Running (Very) Fast in Ironman

How to run a 2.42 marathon in an Ironman.

Or maybe the subject should be more “What did I do/how did I train to be able to run a 2.42 marathon in Ironman New Zealand 2004”.

When I finished 2: nd in IM NZ -04, I set a new run course record and ran my fastest IM marathon by over 10 min. And when I crossed the line it wasn’t like I had been suffering and pushing my body over the limits more than in the previous races for 42 K, it was more the other way around. For the first time I came of the bike and from the first step to the last step on that marathon I felt like I was just “cruising”.
And for all of you that have seen the run course at IM NZ know that it’s not a flat course where you have the wind in your back all the time, okay, it’s not a hilly course but it’s pretty much rolling all the time.

I will by this article try to look back and see what I did different in my training from previous years building up to that race. Even if I have tried hard I haven’t been able to repeat that IM run split since either. I did run a 2.44 marathon in IM Brazil 2.5 month after my fast run in IM NZ after Gordo and I had been riding cross the States, but I believe that run split was also based on the training I did building up to IM NZ that year.
I have also been able to pull off a few good run splits at the Ironman distance race Quelle Challenge in Roth, Germany, but compare to IM NZ Roth has an “easy” run course.

Mmmm, where should I start??
I have always been a pretty good runner, and also when I started to race shorter triathlons (up to ½ IM) almost 10 years ago I was able to run well of the bike and have one of the fastest run splits, but then when I started to race Ironman 2001 I went from being the fastest runner to be a average good runner, and for the first few years I got pretty upset that I wasn’t able really run the marathon, it felt more like a painful jog where my legs felt like 2 heavy pieces of wood. With a personal best of 1.07 half marathon and sub 15 min on the track I know how it should feel when you run, and that was not how my first IM runs felt.

So what did I do different leading up to IM NZ 2004 and what can you do overall in your training and racing strategy to run faster of the bike??

First of all I believe that if you are riding over you ability on the bike leg you can not aspect that you will run well of the bike, with this I don’t mean that you must cruise the bike to be able to run well, but most of the time if you give away 5-10 min from your bike split you will run 15-20 min quicker. And that is not only because your legs will be fresher, it also has to do with that if you have been riding with a lower heart rate which probably means that you have been able to fuel your self better and your stomach have been able to absorb the energy so you can start the run full of energy, we all know that its much easier to eat and drink on the bike than during the run, if you can pace yourself a little on the bike at least.

Then I know from my own experience that most of us should have major benefits from more stretching, take away a few hours a week from your swim, bike and run training and stretch more, if you want to have a smooth, energy saving running step you can not have hamstring, gluts or hip muscles that are tight like a rocks. This will not only make you to a faster runner, you are also making your back a favour so you will be able to enjoy triathlon racing without back pain for a few more years.

So that was 2 major things that has to do with the run split as well other then the run training itself. But let’s go back to what I did leading up to IM NZ -04.

The first time I was training in NZ was Jan-March 2002 and I got introduced to long distance training for the first time, before that I didn’t train that much but when I did train I went pretty hard, and I saw that I got pretty good results from very little training, but of course you need to do some long distance training if you want to race at longer distances. So after been adding some more volume to my training for a year I decided to study one semester at the “local” university in the fall 2003, and because if this I didn’t have as much time to train so I ended up to go back to my old way of training for 4 month. I did a few quality sessions each week in each sport and some strength training but that was pretty much it, so about 12-14 hours a week of training, but as I said, good quality. For run training I did 2 sessions on an indoor 200 m track and 2-2.5 hour long run each week. The indoor sessions were 8*1 K with 1 min recovery and the 2: nd indoor session was 3*3 K repeat with 2 min recovery. It wasn’t all out session so I always made sure that I was able to run the last interval a little bit faster than the first but they were all at good pace, almost like I was training for a 10-15 K running race.

For bike training I mostly did 2 sessions each week on my indoor bike or trainer, the sessions was 6*8 min with 2 min recovery at a good pace. The same was for swimming, just a few sessions but good quality. For strength training I focused on the core but also did some lower and upper body stuff.

Then I finished my semester just before Christmas 2003 and flew to Gordo in NZ to train. And all of you that knew Gordo back then know that he liked to train a lot, (as he still does) so I joined in on his training schedule and my training hours got 2 and sometimes 3 times as many compare to when I was studying, but the intensity wasn’t as high so I was able to tolerate the training pretty good.

In the middle of January we did an Epic Camp on the north Island of NZ which went well overall for me, and I think it was day 6 or 7 of the camp where we raced the Auckland ½ IM. I was able to race strong and finish of with a 1.13 run split on a fair course.

Then finally it was the beginning of March and IM NZ was about to come around the corner. I had raced there the 2 previous years and finished 12: Th and 4: Th overall with a run split of 3.05 and 2.57 if I don’t remember wrong, and I didn’t think that I had done anything different this year so I didn’t aspect anything special out there.

But during the race I could feel that I was much better prepared then before, and it wasn’t all the distance training the last 2 month leading up to the race that had been the difference, it was what I had done the 4 month before that. During race I was able to hold a better pace on the bike for longer periods of time and when I caught up to some group on the bike I was able to hold my 10 meters and recover for a few minutes and then take of again.

And when I finally started the run it was like I had been on a little warm up ride, of course I was a little bit stiff in my lower back but after a few kilometres I was running without any stiffness. I was very surprised how easy it felt even if I ran at 3.45-3.50 min/K pace which was much faster then what I had been able to hold in an IM before, and that wasn’t a pace that I had planned to be able to hold, I just ran based on how it felt and I was very comfortable at that pace. Even the last 10 K I didn’t slow down that much, but of course at that point I had to push a little bit to be able to hold the pace up but I ended up to run the 2:nd ½ marathon pretty much at the same speed as the first one.

So, my summary of this is that if you want improve your IM finishing time and marathon split it’s not all about endurance, you also need to improve your “top” running speed/ strenght, lets say your 5 and 10 K speed, and you also need to work on your bike fitness/pacing so you can come through the 180 K ride without being to fatigued.

And the 2:nd part of this summary is that as you can see it worked great for me to first work on my strength/ speed for 3-4 month, then build my endurance for a few month on top of that. And by doing it that way and not the other way around which I believe is the most common way to do it, work on your endurance then add speed, I was able to get much more “quality” out of my endurance training.

I don’t know if this above made sense at all to you, but I think we start to see it more now when the Olympic guys start to move up and race at IM distance, even if they haven’t been training “long” for more then a few month they are able to race very well at Ironman distance races., of course they might at first have some trouble with pacing but as soon as they figure that out then they can go very fast at Ironman races.

So why not try something different for next season, when the winter arrives do sessions to work on your VO2 max, lactate threshold and overall strength and flexibility, then when the sun start to come out in end of February add some longer sessions and who knows, you might be very fast next year.

Take care
Clas