Many triathletes, whether getting ready to face their first IRONMAN race or seventh, still don't know how much running to do to prepare for the grueling marathon following the 2.4-mile swim and 112-mile bike. I see a lot of athletes running way too many miles a week for their level of ability, which results in injury or, in the best case scenario, feeling slow and tired on race day.
You can't rush fitness. You can't start running two hours when the longest run you've done prior was just 45 minutes. Increasing volume slowly, and letting your body adapt to the volume while maintaining day-in-day-out consistency, will give you way more of a gain than a few long runs here and there.
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An athlete's biggest concern should always be to get to the start line of every race healthy and injury free. The majority of the injuries I see are caused by running, usually from inappropriate volume, intensity, poor mechanics, wrong shoe choice and/or excessive pounding from running on concrete or pavement.
Here, I'll address inappropriate volume, which I see as the biggest problem (and the one with the easiest solution) among triathletes. So, before you head out the door on your next long run, please read on for the keys to smart run volume management.
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Body type. If you're a heavy, tall or very muscular athlete, the impact your body will have when contacting the ground is much greater than the impact a 90-pound Kenyan runner deals with. The eccentric load on your quads and calves caused by the landing, added to the load on your joints, is much greater for heavier athletes. This causes more damage to the body and impairs recovery time. This can lead to lost training consistency (or frequency of workouts) as you become too sore to train the next day. In short, the heavier, taller, or more muscular you are, the less volume you can run.
I have my athletes do a test run progression, beginning with 90 minutes and increasing 10 minutes every week. The goal is to track the joint pain level and muscle recovery. If an athlete runs two hours and has sore joints for three days, then the volume is too much for their body's current ability.
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Experience/efficiency. If you have a running background, you have trained your body in the skills and motor patterns of running and can thus move more efficiently than a beginner runner. If you are a beginner runner, you have not mastered the skills of running yet and long runs are not recommended. You should instead work on frequency and improving efficiency rather than focusing on long runs.
Age. As we get older, we start to lose muscle mass, and our joints become less lubricated. We also lose motor skills, or the ability to move efficiently. The reduction of testosterone and human growth hormone production (important for muscle repair), that happens with aging also compromises recovery. The older we get, the more we should focus our training on frequency, strength, mobility, elasticity and motor skill, and the less we should focus on volume.
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Injury history. All athletes should respect their injury history, which can act as a sign from the body that the muscles and joints have been overused or improperly used. If you know that increasing your mileage to a certain level has left you injured in the past, then this is a good indication that your body doesn't "appreciate" the extra miles. So be smart and don't make the same mistake again.
If you're an athlete with one of the characteristics above, be extra careful when adding time to your weekly long run. Endurance gains in relation to time spent running is not a linear curve—if you add 10 percent to your total running time, it doesn't mean that you're gaining 10 percent more endurance. Instead, you're increasing your chances of getting injured by much more than 10 percent.
Stay healthy, train consistently and race faster!
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