Realistic Improvements in Run Time in 3 months?

Keep running good solid base miles and don't focus on intervals or tempo work. Getting your running muscles will take time and there is no need to focus on speed when you don't have the base.

I use myself as good example. I ran in high school and at a college prep. school for a year with a best 5k of 18:45 and 5 mile time of 32:30 but in '91 I started to really get into cycling. By '95 I could solo centuries well under 5 hours and had right around a 1 hour 40k TT time. I decided to get out and do some light running and could barely go 3 miles without dying. Totally different muscle grouping and joint action in running and even though I was a good runner in the past and could crush 95% of the populace on the bike, I couldn't run for sqwuat ........

I finally got back into running last year to train for a marathon and now I can hold my own in running fairly well. And that came through just pounding out the miles from March to October. I'd say you can progress fairly well in three months if you do more of a run focused training. Keep up the cycling a few days a week, but don't worry about losing that fitness as you have a great solid base to work from.

And welcome to the world of tris!

Edited by Daremo 2006-02-06 7:34 AM

it's all about base my friend. In december I was running 8 miles in one hour (that's 7:30 pace), but died on the 10 mile runs. Would finish the first 3/4 strong, then start sucking it up big time. So for the last month I have been doing base training. Running slower and keeping my HR in zone 2 or lower. After one month of this training, my race pace for ALL distances is starting to level out. On my last 10 mile run I averaged just over 9 mpm pace for the first half (uphill), but was staying really close to 7's the entire way back. The hill did have something to do with it, but I guarentee a month ago, I couldn't hold a 7 min pace for 5 miles after already running 5 uphill.

So in 3 months, if you train right, you should see your running pace increase a lot while you still remain within the aerobic threshold. You just have to be able to hold back and force yourself to stay slow. You have to train slow to go fast

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