Calves R A Cramping

It is most likely a fitness/pacing issue that is resulting in the cramping.  While continued training will address the fitness end of the issue, the other thing that you may want to look at is your approach to racing these events and pace a little more conservatively in the early stages.

Shane

I would venture a guess that it's a nutrition issue. Not enough salt, perhaps. I would try different things in your training and see what makes a difference.

+2. While I do think nutrition has a minor effect. IMO, fitness/pacing is by far the major factor.

Regarding fitness / pacing for a IM or HIM, is it that I would start the run to fast and need to start the run slow -- or slow the pace with the bike and swim?

Usually it from pacing on swim/bike that causes cramping on run. I used to get cramps a lot on runs on tris not any more.

IMO, it's all of that and more.

If I push an open 10k run as hard as I can, I will cramp afterwards and be sore. It's just that I pushed my muscles harder than they're used to being pushed (more intensity than normal). On the bike, back when my normal training ride was 20-30 miles. If I went for a long ride say 60 miles, I'd tend to cramp in the last ten miles or so (more volume than normal).

A HIM is a long event, probably quite a bit longer than most people's normal training sessions. But there's nothing magic about that distance. Many people are fit enough to push a sprint distance very hard and not cramp at all. Others can do the same thing at the HIM distance but that takes enormous fitness. For most people, they have to find the right balance of race effort for the HIM to avoid cramping.

IMO, it's easy to blame nutrition and hydration for late race cramping because that appears easily fixable. But the real culprit is usually that they simply pushed too hard and/or too long for their fitness level, and their muscles said, "no more".

Just my opinion...

I agree with pacing as the most likely culprit. I just did my first HIM and suffered from mile 7 on in the run. Looking back at my HR monitor data I blew it on the swim and bike. My plan was to keep my HR around 130 on the swim and between 125 and 135 on the bike. My swim was 36 minutes with a max of 164 and an ave of 153. This was way to high, but I did not look at it while swimming and the pace did not feel this hard. My bike leg was 3 hours with a max of 164 and an ave of 142. This was high and I knew it was high, but convinced myself that 135 to 142 is not a big difference. I'm here to tell you that it is a big deal. This was my second triathlon ever so I learned a very valuable lesson. Take it easy on the swim and run. You will save more time running the whole distance than you lose if you have to walk. Ask me how I know this.

Kevin