I’m a bit late to this conversation,
This is my profile for 2021
I’ve seen huge gains, especially running in 2021, and I’ve been doing lots of training at very low intensity. According to intervals.icu, I have been doing base training.
This is my run profile
This is my cycling profile
Question for coaches @Hammerer or @explorerJC or anyone else who has something to add
My running has got much faster in 2021, but over 92% of my training is in Zone 1 and Zone 2. I am running over 80km (6.5 hours) per week, in absolute terms I am running around 35 mins per week in Zone 3 and above, probably around 9km.
Most of my high intensity work is on the bike (Zwift racing). I have too much fatigue to run more often at a higher intensity, however, I still feel very good running at a lower intensity, and I am still pretty fast at a low intensity (4:30 - 4:50/km). Would I see gains by reducing intensity on the bike and adding more high intensity runs?
Really hard to say without looking at your history a bit closer. I’d have to ask what do you want to achieve running wise you are not already achieving
Non-specific to your Q I’m afraid, just general thought is my 2c would be that injury and fatigue wise it makes sense to do more of the moderate and high intensity work in swim and bike.
Most of LD Triathlon is learning to run when fatigued hence not needing to do much true “fast” work (eg quicker than raw 5k pace). Yes need some to maintain the ceiling, and neuromuscular/technique etc, but IM run pace is firmly Z2 for most (and Z1 for lots of people with walks). Hence better to get the cardio developments from swim/bike.
As for specific proportions, that’s for someone more knowledgeable than me but not sure anyone will be able to give specifics online.
I don’t know what I don’t know. Basically I am achieving way more than ever expected to be able to achieve in my running. Maybe I am just beeing greedy, but is there even more to come?
I am now thinking that a sub 3 hour IM run is possible… even though I have never run a 3hour stand alone marathon
Are you talking in terms of triathlon running, or just running? As @Chriswim says, IM run pace is not particularly quick so you would get limited returns from doing training to improve your 5K / 10K run speed. But if you want to maximise a stand-alone marathon time, then improving your 10K speed might be a good place to start - assuming your distance / time graph doesn’t have a huge drop-off as the distances increase.
But you would need to reduce the hard biking, so if tri is your main priority then the overall benefits may not be there.
In simple terms, if the goal is sub 3 hour start adding some work at , what is it ~4:10/km pace? , maybe add some sections in a midweek mid distance run at that pace. Build up distance you can hold that for.
That is also my logic. I can run @ 4m/km at 80% of MHR, which is high Zone 2, so in theory I should be able to keep this up for a stand alone Marathon. running at 4:17/km (3 hour marathon pace) is 75-77% of my MHR. This year I have reduced my 5km time to 16:47, but that really hurt
I’ve done some half marathon training runs at this pace as they felt relatively easy
I must have missed this?! Bloody hell! That’s seriously impressive off no speedwork. 3:21/km pace?!
I certainly have personal experience that lots of aerobic volume yields big benefits. I did my 35:54 (so 3:35ish pace) 10k off marathon training which had big blocks of long intervals 4:05ish, so similar to what you are currently doing. I’d not run anything near 3:30 pace in months when I did that, other than some strides, but 3:20 pace is really going some!
You should cruise sub3 standalone given I did 2:48, but a sub3 IM run is definitely a different challenge. The way you’ve progressed over the past 18+ months would probably say to me it is not unrealistic though!
I’m being an idiot, how do you get the totals segregated into bike and run? I’m getting the combined figures and can only see a filter for indoor, outdoor & commute?
My profile is Threshold which I guess suggests I’m doing ‘junk miles’? Not doing enough easy miles and then not doing the hard sessions hard enough? Kind of makes sense, I’m not doing enough volume to vary it much.
Select from that drop down box
I remember seeing your blocks of 4:05m/km runs and being seriously impressed. Now I am doing the same in my training, I still find it bizarre that I am running RPE moderate/easy at 4:05m/km, when 6 months ago it was definitely running hard
The 16:47 came a bit out of no where. I was doing the Zwift Duathlon for 6 weeks, running absolutely max out for 15 mins, and did a 5k off the back of that. Now that the duathlon has finished a few weeks ago, I suspect that I have already lost a lot of that pace already
maybe try added that pace into some bricks now and build up to maybe 3hr/90mins and see how it goes? build up though and dont over exert yourself, if it feels too tough back off the run and try to add a bit next time.
Thanks, I will give that a go. Not done any long bricks, so that will be worth trying
Wow Matt I also hadn’t realised your 5km time had come down that much. Absolutely flying - you’d be up there with the big hitters at Bushy park run with that pace!
Long bricks test your nutrition and pacing…if you can hold 3 hour pace at 75% MHR, then you are in a good position and have a good aerobic engine.
However, this is all about the bike and being able to run a sub 3 off a fast bike is going to be a challenge…thus specific brick sessions that will assess the bike pace you can hold without compromising the run will be vital…
That’s not strictly true…
But that is where many falter (often due to insufficient aerobic development)
Now that Strava is tracking running power, Intervals is sending me power of the season notifications for my running. Although, atm there’s no power curve for running.
If you go to the power page (3rd menu item) then under ‘all activities’ choose ‘add filter’, then ‘activity type’, you can select a power curve for ‘run’ and ‘virtual run’ to get a power curve for running even though the title still says its a Ride power curve. Its not as easy as just clicking on ‘Ride’ and selecting ‘Run’, which is what I suspect will happen soon, but it does work.
