This may be a long post. Or several strung together. About to enter the final 12 weeks of preparation for my last Ironman, I’m developing a new race and training strategy, and think it might be worth sharing. It should be of particular interest to those who have found themselves walking a substantial portion of the marathon in a previous Ironman, or know that the odds are quite high they will end up walking some come race day. Maybe you have an injury which restricts the amount of time you can spend running far and/or fast. Maybe you’re new to running, and haven’t yet built the structural stamina to sustain a run, even at jogging pace, for five hours after 8-9+ hours of swimming and biking. Or maybe (like me) you used to be able to run for hours at a time, but no longer can.
Ever since my first Ironman in November 2000, when I walked five or six of the last 8 miles in Panama City, Florida, I have viewed a successful Ironman as one in which I ran the whole way (save for aid stations). I took succumbing to walking as a sign of personal weakness, of failure, of a lack of sufficient will. I was always well-trained for the run, and indeed finished many Ironman races running the whole way, several even with negative splits. A big part of my preparation and race-day strategy revolved around avoiding the impact of dropping from a running pace of 9-10 minutes per mile to a walking pace of 17-18 minutes per mile. Within Endurance Nation (I joined in 2009), we view this as the fundamental tenet: “There is no such thing as a good bike followed by a poor run”; “the race doesn’t begin until Mile 18”, etc. I have written several pieces on how to mentally prepare during race-specific training to keep running when you are able, but no longer want to, as well as proper pacing to prevent a breakdown 3 hours into the marathon.
A month ago, I realised that I would not be able to train as much or as well as I know is necessary to run the entire marathon on Oct 9 on the Big Island. I won’t detail the physical issues involved. In the past, I would have done what I could, and tried to gut it out on race day – I’ve done that successfully and unsuccessfully in the past. But I had never gone into a race knowing that I would not be running the whole way. I’d always engaged in magical thinking that I could pull the rabbit out of the hat one more time. Since this is my last Ironman, I did not want to repeat the physical and mental agony of finding myself walking instead of running, or worse, quitting 3 or 4 hours into the run. And, since this is my last Ironman, on Kona or anywhere else, and since I am now 72, I feel I do not have the option to say, “well, good try, mate, give it a go next year.”
First sharing the issue with Coach P, asking for help, and then discussing the prospect in some detail, I realised the answer lies in a fundamental truth about competition: you should train how you intend to race. For instance, running at a 10 minute/mile pace on weekly long runs, you should not expect to suddenly be able to sustain a 9 minute pace on race day. But how to implement that? I have seen a number of Ironmen/women who knew they would be walking the whole way, and they had simply done enormous blocks of brisk walking in preparation. But I do not want to walk for 7 + hours/26 miles through the lava. I can still run, just not as far as I used to be able to.
So the plan became obvious. First, decide how much running I envision being able to do, with the rest walking, and then train to do that. Thinking about the first half of that equation, I knew I did not want to do what I’d done, and seen countless others do: run as much as I could, then start walking until I felt like running again, then walk, then run, all without a plan. I would go into the race from the start splitting my time between running and walking. And then I would train to do precisely that.
The advantage to this is twofold. First, I would be able to fine tune the split between running and walking, as well as the speeds of each. And second, I would have a measure of confidence that I will be able to sustain a steady pace and finish, two fundamental goals.
Now, I have to say that I went to college with Jeff Galloway, along with Bill Rodgers and Ambi Burfoot. They were all on the track team at the small (1800 students) school I attended in CT. The latter two, of course, are Boston Marathon winners, and Jeff Galloway is well known as a proponent of the Run/Walk method of training and racing. http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/run-walk/ And even in EN, we know the value of planning to walk the aid stations, and know that won’t really slow you down. But I’m not talking about running for 9 minutes, walking for 1, etc. And I’m not viewing myself taking walking “breaks”.
My intent is to run 5’, walk 5’. From the very start out of T2. At the fastest speeds I can sustain in each for the 6+ hours I expect it will take me to finish. So that is what I have begun to train: start the training session with five minutes of walking, switch to running after 5’, return to walking for another five, lather, rinse and repeat. Playing around with pacing for the past two weeks, I seem to be able to sustain walking in the range of 15-17’ miles, and running in the range of 10’-12’. Back in 2011, an EN member created an Excel spreadsheet which takes those paces, and the ratio between running and walking, and shows the distance I will be covering from each, as well as my overall time. I am currently at 50’ 5-6x/week, and plan on being at 1 hour 6x/ week at the end of the month, with a “long” “run” of 1: 40 this week, building to 2.5 by September.
This whole project has turned around my mentality from resignation (“I’m afraid I’ll end of walking after mile 1X”) to engagement, eager to find out what eventually happens. But no matter what, I’m still gonna retire from IM on October 10.