Quote Originally Posted by Alex View Post
Nicely done, Colby! Racing two weeks after IM is impressive in and of itself, but to put up those kind of numbers is phenomenal.

What kind of speed workouts do you recommend? I would love to drop that kind of time from my run pace from one year to the next.

Alex
My biggest improvements came when training for the marathon I ran last year. I basically had to "reset" what was comfortable for me and run at varying uncomfortable paces during speed work. I continued that during Ironman training, which was very focused on intervals during the week.

I picked a marathon training plan that was accelerated (so I could end triathlon season in September) and also based on intervals. It had a chart with your goal time and the paces you needed to run - so putting in my 4 hour marathon stretch goal of a 9:10 pace put me at a 10k pace of 8:09, a 5k pace of 7:54, a 3k pace of 7:34. (I might have split the difference between 4:00 and 4:15, not sure) The training plan had alternating days of an easy run (45-60 minutes) sometimes with strides (5x100m all out), intervals (e.g. 20 minutes alternating 1 min at 3k pace and 2 min at easy pace), goal pace, and the long run. I think some distance training does help even at short distances. I ran measured distances at those paces to figure out what it felt like, and stuck with it. It was not always comfortable, but I did see significant improvement.

Basically, I spent the post-triathlon-season beating myself into better running.