Why Strong Runners Fall Apart in the Ironman Marathon

Being a strong runner does not guarantee a strong Ironman marathon.

In a standalone marathon, you start fresh. In a full Ironman, the marathon begins after a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, hours of fatigue, fueling decisions, pacing mistakes, and muscular damage that have already shaped what your run can become.

In this episode, Coach Justin and Coach Katie compare standalone marathon training with Ironman marathon training and explain why runners moving into long-course triathlon often need a completely different mindset. If you’ve ever assumed the Ironman run is “just a marathon,” this conversation will challenge that idea.

What You’ll Learn

• Why the Ironman marathon is usually decided before you ever start running 
• How bike fitness and bike execution protect your run more than extra run volume 
• Why fueling mistakes on the bike can sabotage the marathon later 
• How runners need to rethink pacing, patience, recovery, and expectations in Ironman training 

Timestamps:

00:00 – Why runners misunderstand the Ironman marathon
03:02 – How standalone marathon training is usually structured
08:41 – Why Ironman run training starts with bike fitness
17:44 – Why marathon expectations do not transfer cleanly to Ironman
22:03 – How overbiking destroys the run
33:04 – Why bike fueling determines marathon survival
43:25 – Flavor fatigue, texture fatigue, and long-course nutrition strategy
47:23 – Long runs: marathon training vs Ironman training
53:49 – How much run intensity belongs in Ironman training
1:02:22 – Why patience off the bike matters
1:10:17 – Recovery differences between marathon and Ironman training
1:25:35 – Final thoughts

For coaching inquiries:

Coach Katie → https://fuel2run.com

Coach Justin → https://tabularasaracing.com

Podcast Email → theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Justin. I'm here with Coach Katie. And this is episode 95. And today we're going to be comparing a standalone marathon versus an Iron Man distance marathon. I believe, now this is just my personal opinion. I don't know if this is really what's going on, but I think when I talk with runners who are interested in getting into triathlon or just try triathlon, they look at all the race distances and they're really kind of just focusing on what that run distance is. So it's like they see a half Iron Man and they're just like, oh, it's it's a half marathon. And if they've done marathons, they're like, oh, that should be easy. And then they kind of discount the effort that is required to kind of get through a 70.3. And so I think what this leads to is runners starting in uh uh what I feel is the wrong distance because the strategy is so much different, the training is very different, the adaptation and the demands on the body is really not even close to being similar. So we wanted to kind of compare and contrast what it's like to train for a full distance marathon, and then how would you compare that to the marathon portion of a of a full distance Iron Man? So 140.6. As we're recording this, this is actually a really big uh weekend for for Iron Man. There's Iron Man Chattanooga 70.3 that's going on tomorrow, actually. And I have quite a few friends that are racing that, and today is the inaugural Iron Man Jacksonville. So it's the full the full distance, brand new race, brand new venue. So I'm kind of curious on how that's going to go. Uh, I have a couple friends that are that are doing that one as well. So this is kind of timely and it's it's it's interesting. I think that even as a coach, I kind of sit back as and say, you know, how would I coach somebody through a full distance Iron Man and then try and and convey to them why the run training may look different if they've run a full marathon and they kind of have an idea on what run training would be like for a marathon, and then they see the plan that we're executing and it could be very, very different. And so I think that this is kind of an interesting topic to to throw out there, and uh, I I think it will generate some some conversations. Uh Katie, what is your what are your thoughts on just training for for a standalone marathon? I I know that we've talked about this before, but you know, if you could just kind of give just a brief overview on what you feel like training is like for one, and we'll just keep it in general terms. We're not talking about like we're not talking about beginners or advanced and elite. Let's just say, just overall, what what do you feel is the demands on the body and and the duration in which you think that the training should last?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, I feel like for most people who are doing a marathon, I'm hope gonna assume they're like not a beginner runner. I mean, there are different people, like people starting their first marathon versus someone who's done several, but we'll just assume we have somebody that's it's not their very first, and maybe they have some experience with it. Let's make that assumption here. But generally, like with running, it's I mean that's not necessarily all that person is doing. There might be some version of cross-training. It's a little bit more simple because all we're worrying about is running, and and the goal for the marathon for most people is to improve their time. The way we're training that is just sole purpose, is just the marathon. There's, you know, that's all we're focusing on. So it's gonna be different in that way. And so the way I sort of structure it is generally at least four or five days a week of running for a marathon, like we've talked about already in the past episode. It's not something you can improve your time by only running three days a week and have a good marathon, uh, unless you're maybe a real newbie. But um, at least four or five days of training, and that usually consists, you know, usually the training leading to a marathon is going to be 12 to 18 weeks long. The longer you have, sort of the more leeway or the long the longer lead-in you have, the better in terms of having plenty of time to get there. And not if you have setbacks like I did, it's a little easier if you have a little bit more time to prep. So, you know, that's the first thing is like the time it takes. It's not um, there's no short duration of time. I think the more time you have to prep for a marathon, the better. And then within that week, there's going to be different workouts, like a long run, which will progress usually from sort of wherever that person's been running their longest run, which could be anything between eight to ten miles, up to eventually doing at least one 20-mile for most people. Some runners may, it may not be quite that much, but it's some sort of longer duration run, somewhere be around three hours of running. So a really long run. There's going to be some sort of like a few easy runs in there where someone, they're just kind of getting in the zone two training. And then there's going to be some focused, uh, either like threshold running, some sort of threshold or some sort of speed, at least one or two days a week of that, sort of some sort of focus work. And it depends on the time of the their training plan. So they may have more speed focus early on, and then it's kind of leading in to maybe more threshold work or some combination of both. And then we're kind of going into maybe more marathon-based pace work, still kind of getting in some of those strides and things like that. But the generally that's kind of what so we have it's very focused on that goal of having the PR. And I might have them do like strength training sessions a few days a week to keep up their strength or to make sure that they're durable, like we've talked about. I might have the more injury-prone runner doing elliptical or or maybe some sort of cycling, but the cycling and the elliptical work is you're there just to support the running. It's not like there's any focus in that work. So unlike a triathlon, you would be having there would be a lot of sort of quote unquote cross-training in a way, because you're going to be cycling and swimming, but the the work of the the elliptical or the swimming or whatever they're doing for the marathon training is truly to support the training and not they're not training those other things. So it's a little bit different in that way. So that's kind of how I tend to structure. And obviously the time uh, you know, maybe anywhere from five or six hours to to maybe 12 hours, but you can't run. There's a limitation to how much you can run before it's the mechanical load and and there's always the injury risk with running that you don't maybe necessarily have with some of swimming and biking. So most marathoners, you kind of have a limitation to how many miles or how many hours they can spend a week training. I think that's where it's a little different from triathlon because you can sort of do more biking and swimming and time it takes. I think that's another thing runner like marathonners who are thinking about maybe going into doing a half iron man or an iron man have to consider is that for a marathon, you kind of manage a marathon. It's still hard there, especially if you're doing a lot of volume, it still takes time. But probably the time difference is a little bit, you know, trying to manage. I mean, obviously you're gonna be doing less running if you're you're not gonna be able to do that same volume of running and maybe train four triath on two, the volume's gonna be different. But I think that's one of the things is just kind of realizing the time, you know, unless you're doing a ton of cross-training in marathon training, there's only a limitation to how much your body can handle. So, yeah, that's a piece of it too. But that's generally how I think about marathon training. It's pretty simple. I like it for that reason, is it's just like these are the workouts, you know, there's a lot of trying to think about a hard bike session and how that's going to affect the run. And you know, how are we going to make sure you're that person's recovering because there's these three different disciplines? Like, I think it gets a little bit more complicated, obviously, with triathlon. So, what are your I mean, when you're training, I guess that's what what's the difference like you train a lot more triathletes. If someone's coming to you with a background in marathon, how are you approaching that, you know, marathon, like training for the marathon portion of the triathlon differently, I guess, is like how would you structure the week a little differently than a traditional?

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yeah, the vault the volume is going to be very, very different. For me, I believe the biggest return on investment is just building the bike fitness as deep as we can get it. Um, because honestly, when you look when you look at a when you look at a full Iron Man and you and you get to the run portion, comparing that to a standalone marathon, you're when you when you s look at a standalone marathon, you're starting fresh, there's you're fueled and ready to go, there's no fatigue, you're mechanically intact, your form is fine, and so you're starting, but you haven't done anything yet. Uh but when you get to the the marathon portion of an Iron Man, you've already swam 2.4 miles, you've cycled 112 miles on the bike, you have about anywhere between five to ten of hours of accumulated fatigue already. You have already dipped into your glycogen stores. Uh you have rising core temperatures as you get the cardiac drift as you progress through the race and temperatures are starting to rise. You have accumulated muscular damage throughout the race up to that point. So the way that you approach that marathon is going to be completely different and you're going to feel completely different. So, how we approach the marathon is going to be a function of everything that came before it, where that's not the case if I'm coaching just a single sport athlete that is a runner that wants to run a marathon. Very, very different.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Well, the goal is the goal of the marathon in each of those scenarios is totally incredible. You're not going to be able to get your PR, I mean, most of the time.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Honestly, the goal of the Iron Man marathon is to simply survive. It's that is very, very different than the goal of a standalone marathon. And so I guess the way that I would approach it for most is I want to develop the deepest bike fitness that we can possibly get. The reason is is because that sets you up to try and allow you to run like a runner during the marathon portion of a full Ironman distance race. So you're sort of saying like the more fit, you know, the more the more fit that we can be on the bike, the less damage is going to accumulate so that you can get off the bike feeling okay. Feeling okay, not feeling fresh, but feeling okay. If that bike just like completely destroyed you, and then now you've got to figure out how to get through a marathon. So if I can get you as strong as we can on that bike so that we can limit the muscular damage and develop the nutrition strategy that would be required to fuel on the on the bike to set you up for a good marathon run, that's the goal of training. And that's that tends to be my focus. That's my approach. Every coach is going to be different.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

And so So, how much time do most people spend on the bike? I mean, I get you got the swim is what, maybe an hour or so, or maybe there's a general, but it's not, it's a very small, it's a smaller portion compared to the other two, and then the bike. I mean, that's probably where most people are I mean, unless they're Are you talking about on race day? Yeah, like unless some yeah, on race day. Like, so you're spending 112 miles. I mean, that I'm thinking that would take me maybe six hours. I don't know. I haven't biked in a long time, but yeah, take me a while, and then the right.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

The cutoff is, I believe, two and a half hours to two hours and twenty minutes, I think is the cutoff. Okay. But most most athletes, solid swimmers, like really good swimmers, can probably get to it within uh around that hour mark. The average swimmer, I think, would probably be somewhere in between that hour to an hour and a half. The way that we're seeing Iron Man races these days, there's a lot of downriver, downstream swims, a lot of them are wetsuit legal. And so there's really been, unfortunately, I think that there's been a push to make the swim more accessible and the to minimize the barrier to entry into the race by I don't want to say dumbing down the swim, but really kind of minimizing it to where if you halfway train for it, then then you should be able to survive it. Now, when I coach an athlete, we're not coat we're not we're not approaching the swim just for survival sake. I mean, we're we're training to to do well because it sets the tone for the day.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

But that's so that's like an hour to two. Yep, hour to an hour and a half. And then like and now yeah, the bike the bike is like the biggest portion. Yeah, depending on depending on the course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

You know, it it can be anywhere from six hours to seven, seven and a half, I think, depending depending on depending on the course and how challenging it could be. You know, someplace like like the Jacksonville course that's going on today, it's fairly it's a fairly flat course. I mean, it's in Florida. You have Panama City Beach in Florida, which is very similar. I mean, those are just flat courses, which have their own challenges, but the approach to that kind of race would be very different than doing something like Lake Placid, which is you know very, very hilly. So and the demands on the body is going to be very, very different, or or Happy Valley, which is another like 70.3 out in Pennsylvania, it's a challenging bike course, pretty hilly.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Or maybe out here in Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

That's going to impact, you know, how long it's going to take the demands and the damage that's going to be done to the body before they even get to the marathon.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So you have like anywhere between I don't know, maybe I mean pros are in their own in their own league there, but maybe like somewhere between seven to ten to maybe more. I mean, it depends on the the speed, obviously, but you have several hours just trying to like for people who maybe I mean, there's a probably a lot of triathletes that are following that the maybe, or maybe I'm assuming there are some triathletes that are listening that would be like, oh duh. But I'm trying to have like the runners out there that are listening, like conceptualize this if they've never really dipped their toes into triathlon, like what this is like, because I think it's I mean, obvious a hundred and twelve mile bike is a lot. And if you're not used to swimming, is it is it what what is it 1.2?

SPEAKER_02 15:18

2.4.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

2.4. That one I yeah, that was for half a half hour. Yeah, 1.2 is that's like a two-mile swim. I mean, that's a lot, you know, for someone you really do have to be ready for that. And then you have this 112-mile bike. And yeah, I mean, it if you're fast, maybe six or seven hours, you can complete that. But you know, usually for most people, it's more than that. So those you've already had this seven, maybe ten hours already. And then you have to go and run a marathon. So this isn't like your goals for the marathon. I think that's the frame, the frame you have to kind of think is like you're not going to be able to go out if you're a three-hour marathoner. Your your goal isn't gonna be three hours for that marathon. There's just no way you're gonna be able to complete that. I think we see a lot of, I think too, but when we we see a lot of like I do, anyways, professional triathletes. I watch videos of them doing the marathon or in their running pretty fast. That's their job. Like most people are out there kind of just surviving, like you said. Your goal, I mean, I don't know how, you know, I don't really know what I would recommend for like a three-hour marathon or what their goal would end up being, because it might really depend, like you said, on how fit they are, how how strong of a swimmer maybe, but also like how fit they are in the cycling. Like if they can get themselves really good on the bike and feeling really strong and finishing not totally destroyed, they might be able to run. I don't know, I would say like add 32 an hour to that that PR, if not maybe more. Uh and so I'm, you know, just kind of reframing it as like this isn't going to be a fast marathon. You've already done all this work and your Azure training for that, your your to the types of runs you're gonna be doing to kind of be able to get off the bike and get onto the run and and stay, you know, pace yourself are going to be a little bit different than what you would focus on for like just a solo or a a a sold marathon where you're not doing all of that to begin with. So I'm just trying to set the stage for people of like this is the time you're gonna be out there, and by the time you get to the marathon, you've already been out there for about this amount of time. It's a lot, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Yeah, when I when I talk with athletes and they're and they come to me and it's like, you know, hey, I want to do this full Iron Man, and that's one of the talking points that I say is like, okay, and if they have a running background, that was one of the things that I kind of sit down with them and I say, Look, I know that you've run some marathons, so you have some preconceived notions on, you know, kind of what what this is like. Take those no take those ideas and completely throw them out the window. Because, like I said, for the for the marathon, for a standalone marathon, you're starting fresh, but for the Iron Man, you've already done, you know, up to about 10, probably 11 hours worth of hard effort work before you even get to that first step of the marathon. So, you know, I I don't want it to come across as like, oh, it can be like this death march kind of thing, but it's a very different strategy. And so we have to sit down and we have to think, okay, A, is it realistic to run the entire marathon of that's the the marathon portion of a full Iron Man distance race? I've I've yet to coach an athlete where we've done that. So there is there is some kind of strategy that's going to be involved with it. It's like, okay, this is going to be our bike fitness, this is our swim fitness. So now let's kind of sit down and think about, you know, what kind of realistic strategy can we come up with, you know, if we're going to run the first 10K or the first half marathon and we're just going to walk the aid stations, but you're going to run as much as you can. And once you get past the the back half, then we're going to maybe switch to maybe like a run-walk protocol. I don't know. But there's there's a lot of conversation that has to take place where it's much, I believe it's much more strategy than it is just brute force just getting through like a marathon that where that's a lot more possible if it's just a standalone marathon. Yeah, no, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

I think it's just having I think Redners going into it, need to have just realize that. You know, it's I think most people maybe once they got started with the trading and and I don't know, maybe they would realize most people I would also assume who are starting or maybe done a marathon. I mean, I I would I would advise those individuals to maybe start with like an Olympic distance or sprint Olympic, you know, doing some sort of triathlon distance that isn't an Iron Man just to get an idea of the transitions and how it how it's going to feel, maybe off the bike, maybe do a half iron man and then maybe do an Iron Man. I wouldn't advise someone unless they were really gung-ho about doing an Iron Man and didn't and they wanted to skip all of the other things. But I would assume at some point in there trading it to the Iron Man, they would do something, you know, but so that they would have an idea too of just what it is to to come off the bike. And an Olympic, it's a little different. I mean, I've had some pretty fast 10Ks coming off of the bike. Like I that's a some actually surprisingly fast 10Ks. So it's a little, it's a completely different almost than an Iron Man. I would almost say maybe at least doing like a half Iron Man, because that when I did that, it was like coming off the bike, it's 56 miles, so half the distance, but it's still a little bit jarring because if you're used to sort of a sprinter in Olympic, you can feel pretty good off the bike. But once you get to that half iron man, you start to realize, yeah, this is like a different beast almost. Like you do have to so I I would almost advise someone not to jump right in if they aren't maybe if they have no background also in swimming or biking. That's a I feel like you'd need um some sort of like I don't know, year or so to like sort of get yourself used to training on the bike and you're used to swimming and swimming itself is a whole I mean if you're like me starting at the age of 22 or 24, whenever I started doing the master swim, like I didn't never s I never really swam that much before. So it's so it's like you're taking on a whole unless you're having the background in swimming or in cycling of some sort of background there, it's taking on these other disciplines. It's almost a lot of work all it's in itself. And then you're adding on also the run training. I think, yeah, that's something I'm kind of thinking of. It's not something I would just generally say, oh yeah, let's you want to do an Iron Man? Like, let's just jump right in and do it in six months, and you haven't had like so much more to it. So anyway, that's my few thoughts I have.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

One of the things that that I did want to bring up is that your execution on the bike really determines how well or how poorly your run is going to. That's not a decision that that you have to make for a standalone marathon. So one at a time, sometimes when athletes come to me and when we're training and they say, I feel like I need more run fitness. I feel like I need to I need more run. I need more run. And I mean I get it because when you get to the run, if you feel like you're running poorly, then you then it automatically makes you conclude that my run fitness is just poor. But honestly, I I think the way that you have to reframe it, it's like your run fitness may not be poor. It's you either overbiked it, so we need to improve your bike fitness or come up with a different execution strategy for how we're going to ride the bike during the race. And so we have to really fine-tune how we're going to execute that. Because you can't approach it as a cyclist. You know, because one of the things that I've talked a lot about with just single sport athletes that are cyclists, you know, their strategies, oh, you know, no coasting down hills and that kind of stuff. You know, it's free speed and all that. But as a as a triathlete, you can't ride the bike as a cyclist, nor can you run the marathon as a runner. You have to think about the accumulated fatigue that you're going to stack on during the bike and how that's going to affect your run. So you have to execute the bike in a way that tries to minimize that damage. So that means that you're not going to really fully observe your bike fitness because you're holding back a little bit. So you're not out there riding as hard as you can. You're riding in a way that allows you to run later. So things like you know, your your bike pacing, you know, how you treat hills, you know, those things that trying to figure out like how how to phrase this. How to approach uphills, how to approach downhills as as a cyclist, versus how do you approach them during uh a 70.3 or 140.6 uh Ironman race. I I I think that they're they're very different. Even if we coast down uh, for instance, let's just have a have an illustration. If we just coast down a hill, but we tuck in and we try and get as small as we can, just even if it's just a couple minutes, that deload of the legs and off and the deload off of the cardiovascular system, enough of those accumulated will be able to offset some of the damage that you would accumulate during a bike portion of the race. So even though you wouldn't approach it as a cyclist, I think that we have to think about what small little things can I do during this bike segment of this race that really kind of helps deload muscles, will uh give me some kind of advantage when I get off of this thing, and then I have to get through uh either a half marathon or a full marathon. So we have we have to think about muscular damage uh while we're riding. And that's one of the things that I that I really focus on during training for my athletes and for myself as well, is to like I said, get that bike fitness as deep as possible so that it doesn't take that much out of you, even though that you ride pretty hard and you're you're gonna feel worked, but I don't want you to feel like you've, you know, come through a washing machine and now you're just like, okay, now now I gotta get through this. So I have a thought.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

I'm thinking for a marathoner, somebody who has a lot of run history or run fitness already, if they're coming in and asking for a training plan, I think the thing I would sort of tell them would be like, okay, you already have a lot of run fitness. We're you already have that piece. So, like, what we need to do is work on, like you're saying, the bike portion, especially if they're not cyclists coming into or haven't had a lot of training on the bike, or maybe they've only done some cross-training, but they haven't done a lot of cycling. Trying to really convince them, because I think that's the thing they're gonna that that would be the biggest challenge with that type of individual would be trying to, you know, they're used to running a lot, and then to be like, well, actually, we may only really focus on like two or three days of running or what maybe more, but like we're really gonna focus on this cycling piece so that you know, exactly to tell them exactly what you're saying is like we need you to be as fit as possible in the bike, and we need to have a strategy for that portion so that when you get to the run, you can you already have all this running fitness. We're just maybe wanting to maintain it, or you know, it's gonna be hard maybe to gain a lot of run fitness fitness, but let's try to maintain what you already have since you're such a strong runner, maybe coming from the marathon, and let's focus on the cycling piece. And I think that's going to be really hard for someone. I'm thinking of myself if I were to try to do an Iron Man because I love the running so much, and that's such a piece of what I've been doing, is to like then be like, oh, you have to do more cycling, but it makes a lot of sense. But I do I'm thinking a lot of runners would struggle with that because they're so used to running so much. But I think really trying to convince someone, yes, like you already have the running fitness. What we need to do is set you up so that when you get to the run, you're able to be as strong as possible through the run and finish and and have a strategy for it. But you're, you know, we want to set you up because that's maybe your strength. So let's set you up for the best run possible instead of like just focusing so much on the run and maybe neglecting especially the the cycling because there's so much of it is the cycling piece. And exactly as what you're saying is if you're if you're just coming off the bike and feeling totally destroyed, I don't even know how you're gonna finish, even if you're a good runner, like if you have a lot of running skills or you've been a runner runner for a long time, I just don't think it's setting you up for a good run because you haven't focused on the bike. That I think I'm just trying to put that out there. That I think if you're for runners coming in, that might be what they might expect. And I think that might be challenging for someone who's used to running a lot is actually we're not gonna run as much, and now we're gonna focus more on this. I I don't know if you work with a lot of runners coming in, if you've kind of had that challenge, but I can anticipate that. I know I would struggle with that. Um, it's just kind of that that mindset shift a little bit of what you know what we're gonna focus the most on, and when the maybe the bike is going to be the larger focus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

It's a hard it's a hard pill to swallow for a runner to tell them it's like, look, you know, I know that you're a strong runner and it's what you really like. We want to do more on with what we're good at. So if you're good at running, clearly you want to run as much as you can. And nobody wants to do more of what they're bad at, um, which is probably why a lot of trahletes don't swim as much as they probably should. But I think that the the run training is where a lot of the risk lies within a Iron Man distance training plan. It it is so demanding on the body to try and take what would be equivalent to a marathon training plan and then just kind of shoehorn it into you know some bike and run workouts throughout the week. I don't I don't find that to be incredibly successful. It's just too much stress on the body. And honestly, the way that I that I try and tell athletes this, and sometimes it may come across as a little harsh, but I said, honestly, I really don't care how strong of a runner you are. What good is it to be a strong runner if you never get to the run? So, you know, if you get through the swim and the bike and just barely, or or if you don't even make the cutoffs for these because you're exceptionally weak in these other two disciplines, what good is it to be a good runner if because it's the last thing that we do. And if you never get to it, you never get to observe that that uh that strength that you have. So what I want is I want to make us as strong of a swimmer as possible and as strong of a cyclist as possible, and then we capitalize on the strength that you have in running and allow that cardiovascular system to still be built and maintained through the bike training, even though it's not run specific. That that development, that adaptation that you accumulate throughout the training plan is really going to still help the run because you're becoming you're still cardiovascularly strong, which is why a lot of injured runners end up cycling so much because it does still maintain the the aerobic base, even though it's just you know the body the body no longer has to manage the impact from the run, which is why they're able to to cycle in order to rehab injuries.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah. Well, I was gonna say that like I think the cycling, a lot of like I was hearing I was listening to something about Cole Hawker. I think he's the one that runs like 1500. He does the well, he went to the Olympics, a really good professional runner, but he had been talking about doing more cycling to support his run training, so he didn't he was getting injured, so he was doing more on the bike to kind of support the training for running. He was finding it was helping him be a better runner. It wasn't like we can really take the place of some of those key workouts, but like actually doing more biking was helping, probably just maintaining underlying fitness, and then he was able to do the key runs and not need to do so much volume. So I would want runners to try to remember that it's the cycling itself, it's not like totally they're totally separate in the the fitness you get from the bike, the cardiovascular benefits you get on the bike are going to help you in the run. So yeah. It's not like doing all that bike training is totally taking away from the run. It's actually maybe helping to support the run. So you need you could do less running and still be able to stay pretty fast, you might be actually surprised. So to let go a little bit of the the need to do a certain amount of mileage or volume on the run if you're going to do an Iron Man or a half Iron Man and just have a little faith in that. And I think you might be a surprise that you actually are able to maintain a pretty good amount of fitness on the run, also, and that might be surprising and kind of freeing a little bit. I know when I was doing track on I did far less running than I do now. I don't know. I it's been a while, so I I don't even know if I have any of that still on like strawberry thing where I've actually recorded it, so I don't know. But uh yeah, I did a lot more biking and I found that I was still able to maintain quite a bit of fitness on my run in my running by and my volume was much, much less than it is now. So just personal experience on there.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

We also spend a lot of time on the bike because that's where a lot of our nutrition is consumed. And so where where I find where the run breaks down for for somebody who's doing a full Iron Man, there's three places where that typically would happen. And on the bike it's going to be on your pacing decision, it's gonna be on your nutrition decisions. Yeah, those two. Those are the two things I think where you you can sabotage your run before you even get on it.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, like you said, if you're going into the run completely glycogen depleted, you don't even you have it fueled well on the bike and you're just totally depleted, you aren't gonna be able to make up for that on the run.

unknown 33:48

No.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

You might be that totally in survival mode. I mean, you may not even finish the run. So that's another thing I think too is a whole fueling is how you fuel like the bike is just so important. I don't know, like in so many ways. You know, you could get to the run and your fueling strategy could kind of derail a little bit, you might have a hard time. But if if you have fueled adequately on the bike and followed your fueling strategy for the bike to a T, I mean, you've done a really good job with that as best you can, like going off the bike onto the run. If your run fueling strategy sort of isn't as perfect, you can still be okay. But if you don't fuel on the bike and maybe behind the eight ball, it's too late. And and then if you're struggling to get nutrition on the run or you are having some kind of GI issue or something, you're just I mean, it's just miserable. You're maybe walking a lot and it's not going to go the way you want. On the bike, you don't have the jostling of the gut, so you don't necessarily have maybe the same issues, but you still have a lot of that blood flow going from the gut, which we normally, when we're just sitting around, have a lot more blood flow for digestion. When we're doing any sort of difficult exercise or prolonged exercise over, you know, especially over time, like that blood flow kind of is pulled from the gut to be able to bring oxygen and fuel and all the things that our working muscle needs. And so over time, that can, you know, I mean maybe any you might be able to be fine with make more solids and things like that. But over time, your strategy may have to change and you may get to the run after so many hours and just be unable to take in what you had planned to take in. So it's just something like to think about what the longer runs where is in the marathon. Usually, if you've been practicing what you're fueling with, you're not you don't have all those hours ahead like previously that you've already been working, you know, your body's already been working hard. So now you're going into it fresh. And so your fueling strategy, as long as you practice it, is hopefully gonna go just the way you had intended it to go. And hopefully there won't be any like weird surprises or something like that if you've done it correctly. But even if you've planned it and even if you've practiced your fueling, it's just really hard to can't simulate exactly what it would be like coming off such a long bike onto a run. I mean, you can do like a half iron man to prep or something like that. But you know, we get a pretty good idea in the marathon after a 20-mile run of what it's gonna be like for the marathon. But there's a re it's really hard to sort of prep for that. You know, what's it gonna be like for an Iron Man? Because you can't do that sort of bike into a run.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

It's too much volume to try and do in a single session.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, so it's kind of like just thinking about it, like, okay, but again, the bike, you know, everything's so important is riding on how that bike goes. Because if you do get to the run and things sort of derail a little bit, at least if you're fueled well fueled, you can sort of maybe make do with whatever you can take in, and it may not be optimal, then you'll finish. But uh yeah. So I think that's the key difference there. I don't know if you have anything to add.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Something something that a marathoner doesn't have to worry about is being either overfueled or underfueled during during their race or even at the start of their race. But it is common to find full distance Iron Man athletes who have either overconsumed carbs to where now they have GI distress, and the body is kind of reacting in such a way it's like, okay, now I've got to figure out how to get through this this marathon now, and I've taken on too many carbs and my body can't absorb it because I'm my effort is so high, or I I didn't train my gut enough to really teach it how to absorb it and and and utilize it, or the conditions for the day forced me to change my nutrition strategy. Let's say that we're we're riding and there's heavy winds, and so it's really hard to get to the point where you can feel comfortable taking your hands off of the handlebars and things and start to try and open up gel packs and all and take or reaching for water bottles, and those situations are going to have consequences later on down further into the race. It's like okay, well, now I've I underfueled because of the conditions, and I didn't feel comfortable, you know, you know, doing things other than just holding on to this freaking bike so that I don't get blown off of the road. And now now what do I do? I I can't make it up. I it's not like I can just sit down and like in transition and eat a sandwich and be able to to get caught up and then go for and go for my marathon. It doesn't work that way. So a lot of times when a full distance Ironman athlete has to make those changes during their marathon, it's because of what happened in the previous stages of the race. And so it it snowballs. I mean, it's really easy to get that log rolling and to really derail the marathon portion of the race.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

So yeah, I would argue like fueling is by far, I mean, it's important in a marathon itself, but I mean, is it optimal? You know, you know, can you can you get kind of get by off of like 30 grams an hour for a marathon? Maybe you maybe not have your very best race. Um but you kind of get by by doing like the minimum, I guess, because I've seen people do it. I know people who don't who somehow do okay. They could probably be better, but they do okay with just a few gels, which is really not enough. But you can't in an Iron Man, you cannot get away with that, you know, under fueling. It's just gonna get you, you know, for sure. Um, so I think that's a big thing is like, yes, I mean, for either scenario for just a standalone marathon or an Iron Man, I would encourage people to practice and make sure that they're fueling it and really optimizing it. Obviously, that's gonna get them the best results. But for an Iron Man, I do think it's going to be a lot more strategy, like in terms of practicing on the bike, yeah, training your gut, going for some of those really long rides. And yeah, just really trying to dial in in, like, okay, maybe all you are able to do now. And I talk about this in kind of my high carb fueling episode or the the sort of that high carb fueling of people trying to get 120 grams an hour. But if you're already, if you're at 60 or you're fueling with, you know, a certain amount, I think then it's trying to try different things. Maybe you can take in a little more solids at the beginning of the bite because you know, you also have flavor fatigue. I mean, that's a long race to be taking in the same thing the whole time. So you might even just get to the run and be like, I cannot take another one of these gels or whatever strawberry gels or something, like it's making me sick. I'm gonna throw up, you know? So, even thinking about it that way, how can you make it interesting so you're not even bored with what you're taking in? And can you take in more solids early on? And then you might have to switch to more easy to digest things later into the bike. And how is that gonna feel to take in like a honey stinger waffle or some sort of bar or something more solid early? You have to practice that and really think about the grams per hour. And uh ideally, maybe even trying to get up to 80, if not a little more, on the bike, so that if you do get to the run and all you can do is 30 an hour or something, I you know, at least you're you've set yourself up. So, like practicing and feeling out what that's gonna be like and kind of trying different things. I mean, yes, unfortunately, as you're sort of training your gut, the unfortunate side effect is that you might have gut issues, but it's much better to have those gut issues out on a training ride than in your race. So you know, I think people are afraid of that. They're like, oh, I don't want to try things. I'm gonna have gut issues. Well, I'm telling you right now, I've I've got plenty of gut issues out marathon training, and sometimes you just gotta hit the porter potty or go in the bushes. Like that's the unfortunate side effect of trying to train the gut and seeing where you can go with the carbs. But at least I know, you know, maybe that one product didn't work for me, or I have to keep working on trying to get this certain amount per hour because obviously my gut's not quite used to it. But I'd much rather have that happen out on my 20-mile long run. And, you know, I just control for it. It may not be that it's my best ever run, but I'd rather that than, you know, in my marathon and having to take several porter potty breaks so that I can, you know. So that's something I want to encourage people to think about too, is it's that's part of it. You, you know, you've got to to think about the fueling, like especially from the very get-go when you start the training, it's all part of the pro it's all part of the training. It's not like you wait till three weeks before your race and you're trying to figure this out either. So we talk about that so many times. I feel like people are probably like, you've mentioned that every time you talk about fueling, but I think it's just it's almost like people need to hear it because I think that's one of the major mistakes people make.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

It's a found it's a foundational cornerstone to any kind of race strategy. So I mean, yeah, that's that's why we keep talking about it because it's it's always it's always a component, it's always a piece of the puzzle that that you have to have.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

So I would say like the fueling for like just last, like we're as we move on, but fueling for the Iron Man is going to be a lot more important or critical than for a standalone marathon, even though it's still important. It's just the importance in the Iron Man is a lot far more important because that could mean the fueling could mean you just don't even finish, you know, your race. Whereas a marathon, you can kind of you might not have the best race, but you can finish, you know, if you don't fuel, you can kind of get through, I think.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

I th I think that that I'm glad that you brought this up, like the flavor fatigue, which I think is is something that will affect a triathlete more than I think it would affect just a standalone runner, like a single sport. Not only is it flavor fatigue, but I think there's texture fatigue as well. And you know, sometimes if you're just drinking if you're just drinking your electrolytes and and your carbs that way, and then you're fueling and you're supplementing it with with goose and gels and things like that, just that texture, just throughout an entire day, this is a long day. I want you You to understand like how long this day is going to be. If you just sat around and all you had that day to eat, and let's say you go about your life, you you you go to work or whatever and you're running errands and stuff, I want you to drink carb drinks to like tailwind, scratch, or whatever it is that you're drinking. I want you to drink that all day long, and then goos and gels. That's the only thing that you consume through that whole day. That that's your Iron Man day. We're we're talking like 15, 16, 17 hour day, and that's the only thing that you're consuming, that that texture is going to wear on you. And you're already kind of mentally fatigued from from trying to trying to manage your execution strategy, you're already mentally taxed. And so one of the things that I work with athletes on is like, okay, let's think about our nutrition strategy and let's change some of the textures of the products that we're we're taking in. If that means that we have to cut up a honey stinger waffle and put it like in a tiny little Ziploc bag or whatever, and we keep that in our pocket, and you know, during the the second hour of the bike, let's grab one of those little honey stinger packets and let's let's eat that. And it kind of just I don't want to say it like resets the gut, but it does kind of like reset the taste buds, I think. And that that can go a long way.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Or finding things that don't have a lot of sweetness, like maybe if that's a problem, like some of the some of the gels, like the you can gels, or I use those, I alternate between that and a very sweet maple syrup gel. So it's like alternating between very sweet and those aren't very sweet at all. They have a little bit of sweetness, but something like that, or like the mortons are kind of a interesting more just want to make sure I'm saying that right. They have like an interesting texture, but they're not extremely sweet. There's other products out there that kind of have uh less like like goose, and some of the other gels are just like whoa, like overwhelmingly sweet. And I think people get sick of that like sugar sugar sweet, you know, sweet taste all the time. So even like switching up what you're using in terms of the finding things that just don't that are milder, and then yeah, I think also the something you can chew, especially early in the bike, I think will help if you can have like more solid things or things that you might be able to chew a little bit, and maybe not the entire time, but just having like a honey single waffle and maybe certain gels that you sort of switch around b of and on, but having those breaks of like something that's you're chewing, not something very chewy, but that's gonna be like make it hard to breathe, but something that you can have a different texture, like you said. I think that makes a big, a big difference. So thinking about the flavors and changing even the gel flavors up a little bit, or the drinking versus chewing versus gummies, I don't know, just different things, different ways of getting the nutrition and yeah, just different textures, different tastes, so that you don't get so sick of the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Cause you might get to the marathon, like I said, and just be like completely icked out to the point where you can't even take in that thing anymore. And then, you know, what are you gonna do? You know, at that point because try something different and then kind of risk GI issues, maybe if you haven't practiced it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Let's talk a little bit about what training for a marathon would look like. Like what time but what type of runs are we talking about? So there is there's threshold work that you do during a marathon training plan, there's marathon pace work. I think that the long runs may be a little bit more aggressive than an Iron Man distance or training for an Ironman.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

So let's like let's just start there. So for a marathon, it kind of depends. Like again, I think for um a more experienced marathoner, I tend to do, would tend to recommend maybe more than one three-hour, 20-mile run. Um, I would tend to sometimes even place some marathon pace work in that marathon run, whether they whether it's like a start, like a progressive run where they start easy, maybe run, try to run fast. Maybe it doesn't exactly marathon pace, but it's like some version of start easy, you know, finish strong marathon pace work, whether it's like on and offs, like a couple miles on, one mile, you know, but something in there so they're kind of used to running longer and still hitting marathon pace. Not every runner, like a beginner, I wouldn't do that. It would be mostly just easy running in those long runs, but that's probably where it's going to be the most different. I if I were training in someone doing an Iron Man, I would just basically want them to get used to being on their feet, you know, so it wouldn't be so much. I mean, maybe if they're really experienced Iron Man in there and they're maybe more of like professional or really good, like they're having a really aggressive time goal, maybe, but for the majority of people doing an Iron Man, I don't think I would it would be like our focus for the long run is just like time on feet. You know, maybe we would do one long run of 20 miles or so, but I probably wouldn't do several more than that. Maybe, maybe like longish runs, but not like a really, really long one, maybe one. That's how I would approach I don't know, what would you do for the long run? I'm curious because I I would that's how I would approach it differently, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

I think the way that I would approach the long run is definitely no aggressive pacing with it because it's not something that you're going to see on race day. Exactly. I think if anything is going it's going to sabotage your ability to be consistent during training, and I think that yields more return. So I think that the the long run for an Iron Man training plan still maybe two and a half. I've never given anything longer than three hours, ever.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Yeah. With that three hours, I mean somebody, depending on the person, they could, you know, they do that 20 miles or it could be 16, depending on the person. So it really depends. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

I mean we don't I would agree.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

I wouldn't do anything longer than three hours for a triathl for an Iron Man triathlete. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

So if we if we don't get to get to 20 miles, I I don't think that there's that big of a deal. It's not that important for me as a coach to get my athlete to that point where we've covered like 20 miles, we've gotten up to 22 miles. No. Because I I feel that it's takes too long to recover from it. And there's too much damage that's done from it to where it's going to affect our ability to swim and bike in the preceding days. So to me, I would honestly prefer my athlete to be a little bit under-trained on the run and over-trained on the bike. Now I think that that sets them up for a better performance on race day that way. For the long run, I'm just okay, let's just we're gonna go out nice and easy. Uh, if you want to have like little short intervals, like little bursts of things, then that's fine. Let's just keep it, keep them really, really short. We're not trying to hit paces or anything else. We're just running based on feel, and there's like I said, there's no pacework in this plan. And I just I don't believe in it. And it's just my personal approach to training. It other coaches may have have a different method as well. But I'm more interested in the the durability of the athlete and really just kind of fatigue resistance, low intensity efficiency, like what is that run stride going to look like, and what does your form look like under high levels of fatigue and slower paces? Because we all have seen that you know, if we want to run slower, our gait changes, you know, the stride gets shorter, and you know, I want to approach my long runs that way and say, okay, well, let's just keep our stride a little bit shorter because that chances are that's what we're going to see on race day. Because you've just gotten off of a 112-mile bike, we're not going to have a run stride. You're going to have a run stride after a long bike, and it's it it's not the same. So there's no point in trying to achieve that and train for that. So I I want my athlete to try and maintain as good a form as possible for as long as possible. And once that form starts to break down, then the run's done because there's just too much risk that's associated with it.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

That makes sense. Yeah, I would agree. When I'm thinking when I do pacework in a long run, it does, it destroys me for a while. Like it's a lot so to think, okay, I have time, maybe a couple days to recover, but if you're also trying to train uh two other things, I think that would be harder to be able to come back and get the work you need to do for a marathon or I might have a couple like key sessions, depending on how recoverable they are. You know, usually it'd be like a couple, maybe max like three, but it wouldn't they would all have like a different purpose. And there might be like one really intense session and then one that's just kind of like some speed play, and then one that, you know, so it would be depend the day what I'm doing each of those days, but it's like two or three days of some sort of key like workout, whether it be like a threshold run or speed or even just some sort of speed play where it may be like a fart lick or progression run, or maybe they start easy and progress the pace. So those aren't as demanding, but they still involve some work, you know. So some some version of that. And then obviously in between it's gonna be easy run recovery runs or or some sort of uh cross-training. But I would assume like for an Iron Man, that wouldn't, you know, your key sessions probably are only gonna be one a week, I would assume.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

If if that if that yeah now I don't I don't want people to walk away from this discussion saying that Iron Man athletes don't run hard because that's that's not the case at all. I mean we do we do have some intensity in our runs. The frequency in which we put the intensity in the plan is less than the intensity that I would put in for a marathoner. So, you know, the way that I typically will will build a plan, you know, guide an athlete along is let's just say that we're gonna run four times a week, which I think is that in my opinion is a little bit that that's sufficient for for an Iron Man. You have the long run, maybe a moderate run, and two short runs, then we can throw in a little bit of intensity and one of those short runs, you know, where we'll do some progressions or some some alternating alternating runs where you know it's a little bit of faster pace for uh for a segment of time and then it goes back to a relaxed and then you know goes up again and relaxes that alternating method. Those are fine. I may I I probably wouldn't put them in the training plan every single week because if I do that, then I may give them a little bit of an easier bike week if I'm going to put in more run intensity, and then the next week I may switch it and give them a little bit more bike intensity and decrease the intensity in their run. So it's really this think of it in terms of a scale. I want the scale to be balanced, and if I put too much intensity in one, then it tilts that scale up, but then I gotta figure out how to counterbalance it. You know, I think that that's that's where the art of you know trying to manage an Ironman athlete comes from because it's not all going to be data driven. I mean, there's this really big push these days to have science-backed, you know, data-driven training plans. I think that there's there's a time and place for them, but each athlete is so uniquely different in how the body responds and adapts and the stimulus that is going to be needed to develop that adaptation that, you know, just because something is, you know, data driven doesn't mean it's appropriate for everybody. You know, I may have to say, you know, this is what the this is what the data shows us in this case study, and I try and give that to a an athlete, and they don't respond the same way, and they end up getting hurt. So that does them a disservice. So then there's things that I may do this not backed by science, not backed by data at all, but because I know the athlete and how their body responds and what kind of stimulus I need to inject in the training plan to get a particular response. I may not do that with any other athlete, and it may not work for any other athlete, but it worked for that one. And so, you know, I I think that there's I don't want people to think that, you know, all their training plans have to be science backed and it's data driven and all this. Those are the big buzzwords these days. And it's kind of wearing on me a little bit because it just I was like, you know, it's fine if if you're talking about what works for the general population or whatever whatever population they created to do that study, that that may be fine.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

And it may work for for some, but there's going to be some that it doesn't work for.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

You mentioned that. I feel like that could be almost the whole topic on its own that we could talk about. Because I was even thinking about that. I got a new Garmin watch uh for my birthday, and it's got more on it, like than my other one did. And it's been sort of I this morning I went to go run, and it's like, we don't recommend you run today or something. It's like maybe take a rest day. And I'm like, oh well, hmm, I don't really have that option. You know, I'm gonna go easy, like a really easy day, but I'm curious. And then I got me thinking, like, and I need to dig into it a little more, is it's baby based off of whatever data the Garmin is getting. I'm like, how accurate, you know. I'm like, then I start questioning myself. I'm like, well, like maybe I should take a day off today. I mean, my got my watch is telling me that I should. But it's obviously getting a bunch of data somehow from like my heart rate and other things and sort of spitting out some sort of recommendation. It's data driven, like that's kind of data driven too. And I'm like, is this really I felt better after my run than I did before? And I'm like, I this is part of my training plan, but it's got to be I just wonder how many athletes, you know, it's not even coach driven, but I think so many athletes don't have a coach, they're following a plan or they're just kind of running. I'm just wondering like how if if those types of things are leading people astray, or if it's a good recommendation, you know. I wonder because I'm like, I know myself well, and I'm like, nope, like today I'm not gonna go hard. I need this recovery run. I'm not gonna take the day completely off because I I because I know myself and I know that's what I needed. And I surely enough, I felt I feel better now, recovered better after doing that. But it's just interesting. Something I think almost like another topic on its own is that data that what to do, what the is the data kind of leaving leading when is it helpful and when is it kind of leading us astray? Because yeah, you're right, like certain athletes. I know I've coached some that I start with a certain workouts or a certain direction we're gonna go, and then but based off their feedback, I'm like, oh, that's not what I was expecting. So let's change it up a little bit for you. You're like, okay, this is a little bit different than maybe my experience working with other people or the what the science says, but yeah, I think there's absolutely gonna be like that individuality, and it's not always what the data's showing us. And anyway, so the other thing I want to mention, just kind of switching gears, because I think in terms of the training, the differences, I think we kind of illustrated that pretty well. Again, it's gonna be pretty individual between you know who the athlete itself, it's gonna the the trade the way the runs are structured, maybe like a little bit individual, but I think the biggest difference between the two is there's going to be for a standalone marathon, the athletes are going to be doing these structured workouts. The goal is having a certain pace. Usually, like most athletes have a time they're trying to achieve. So it's gonna be based off of that, you know, and so the workouts are gonna be very structured with certain stimulus. Whereas for the triath, like an Iron Man, there may be a little bit of that, but it's mostly gonna just be a lot of that aerobic running, keeping someone fit, like and helping them managing some of the like what it's gonna feel like maybe after the bike and helping them realize, like even coming up with like, okay, how what's gonna be a good pace for me? How do I manage if my stride is a little bit different or it's slower than I'm used to so that I can get through? Cause I know for me when I've done, I remember pacing like a four-hour marathon one time in Colorado Springs, and I'm like, oh, four hours, I was surely gonna be able to finish this marathon. That was the only marathon in my life I've ever didn't finish. Like it was I was pacing it and my mindset was like, oh, this is gonna be super easy. Like it's just a jog. Well, at mile 18, I had extreme knee pain. I mean, I was in pain and I'm like, what the? And I had to stop. I mean, I was like, this isn't, I'm like, this is a lot of discomfort, and I'm used to discomfort, but I'm like, I'm worried. This is just a train, and luckily there was another pacer that was at the same was running with me. So he was able, so I didn't like totally drop the ball. Luckily, I don't know. I probably would have done it finished if I if he wasn't there because I would have felt bad. But I realized later because I stopped and then it wasn't like my knees were injured. I realized later it's because I totally changed the way I was running, yeah. To run that much slower than my, you know, usual three-hour marathon or something. So it's like a whole hour is a lot slower for me. My whole running stride was different. And by mile, which would have been fine for a shorter distance, but by mile 18, I was, you know, I was having that much pain. So it's an interesting thing. I think you mentioned there. I I I didn't even think about that before, but I think it's that you may be running 30 minutes slower than your marathon PR or more, you know, depending. So getting used to what that's going to feel like and be kind of used to that different sort of biomechanical. I mean, not that you're changing your biomechanics, but there is going to be something there to consider because the stride length is a little different. So being able to prepare for that, I think would be really important. Cause I'm thinking to myself, like that I would have been walking, or I don't know, if that was like an Iron Man and I had, you know, now had a four-hour marathon I was trying to achieve.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Just the stride changes alone just destroyed my that's one of the reasons, yeah, when I when I work with if I'm working with a marathoner, then you know, we are definitely going to have a little bit more of of a paced of a pace focus, just because that's the way that they they typically work. You know, I I I can't I can't convince a marathoner to ignore pace. It's like trying to, you know, change the nature of of somebody. It just doesn't. It's like part of their DNA. But when I work with a triathlete, our run training is very, very different, has a di very different focus. And the focus that I put on it is like our run training is going to be developing patience. And you know, when I have a runner who comes into the sport of triathlon, they want to run it like a runner. And I was like, no, no, it's it's it's not going to feel that way. And so we really have to work on being patient when you come off of the bike. That's the whole purpose behind the brick sessions that we do. And I know that this is gonna piss people off. And I really, yeah, that's the way it is. The purpose behind the brick is the practice of this pacing. It's the pack, it's the practice of patience coming off of the bike. Because what happens is they come off the bike and they want to run like a runner, and now they've completely sabotaged the back half of their marathon because they've come out too too hard and too fast. So when I work with a triathlete, I'm gonna say, look, this the start of our runs is going to feel brutally slow. And there's a reason behind this. I want to drill this into your head to where it becomes second nature, to where if you feel like you're getting off the bike and you start to run and you're like, Man, I feel like I'm just crawling, then you're you're right where I want you to be. Because then that allows us to build. You can't you can't go out hot and then try and unbuild that building because it it is not going to work. I'd much rather you learn to be patient coming off of the bike and allow that run to develop, which is not the way that a marathoner thinks.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

Yeah, it's I think that's the hardest part for a marathoner, is just the whole change in only the training and the focus maybe more on cycling, but also and then the maybe defocus on some of those key workouts and taking the long run and doing, you know, marathon pacework and all those things that a lot of marathoners do. It's also this the shift in like how they run, like the their strategy for that race. Because I mean, in a marathon, typically you're not you don't want to start out too hot either. I mean, there's like obviously you don't want to start out way too fast because that'll get you later on, but you have a specific pace in mind and you're trying to kind of hit that pace the entire time pretty consistently. I mean, it very few marathoners can actually sort of have like like get faster towards the end. Most of the time you're either kind of consistent or you're slightly slowing down. So you're just trying to keep that slowing down as little minimum as possible. But in an Iron Man, you're sort of saying that, yeah, you almost want to start out conservative. You want to start that run. So even if you have a certain pace in mind for the entire thing, it's more of like, let's start out a little bit conservative, because it's not it's not even such a given almost unless you've done several Iron Man's. Even if you're like, okay, I think I could do this marathon in this time, if especially if it's your first one, you don't know you've never done it before. So you don't know how it's going to feel. You may be totally off in that estimation. So it's like starting out slow and kind of building into it and uh kind of putting the pace. A little bit out the wit window a little bit. That's very hard to for many marathoners to not look or not be like, oh my gosh, I usually run, you know, marathons at this pace to like try to give maybe if I not look at their watch and just kind of go and slowly ease into it. And and then maybe if they're feeling good, they can push the pace a little bit on the second half, which would be amazing. But um but if they start out too fast, I think the wheels may come undone a little bit more quickly and more dramatically in an Iron Man than they might in a standalone marathon where you can maybe kind of hang on for to your life a little bit. I think when when you do that sort of thing when you've already had so much accumulated fatigue and effort from the other so many hours you've been out there, it's gonna d unravel a little bit more quickly and more dramatically. So just that shift in mindset. And in a lot of ways, like I'm kind of thinking about it, I'm like, I've just so focused myself on this pace thing. That's one of the things I loved about like ultra running was that the pace thing wasn't, you don't you I mean, maybe now is some of these pro ultra runners, they're thinking more about pace. But when I did it, it was like just based off how I felt. And it I really didn't look a lot at my watch or my pace because you're going up and down hills and mountains, and there's different terrain, and it doesn't matter so much. And that was extremely freeing to me. I loved that part of it because I'm like sometimes I just get so sick of like looking at my watch and what's my pace, and you know, which you do have to do a little bit of for a marathon. So I think my thought is maybe it would actually be freeing to be able to just be like, you know what? This thing I know it's not gonna be a PR marathon. I just want to finish it. Like, I'm just gonna I'm gonna run it. I'm based off of feel instead of pace. And maybe some runners would actually feel like that would be like a nice shift in mindset and free freedom to to not have to be so focused. So there's another way of thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

Yeah, one of the big things that I think marathonners can get away with is run efficiency. I I think that the marathon is a little bit more forgiving with runners who may not be as efficient as they as they could be. But for the Iron Man, I think that efficiency matters so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

Marathoners, too, with like some of the shoe technology, I do think that's allowing, you know, like the carbon-plated shoes and some of the I think that's allowing people who are less efficient to be able to get away with that more. Whereas before we I think that's a piece of it is just being able to they're they're saving people a little bit from that wear and tear that maybe having a little bit less efficiency, and that's probably one of the pieces of what that technology does. But I agree, I think even it without the technology, probably true.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:50

I think that what we can see is that by the time you get to the run, any kind of muscular inefficient inefficiency, whether that be in in your cycling approach or your swim approach, that stuff just compounds over time. And so by the time that you get to the run, you're already muscularly compromised because of those inefficiencies. And so as that stuff starts to accumulate, the way that you're gonna have to approach that marathon now is at a compromised place rather than like a standalone marathon doesn't have that kind of that same kind of scenario that they have to have to deal with. A marathoner will s will see those those compromise situations later into their race, but it's it's quite common to for an Iron Man to see those compromise early into the marathon. And that and that's hard to manage.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:42

That's true. Yeah, that makes sense. Like maybe seeing that halfway through, and you're whereas like a lot of people who are running a marathon might see that the last six miles at some point, but you can you can force it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:54

It's hard to see it when when you're only a 10k into your marathon of of an Iron Man, you're just like, oh my gosh, you're seeing stuff that like marathoners see in the last 10k, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:06

That's interesting. Yeah, it's a good point. I think the other thing, maybe the last piece here would just be, and we've kind of covered this a little bit so we could quickly kind of go through this, would be the recovery piece. Obviously, there's the recovery demands are different. So, like a marathon runner, if they're doing it correctly, you're doing like your hard run, and then you have a one or two recovery days that are very focused on recovery. Now, do a lot of marathoners get that wrong? Sure. Yeah. Some people don't take the recovery run seriously enough, and that probably gets them into trouble. But if you're doing it correctly, you know, you know you're not trying to balance the three different sports. And I think it's just more complicated, is what I'm trying to say. So I don't know, like you're because you're coaching, like what how do you think about no recovery? I do think overtraining risk is probably, especially for an iron band triathlete, probably higher than a marathoner, although obviously marathoners still struggle with that. But what are your thoughts on the recovery as we kind of wind this down?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:07

That's one of the reasons that we have to approach the run so so cautiously and conservatively. And that's I'll say it this way that's to why I approach the run training as conservatively as I do. Not all coaches do this, but I can only speak for how I would implement it. And so I have to be really careful on the long runs that I give my athletes because sometimes that just takes a lot to recover from. And I don't want to put them in a situation where I give them a long, hard run and now they're on the shelf for like two days. Well, that means that now we've lost some some valuable swim training. We may have lost like one or two bike sessions that could have been in there. There's a big cost for going too hard for for something. And the recovery is is really, really important. I'm still not a big firm believer in like, you know, consistent rest days within a training plan. I I go back and forth on this, and I know that there are people out there who's just like, oh, well, that's where the that's where the growth happens, and that's where the performance takes place, and so you've got to have complete rest days. I I'm still not there yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

I think that there's You mean like a whole day off?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:19

Yeah, like you'll see some training plans where there's like there's always one day off every single week.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:25

I see.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:26

And I've I've never heard a triathlon.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

I feel like I mean I have a hard time adding rest complete rest days into my marathon training plan because of the volume trying to hit, like it pushes me to have to do a lot more volume on other days. And I'm like, I'd rather spread that out a little bit more evenly than have to do like a real like lot like double runs all the time, which I think would be actually more of an issue for me in terms of like recovery than doing spreading the volume out. But for travel, I'm when you're trying, like, I don't know, I'm a firm believer in active recovery. So I I feel like you could probably put in like an active recovery swim, but also like I I wonder too, like my part of my thought is like when I do my elliptical training, I can get my heart rate up maybe a little bit past zone two, but I'm not taking the mechanical stress, still stress, right? So it's not like I'm like mid-there's no stress to it, but I'm not having the same mechanical stress. So like with Trathlon, you know, maybe if you're sort of doing it right, you can have more, you know, maybe don't need as many recovery days. Like you still need some, and maybe like an active recovery day or like a true recovery day where nothing you're doing is really hard or putting a lot of stress on the body. But also if I think there's maybe more room for it's just an art and maybe like really getting that right can be hard, but you have more room for like maybe a hard you can do like a hard cycling day or like a hard cycling workout and maybe like an easy swim and then the next day do like an aerobic run. That's not hard, but you're you know, like you don't have to like take it super easy because you because on the bike you're maybe pushing it and there's stress to it, so you maybe don't want to do the next day really hard, but you can probably balance that a little bit differently because of the three different disciplines we're with running, just the the wear and tear on the body, the recovery from that is is substantial sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:21

Yeah, the way that the way that I would approach recovery for for an Iron Man triathlete is there's no such thing in that scenario as a recovery run. I don't put in recovery runs for for iron men. The reason is because we're only going to be running like maybe four most five five days out of the week. That's extreme, in my opinion. That's a highly experienced athlete I would put in maybe five. But four, we're we're only running four times. The demands on the body from running, there there is no recovery to it. I don't care how you know easy you run or how slow that you run, there's still impact to the feet, there's still impact to the joints and tendons. That stuff still is accumulating. So the way that I approach recovery sessions or easy sessions are going to be pool and biking. So that's when we get on the trainer and I say, I want you to put this thing in the easiest gear that you can without bouncing up and down on the seat. So just some light engagement of the leg, and we're gonna get the cadence up and we're just gonna flush the legs that way. Or I'll go in and say, okay, we had we had a couple hard sessions, now we're just gonna hit the pool, but we're gonna do some fins and maybe some pull buoy work to where it's, you know, we take the lower body out of it. I fix the body position by using the pull buoy, and now it's just gonna be all upper body and allow the lower body to kind of, you know, get a break. That's that's the way recovery looks in triathlon training. It's very, very different than what run training recovery looks like.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:58

Well, very rarely with run training would I do two back-to-back hard days where I would do two back to back, like whether it be a hard day and then a long run or like a hard two workout days back to back. I mean, there may be like a very specific reason I would do that, and then there would be maybe several for some sort of adaptation, or you know, maybe I would do two either two, like a double lactate, which is very popular right now, but there may be specific reasons I would do that, or just a special block where it's just gonna be a little more challenging. But for most athletes, that's pretty advanced. You know, I'm not doing that for many people. I'm thinking like for triathlon, you might be able to have like because you could have like a harder bike day and maybe like a harder run day, or like a run day at the bike day and then a recovery, you know. So because you don't demands are a little different there, you could probably do that, you know, a little more often because it's just different training stimulus, different demands. You wouldn't want to maybe back do like load a bunch of hard days all together, but you could probably get away with that a little more too. So there's a little nuance to it, I think, which makes it challenging because, you know, because you're trying to fit all these things in. You can kind of get away with that where you do like a hard bike and then maybe a run day and then have like an easy swim recovery or spin, or even double, you know, days where you can do a little bit more because of the because of the the demands are different, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:21

So I mean it's it's possible to string several hard sessions together for triathlon because you know, let's say that you're following a typical pattern where you have the long bike on a Saturday and you have the long run on Sunday. That's just the standard that most people are going to lean on because that's where their schedule allows it. If you have the ability to move that long run to like Wednesday, I I love that. That's that's really, really good in my in my opinion, because they're gonna say, well, yeah, I gotta learn how to run on fatigue legs and being tired. Well, you're going to be tired. So it doesn't matter if you run on Wednesday, if you're gonna run on Sunday, you're tired. So you're going to learn that really easily. So if you have really long sessions on Saturday and Sunday, then you can come in with an easy swim session on Monday, and then we can hit another threshold, threshold bike session on Tuesday, then we can come in with a hard session in the pool on Wednesday, we can do a hard run on Thursday, and then an easy session on Friday leading in to another big volume on Wednesday. So because we can we can sequence hard sessions as long as we do it in such a way that the demands on the body are spread out. So I I can really tax the legs from the bike, but I don't want to do another hard run the next day because the the legs are still trying to recover from the hard bike session the previous day. But if I can shift it and say, now we're going to have a hard pull session, then that's going to be mainly your upper body stress. And while the legs then are getting some kind of reprieve, it's still not, you know, complete rest, but I've now shifted the demands on the body to the upper body. And then the next day I can come in and say, okay, effectively the legs got a little bit of a rest day yesterday because we swam hard. Now let's come in with we can do some some intervals on a on a run and really kind of load up the legs. And then that Friday, maybe you can either do another easy pool session. It depends on where the the athlete has their weaknesses. If they're a weak swimmer, then I want more time in the pool. So I may throw in another like recovery swim, another easy swim, or you can throw in just an easy spin on the bike. So I may do them in the morning, have an easy pool session, in the evening, just a nice spin on the trainer, and that leads right into the long bike on Saturday, and we just keep rolling like that until the body tells us that it needs a break.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:52

That's that's my belief as an athlete and as a coach that I don't give prescribed rest days. So it's not like Mondays are off, unless there is a reason that the athlete is telling me, look, I need Mondays off. I need it either for a mental thing, just to kind of reset my brain, then that's fine. I understand that because training can be hard. And so I want you to be as mentally fresh as possible. And if you just feel like the training is just dragging on, it's going to affect the quality of the work that I'm going to get out of you aerobically. So I want you fresh. And then I tell him it's like, look, we're going to keep rolling forward until I start to see some degradation in performance or your comments that you're giving me in training peaks from your workouts. It's like, this should have been a really easy workout. But I felt so tired. I felt so dragged on. I felt like I was sinking in the pool rather than sitting on top of the water. Then that's the indications that I need that, okay, now we need a rest day. But I don't just throw in just like every Monday we're gonna we're gonna have off. Because we have volume that I want you to have exposure to to try and set you up for a successful race day.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:09

I think probably that you know, for a majority of people I put in at least one. I mean, it depends on their skill. But I do because of the demands of running, like I do often put one rest day completely off, or it'd be like an active recovery don't run, but maybe walk or do something like that. But for it's the same thing. I mean, the way I train the marathon for for for people who are trying to get high volume because it is hard when you take the day off out, you have to then load the volume in six days. I'll do that same thing where it's strategic. It's not every week, but it's not like I don't give rest days. It's just okay, let's go. We're gonna do two or three weeks of like trying to hit some volume and then it'll be a rest day, like strategically placed in there, maybe every couple weeks, every three weeks. There'll be you know, again, like a deload week where maybe there is one or a series of maybe not totally rest days, but very like light days. So it's usually strategic in there. And I'm listening, if someone's yeah, you're I'm this is getting hard, my legs aren't recovering, I'm struggling, then I might throw in an additional recovery day. But uh it's hard. I think that's probably the but the recovery I think is just more with the Iron Man, I would assume more of thought thought out a little. I mean, you're but you could put you don't maybe need as many recovery days, but you also have to kind of make sure you're thinking it out a little bit differently. Right, but it's just a a different way of thinking about recovery in a way because you're managing the three sports. So and obviously they're both sleep fueling, stress management, all the same. Those are gonna be critical for all of both.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:43

Maybe arguably more so for a triathlete who's got maybe more hours or training potentially, but all that's gonna be the same recommendations that we call talk about for recovery are all important no matter what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:56

Yeah, I don't know if you're the recovery, it just looks differently. I I think marathon or so sometimes it it'll just catch people off guard. It's like, oh well, where where's the rest day? Because they've been conditioned to say, well, rest is where the growth happens and that's where the adaptation takes place. And it's just like, well, I mean, not necessarily. The way that we approach it, you still will deload some fatigue, but we're not interested in completely, you know, deloading. So the way that we approach it is different. So but yeah, I mean, if if I have an athlete who is not sleeping well and those sorts of things, I mean, that that has to be considered. So if if you come to me and it's like, oh, I have a really stressful, stressful job right now, there's a big project and I'm really worried about it, so I'm only getting like six hours of sleep a night, and it's really kind of shallow sleep, it's not really deep restorative sleep, then that's a different scenario. But then I have to say, okay, well, now maybe until this project is over, I'm just going to give you an established day off. And once we get on the other side of this, then we'll rethink it and be a little bit more proactive that way. Because I don't want to break them down to the point where now they don't need a rest day, they need a rest week. That's that's not that's not what we want. So I think one of the problems with coaches that tend to be a little bit more hands-off and just don't communicate with their athletes, this is where that falls that that starts to break down. There's not enough communication that's taking place between the athlete and the coach to where we can make that assessment, and it's always the case where it's it's just too late. But when it shows up, it shows up and it's gonna be devastating.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

Yeah, it can be like actual overtraining where they're I mean, yeah, needing a whole week off or more just because they're so dug themselves so much into a hole. So I agree. That's why I when I work with someone, I I I want it to be a little more hands-on, and you know, that maybe does mean that there's a little more of a cost to it potentially, but it's like I want to meet with people at least every two to three weeks, if not some sort of communication, and it's like weekly, I'm looking at their comments and like trying to get an idea of their, you know, what's going on, and it it is more um but it time intensive in that way, but it's important because you don't want to miss some some sort of signal that something's going on or information that's valuable. And I don't ever want anyone I worked with to ever experience over-training syndrome or anything close to that, because it's it's not good. I feel like that's mostly what I ha had. I don't know if there's any last point.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:34

That pretty much wraps up. I think that yeah, I hit all the all the points that I think I wanted to that I wanted to cover. So this has been episode 95 of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast, where we've talked about the comparison of a standalone marathon and how that training looks compared to an Iron Man marathon. So I think this has been a really fun conversation, you know, just between you and I, Katie. I think I've I've had a good time. I hope other people have enjoyed it as well. All right, but I want to thank you guys for joining us. Thank you so much for the support that you continue to share the podcast. If you've found if you found this episode to be helpful to you, or if you know somebody else out there that you think that this would be helpful, then please consider leaving a review or a comment or sharing the episode with with anybody that you think it would help. That is greatly appreciated. As we've said before, we don't monetize the podcast, so we don't have ads, we don't have sponsors. So one of the great ways that you can show support for the podcast is by sharing episodes with others, leaving reviews and comments, because it really does help increase the exposure of the podcast and allows other people to find us. So those are greatly appreciated. It doesn't take very long, it's like a couple seconds, just to click on five stars if that's what you feel like it's worth. We we greatly appreciate that. We also have the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast group. It's a private group on Facebook. We've been growing out this community from day one, but we really would love to see some more involvement. And we just hope that you would consider because it's a place where we can share some additional content, we can reach out and have direct contact with the listeners and with us as as the coaches and the hosts of the podcast. We'll get ideas on future episodes, maybe Q ⁇ A's. This is just a great way to just interact, which which I would love to do more of. So I hope that you will consider joining. All you gotta do is just answer one simple question and agree to the group rules, and it lets you right on in. So I hope that you will check that out. We are both active coaches and taking on athletes onto our rosters. So if you are looking for coaching, you just need help, maybe coming up with with workouts, and you're just kind of stuck and you're not seeing the development that you really want to see, or you're just super busy and you're tired of trying to figure out what kind of workouts you should be doing, and chat GPT is just giving you the same old stuff that everybody else is doing, then I hope that you will consider us as your coach. So you can, if you're interested in working with Katie or reaching out to Katie, you can go to fuel the number two run.com. She does dietetics for all sports and run training. You can go to taboolarassa racing.com and you can reach out to me. I do multi-sport and single sport training plans and one-on-one coaching as well. Just do your due diligence. Finding the right coach is really, really important. You've got to find one that just that just fits. They may be a great coach, but personality-wise, they just don't mesh with you. That's really, really important. So do your due diligence. We hope that you would consider us on your list of coaches that you decide to reach out to and talk to. Um, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Uh, we're more than happy and would love to talk to you. Uh, I think that boils it down. So this has been ninety f episode ninety-five of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I've been your host, Coach Justin, along with Coach Katie, and thank you guys for your support, and we will talk to you again next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:55

Yep. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:56

See ya. That wraps up today's episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience. Lessons that carry far beyond the workout. Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts. It comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous. Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day. If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey. Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another. We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie. Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout.com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Have questions or comments about the podcast? Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com. For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run dot com and coach Justin at taboolarassa racing.com. Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast and remember to find joy in the journey.