I’m not an experienced runner at all, so I’ve been following the runs in the full-distance, high-volume plan to a T, including the RPE 9/10 ones, and I don’t think it’s impacted the rest of my training negatively; I’m still able to complete the rest of my workouts, even adding some Z2 volume on the bike. It’s not the first time I’ve read criticisms of TR’s running plans, but given that, would you suggest continuing to do that, or should I be looking at changing my running plan? (I’ve thought about getting a coach from TP just for my running.)
Don’t drop it. Just cut back on it. Decrease the weight a little and do 2 sets instead of 4. Just enough to maintain but not get DOMS or fatigued
Nice month!
Welcome back. You might be biting off too much with HV after your year last year. Highly recommend you step up to mid volume.
If you can recover from them, I’d say keep doing them.
The other way to think about it is if you dropped the speed work, what more could you add? For must of us, our fitness will benefit more from additional time than it will from more intensity. Could you add another 60-90 minutes easy run or ride each week today? Could you push your long run out another 30 minutes? What about if you dropped your speed work to an easy run?
Think about the 5k/10k speed skater that was biking 6 hours a day, multiple days week for a 12.5 minute race. Here’s some more anecdotal evidence of a 13 minute 5k runner who was putting in 150-180km (90-110 mi) per week, but was also utilizing low end threshold work! At the end of the day, volume is and always will be king.
3 Likes
I followed the full distance MV plan last year, including the run workouts (repeating the same this year). I won my race (Jurassic man, full distance Tri with loads of elevation) so the running plan can’t be too far off the money.
Maybe not optimal but worked well enough for me. I’m just pondering it this time round as I think it’s always good to re-evaluate.
Someone else mentioned what else you could do instead. I do my interval run during a work lunch break, so would only be able to swap it for the equivalent time in Z2 (run or bike), so not a massive advantage there.
From my running days I found speed work/intervals a massive help and think running hard/fast on occasion is vital, just trying to decide quite how fast/hard/what structure that session should be.
1 Like
There’s definitely a bit of DOMs the next day but not enough to hinder any training. I normally do my base swim and strength work/rock climbing the next day so fine to do with tired legs.
Looking at the difference between high and mid volume the biggest difference is that the “Easy” session is intermediate instead. Adding even more intensity, when what I would want is adding more volume. So maybe I will go back to mid volume after a few weeks, or just change one of the intensity sessions to an endurance session.
During the last 6 weeks I have been changing the sessions manually, because I always rated them as “Easy” or I had the time to do a longer session. Back to base period now, and AI FTP detection gave me a bump from 316 to 330W FTP. So maybe thats enough to make sessions more moderate.
If you use this table as a reference point for what speed you would like to do, translating the RPE from Borg to 1-10 scale, you would want to hit somewhere between Marathon pace and 10k pace. If you are doing it as a continous run I would rather hit Marathon pace than 10k pace.
The picture is from this review: “Does Lactate-Guided Threshold Interval Training within a
High-Volume Low-Intensity Approach Represent the “Next
Step” in the Evolution of Distance Running Training?”
Would give it a read if you are interested in learning more of the “Norwegian method”
HM pace 
I had linked to that paper in my previous post.
The sample week is eye opening for an elite middle distance runner. It has quite a bit of “sweet spot” running (2.5-3.5 mmol/l BLa), but also 100km per week of easy running. Most of the hard stuff is reasonably below the historical 4 mmol/L. It’s likely that those 2.5 mmol/L workouts are much closer to marathon pace (~2hr TTE) and the 3.5 mmol/L workouts are ~HM pace (~1 HR TTE). This aligns reasonably well this other “methods” like the Jack Daniel’s marathon method that includes lots of time at M-pace (~marathon pace).
There’s then this
I think the key take away from a lot of this is that sure, run fast sometimes, but also run LOTS of easy miles/kms and when you run hard, don’t run as hard as you think you should. 26.2 or 13.1 pace is plenty fast.
3 Likes
my n = 1 study say:
- Volume over speed.
- Pace between easy and MP are the best.
My best marathon time (and probably the fittest Ive ever been, without over training) was in late 2016/early 2017. I was running maybe up to 80 miles per week and my LR were in the 7:50 MPM range. I did a 22 mile run @ 7:15 average (last 3 were sub 7) 3 weeks before my best marathon.
Anyways… My point is that you should run Easy but also add some harder than easy run (faster than E, easier than MP).
1 Like
I did a writeup for one of the athletes im coaching for running.
It will depend on whats the biggest limit for you. And in what sport do you need to raise the roof the most. Its easier to add volume doing cycling if your prone to injury. That way I would say its more important to work on the leg speed for running if the volume is low.
You can read the writeup and my thoughts here: From failing to reach sub90 in half-marathon to sub85 in 17 months
1 Like
I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago, there are still a few posts on here where I put together a conversion of RPE to paces, but that was a mistake. It really is how you feel, not a specific pace.
Also, look at the workout text and you’ll notice the RPE matches the hardest part of the run, not the whole run.
Most of the early stages will have runs with near-sprint intervals, these disappear over the training plan and are mostly RPE6 (moderate) and RPE 4 by speciality, IIRC.
These days I know my run efforts/paces from experience and standard training calculators like macmillan, more short interval paces in base and easy aerobic paces in speciality.
man im struggling getting all the workouts i want in…
especially the bike rides which usually are my easy go-to (aka i enjoy them)
but in the back of my head i know my running needs a lot of work and so does my swim, so im way more compliant on those where as the bike gets maybe 50% compliance, even though theyre easy rides.
My half marathon comes first, chronologically, so i guess it makes sense to put a bigger emphasis on the run, but i want to get more base volume by way of bike!
I couldn’t imagine juggling 2 kids’ schedules and my tri schedule could be such a hassle.
1 Like
That’s mostly true; A decent focus of shorter easy runs, some strides, 1 tempo run, one long run, if a little short in total volume.
And then there are still some really odd decisions in there like the odd weeks of HIM HV Build.
3.5 hr long ride followed by an hour run with 7x1’ all out efforts. The # of reps grows to 10 as the build plan goes up from there. As written, that’s approaching 400 repeats at faster than mile pace. Maybe that’s not their intent. Maybe they meant strides, but how it’s written, IMO, is absurd.
2 Likes
Yeah i used to get injured doing that about five years ago, stopped pretty quick and limited it to 5k pace.
I like a bit of hard work, but never go all out any more.
For most people you don’t need to run much at all beyond easy pace with good form. And I think the basic running TR gives is if anything, more than they need - all the hard work can be done on the bike.
I’m a weak runner though and very slowly improving, so I’ve been experimenting with other plans and tried most of the big names. I used the MacMillan half marathon plan during 70.3 base this winter and have completed one cycle and just switched up five minutes in goal pace in my long standing attempt to run well at long course 
I don’t think anyone has to do this, but after your first season with TR you’re likely to switch it about.
I’m still hoping TR will revise the tri plans now @Jonathan is One Of Us 
1 Like
Remind yourself that your doing well!
Most people end up with greater compliance on the things they like rather than the things they need. Where I can I weave my runs and swims into the kids schedule - drop them off wherever, get a workout in there and pick them up again. Get the bike done before school drop off.
Luckily I only have to do that twice a week at the moment, so I know it’s much easier on me than some. Otherwise I blend it around work and commute and use my lunchtimes religiously.
congrats, that looks like a crazy race. I know how up and down that coastline is… couldn’t imagine running a marathon with tired legs on it.
the RPE from 6-20 is completely throwing me off, so un-intuitive… can anyone translate on a 1-10 RPE scale?