have you think. In Part II we’ll share with you how you can run much more efficiently with only a 20-30 minute investment per week.

Step 3: Execute!
400 athletes training with pace = 400 athletes RACING with pace = a LOT of data on what actually works! In Part III we’ll share with a system that:

1. Will predict your marathon time within 3-7 minutes, based on your current measured fitness, not shoulda, coulda woulda’s.
2. Will tell you exactly what pace you should run for every mile of the race.

Creating, implementing, and refining this system has been a long process and we are eager to share the system, and it’s results with you:

• IM athletes knocking on the door to Kona, a podium spot, or racing with a performance mindset: the simplicity, and data/results driven nature of it’s origins will appeal to you. It will offer you an opportunity to increase your fitness a few ticks and then apply this fitness to a proven execution system, finally pushing you over that bar you’ve been chasing for a long, long time. Ironman age group winners, podium finishers, Kona qualifiers and age group record holders have all followed this system. It WORKS.
• IM athletes finishing slower than about 11:30-45: in our experience, you just live in a world where you expect much shuffling, plodding, and even walking on the run. You’ve come to expect this as your lot in the IM life. However, we’ve been able to create 1-3 HOUR PR’s with athletes just like you by giving them the fitness, efficiency, and race execution tools that help them to…not slow down. We call them our Ten Minute Per Mile Rockstars and their journey has been our most rewarding as coaches.

Stay tuned for Part I, coming soon!

Rich Strauss
Endurance Nation Head Coach and Co-Founder

Need a half or full Ironman training plan? Ours are in their seventh generation of improvement, used by thousands of long course finishers, age group winners and Kona qualifiers! Use discount code EN10 to save 10%!

Visit Endurance Nation to create a FREE Five-Day Trial or Shop our Triathlon Training Plans!

Out Season, 2008
Rich and Patrick lock themselves down into bi-coastal coffee shops and, their brains connected through tools like Skype, Google Chat, and Google Docs, they hammer out the next version of Out-Season Plans, with these refinements:

• Zero swimming. Yeah, it’s whack but we have good reasons, it works.
• Bike = it’s still all about FTP. We tweak the intervals, move the workouts around on the weekly calendar, turn this up, this down, but in the end nothing too revolutionary.
• Run = it’s ALL about the VDot = forget the half marathon stuff and focus on 5k fitness. Yep, we are going to tell Ironman athletes to forget running endurance, half marathon OS focus, and instead train for a 5k PR. Fortunately, after being in the Haus for over a year, many had faith in us and followed us. Many others went along for the ride, swallowing big glasses of EN KoolAid being served by the upperclassmen.
• We scheduled a January Run Challenge to give those who wanted it an early season running frequency and volume pop, just for fun.

Around January reports started to trickle in from the frontlines: FTP’s at lifetime highs, VDot’s rising, check out this PR from the Frozen Tundraville 5k, etc. February got more interesting, as our East Coast Tour of California participants crushed the course, ramping up their volume 500% from 4hrs on a trainer to 25hrs+ in challenging terrain = validation of the FTP cycling focus.

But, what about the run? In March, four members of the Northern Illinois Sleeper Cell took their 5k fitness to a local half marathon and crushed their PR’s. More and more reports of 5k, 10k, half marathon, and even trail marathon PR’s began to flood in. And, astonishingly, our OS double sport focus (remember, no swimming at all + hard cycling + hard running) was validated with some early season tri performances: 25′ Oly PR’s, 25-30′+ HIM PR’s on untapered legs.

Today is April 22, 2009 and this is what we have learned:

1. It’s about the VDot. On race day you run to a VDot. A higher VDot on race day means that you have earned the right to run faster on race day. You earn that higher VDot by lifting your VDot, by simply running faster in training. If you wanna run faster on race day, you gotta become a faster runner in training. Again, not a revolutionary concept…except in the world of Ironman training and racing.
2. Running endurance is overrated. Yes, please insert caveats here regarding avoiding injury, building durability, etc. However, we have gained confidence that we can extend the Get Faster protocol deeper into the seasons of our athletes, based on their very solid performances at the half marathon and half Ironman distances. This does a couple things for us:

• We now have more weeks in the season to make them faster. For example, rather than ending the Get Faster guidance in February for an Ironman Coeur d’Alene athlete, we can now extend that focus through early/mid April. In our experience that gives them the opportunity to earn another 2-3 point VDot increase, yielding even faster paces on race day.
• Because we can extend this low volume protocol deeper into the season, we can now preserve their heads for longer and longer. High volume training comes at a high mental, lifestyle, and family cost. And let’s face it: most of us only have so many 2-2.5hr IM-flavor runs in the mental bank account before we go nuts. Maintaining this low volume protocol deeper into the season allows us to conserve their headspace. This, we have learned, is our most important long term job as triathlon coaches for age group athletes just like you.

How Endurance Nation Works
The evolution of Endurance Nation’s running protocol is excellent insight as to how we work as a community. More than 400 age-group triathletes connected online and united in their singular quest to achieve their personal athletic best. Every single member brings valuable personal experience and unique insight to the Team.

If what we have described strikes a chord with you, if you also strive to achieve your best and will leave no stone unturned, then please consider creating a free 30-day trial inside Endurance Nation before the 2009 recruitment window closes on 5/1/2009.

Visit Endurance Nation to create a FREE Five-Day Trial or Shop our Triathlon Training Plans!