I think the order is significant too, if I was going to do it again a spring IM and an autumn Marathon would fit better I think. Then you’ve got a swim bike focus through winter while you recover.
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Yeah food for thought for me, and I assume I can’t be the only one building up to a peak long run rather than maintaining it
Was going to preemptively talk about increasing weekly load/double days or weekends, but @buzz beat me to that one.
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Double days are good, as are MP specific runs as i think you mentioned above…
A big cause of hitting the wall is incorrect pacing…there are multiple calculators that say if you can run your 5k park run at X, you will be pushing Kipchoge for the win…
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True for me, at least
With no training limits a weekly long run 1h45-2h that occasionally lengthens to 2h30 is probably optimal. Hard to fit into a busy family lifestyle though.
For clarity, that plan was only ever 1 run a day, but 2 ‘longish’ runs on consecutive days. Also included long MP runs in the plan, and some long cruising intervals too. Only 4 runs a week, I biked and swam as recovery, but every session over an hour.
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GTN literally published yesterday the same story on YouTube again. Reminding me how I hit all the target markers for my goal Marathon time …and yet… 
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Yep understood what you meant, I was including it in general idea of backing up with running on tired legs, whether that be the same or following day, or doing race pace intervals within ± at the end of a long run.
Pace intervals is as far as I’ve got, but that’s because my recent run training has been paltry and a scramble to recover from injuries.
First step for me is getting yearly volume above 1200km before I move on to specifics.
What we are trying to achieve by running on tired legs is worth examining.
What would be your in season run volume (in hours)?
It’s not like I was doing them every week, but my weekend roughly three weeks out was:
Friday - 40x100 at an outdoor lido
Saturday - 6hr ride (broken into some intervals) with a 30min run off
Sunday - 30min warm up turbo into 3hr run/walk (37k)
All felt very comfortable volume in truth
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For the first time I’m planning on taking my my long training runs to 3hrs in this Bolton build up - all 9-1 and easy pace.
I’ve always been underprepared in every Ironman so I’m trying to really nail this build
14 weeks out and todays run is 2 hrs
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I think someone mentioned it above. But what is ‘optimally trained’ or ‘not prepared enough’? Enough for what?
A really important factor is how this all fits in with life. It’s about trying to optimise based on the time and resource available. Could I, for instance, do a better IM and mara if I trained 20 hrs a week? Yes of course.
Does that mean I’ve acted sub optimally in the past? Versus my absolute potential, sure. But against the time and resource I had to hand? Probably still a yes 
, but less so.
My interest in the topic was really about how you select a target. On the bike you can train to power and have a good idea of what you should target for example, over pots of practise rides etc etc.
But you can’t ride for 6 hours and then test out a whole bunch of target paces/efforts for a 3 hr run afterwards. So how do you then create a sensible target and benchmark. Hence my call back to a standalone.
On the topics of long runs, i do also agree that it’s getting used to long runs in general. Lots of people fear that 20 miler on the programme. For me personally, having dipped my toe into ultras and silly stuff like that. I’ll go and run 30 miles tmw, and not fear it in the slightest. Done nice and slow with good nutrition and I’ll be in miles better shape tmw vs going out and smashing a road half mara for example.
I guess I’m a bit sheltered/warped in my thinking being a more natural runner (compared to the other two), so maybe thta does come easier to me? But if you run a good few times at like 50km or over (do it on trails - slower, don’t worry about pace, kinder on the body) in the off season or seasons, then you’ll suddenly not be fussed at all by a 2.5 hr IM intensity jog.
Don’t have a ton of time. So bit of a brain dump. Apologies for gaps and incoherence. Par for me though.
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enough to achieve the objective(s)…
But that is a part of the equation - all too often unrealistic objectives are set based on x hours of training or x training load but the athlete can only achieve or only achieves y…but the objectives remain the same…
Well, you can, but i may question the 6 + 3 unless it is absolutely necessary and the appropriate build has been made…
what’s one of them?
@joex For NZ Jan and Feb were 3.5hrs a week average (2:50 building to biggest week 4:20 = 54km)
But I was always racing to catch up a missed base since October I ran 0.8km, and November 40km. So as @explorerJC says, it’s not necessarily that I’d like to run drastically more, but I’d like to have a lot more consistent weeks of 3-4hrs, with some slightly longer peak weeks as a lesser priority.
In terms of content, I did zero training faster than Ironman pace. Obviously I’d like to rectify that with a better build and being confident enough to have that increased stress. So I’d do some faster running in shorter sessions, and some IM pace intervals as part of my longer sessions.
If I was feeling good at regular 2-2.5hr runs, I’d consider going longer. Probably let @adam take the punt on that one first. If I did I’d run-walk, on trails, and be slower than race pace to go for time on feet rather than hugely increasing physiological cost. @stenard your 37km across 3hr is pretty much the same pace you ran for the Ironman, which is interesting.
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Last year I didn’t run over 25km in the build up to Bolton. I was done by the end of the second lap. I then dropped from 7th M35 to 14th at the finish
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I think it has to be a comfortable 2hrs, no more, so it can be repeated in the season without impacting other training. Not a PB/race effort.
Presumably there also has to be an element of individuality and gingers run background means when fit he can do 2hrs with no detriment. I have a friend who does over 20 marathons a year - I wouldn’t tell him he couldn’t do one as part of an IM build.
I think the original Q has been pretty much answered for GB with a rough target of difference to standalone, then I’d look to do a couple of long runs off long bikes (4:30-1:30 I like) to dial that pace in. Along with questioning how good intervals feel at that pace during long runs on tired legs
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not just an element - it is all individualised (or should be)…
i usually build athletes up to this (and possibly more) with a monthly race specific brick
the intervals will feel great…it’s the reps that usually hurt…
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My whole IM build was largely about making what was my IM run pace “routine”. So there was lots of it in training, and I did quite a bit faster than that through the year too.
That is traditionally the mindset of my coach. Compared to others I think he has a heavier run focus. Whereas lots of others I see spending a huge amount of time on the bike, which is understandable seeing it’s the largest component of the race, but then the run is more survive rather than thrive. I was genuinely looking forward to the run in that first IM
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so do i in all my IMs…for about 10 mins 
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Interesting points, I should have mentioned that in my better marathons it would generally be off some dedicated marathon training but still included cycling & swimming in readiness for summer. Quite whether that helped me I’m not convinced but a high run mileage would destroy me quickly. Maybe I was going to quickly in some sessions but a lot of my paces were determined by the Daniels table based on races.
I did peak out at 7-100K for a few big weeks towards the peak but that sometimes included trails\fell, totally unsustainable for me for anything more than a few weeks, although if I did run\walk that might have made it safer. I’m not convinced higher mileage would have made me much quicker either, probably more overtrained unless I completely binned the cycling & swimming.
After an April marathon it was usually keeping the running ticking over and building the swim\bike up for IM’s in July & sometimes October.
I suspect my conclusion from this is that on the actual IM day my marathon might have been less than 30 minutes off what I was capable of doing a standalone marathon at.
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