Off Season Trianing?

I've run three marathons after training the run only 3 days a week. I think it's sufficient, as long as you do the long runs religiously. Unfortunately, I can't speak for the biking and swimming, as I picked both up after the marathons.

Thanks for the advice. Thus far, my runs have not suffered too much because of the extra biking and swimming. Now, that may change when I start putting more miles in. How long have you been running?

I started running two years ago, but I did run X country in high school back in the early 90s. I find that the marathon training works best for me with a long run, an interval session and a tempo run per week. I'll then throw in some cross training or easier paced run. I am bigger (taller) than most runners, so I need the extra recovery time, though.

Good luck to you in any of your up & coming races. I will be attempting a half in December, so with a little luck I should be ready.

I ran a 15.5 mi. race in June on 3 runs a week plus biking and swimming mixed in. I typically did 4 miles on Tuesday, a tough, hill workout on Thursday, and a long run on Saturday. I think my body prefers the cross-training of triathlon to doing one of the sports intensely.

Edited by monkeyboy64 2005-10-03 4:03 PM

Swimming? What swimming ...?

Seriously, with the triathlon season over for me I am going to focus on doing a metric century and a half mary before Thanksgiving while giving swimming a rest.

I am rotating the biking and running on alternate days with a rest day in between as I focus on completely exhausting the leg muscles during each session.

Also thinking of working back into the rotation a Body for Life-esque repetition upper body work out w/ excerices designed to help strengthen my core.

I believe that sometimes it is good to overload on one sport while giving another a rest. It allows you to come back to that sport with a completely fresh approach ... goodness knows I need that in order to improve my swimming.

Good luck with the upcoming half mary ... if you are training now (and it sounds like you are training smart) then you'll probably pleasantly surprise yourself on race day!

I'm struggling with the same thing, I think that 3 runs is not enough if you are shooting for a time goal, I did 3 days a week when I did my first marathon and found that I could have used some more miles of training. I now train (when working on running races) 5 days a week and really feel that this builds an awesome base. Now that I am getting into tris I am also trying to figure out how to schedule in biking time. I swim 2 x a week and they are killer workouts but this doesn't really affect my running so I don't include those workouts. Good luck to you in your upcoming races!

Thank you guys for all of your input. So far with biking and swimming on the side, it has allowed me to recover better. My short run times seems to be getting slightly better. (I don't know if it caused by the recovery time or just the effects of the running itself or a combination of both.) I might add in a fourth run-day and drop a swim or bike if everything seems to be grinding to a halt. But one thing is for sure, if one wants to get better, one has to pound the pavement!

I am doing a half marathon at the end of the month....I have raced only sprint and Oly this year...what I am doing different is having one longer run a week up to 90 minutes to get myself used to being on my legs that long, that is double my normal run time....

I second the 3 runs a week training... I did it for my 1st marathon after my 1st tri season and it worked awesome!