Yes everyone’s training history is different so focus or switching to single sport will have different effects.
A key thing to remember is what you are after;
Being a better runner?
Or being a better triathlete?
Theyre different goals, and therefore need different approaches. Backing off swim and bike may make you a better runner, but may set you back - medium to long term - as a triathlete.
Short term its easy to neglect swim, but you cant catch up like you can with bike and run, it needs attention every season because improvements are a long term thing with swim. Swim also gives you risk free CV fitness, and a threshold or vo2 swim session wont kill your quality bike or run sessions.
So I’ve been running on the road in Skechers GoRun 7+. They are surprisingly really good.
Might find the same result with the Skechers GOrun Speed TRL with 4mm drop
I would HIGHLY recommend Reebok Floatride Energy 2. Best neutral shoes i have use since the adidas Supernova Glide 8 (and i loved this shoe so much that i bough 3 pairs before they went out of production). My first pair has about 500 miles and still going strong. Some people are reporting over 1000 miles on them (the midsole doesn’t compress like EVA based shoes). YMMV of course (if you drag your feet for example)
If you are looking for a race shoe, I really like the adidas adizero Boston. More expensive, but super light and long lasting.
My personal race shoe for is the adidas adizero adios 4.
And for shorte stuff i have the remains of the adidas adizero Takumi Sen. Another good choice is the NB 1400 or 1500s, but i just an adidas fan boy. I have also use Nike Pegasus 35 and 36 (both very good shoes).
This is the the difference between the heel and midfoot height. A 0 means there are the same height and usually used on whats called racing flats. You can have 0 drop with huge soles.
10 is usually the height for daily running shoes. 6 is usually racing shoes. The more drop, the harder they will be on your calfs.
Agreed, finding that balance is half the battle/“fun” in triathlon. There’s also the approach of looking at what’s going to get the greatest return on investment in terms of race performance. Certainly as the race distance goes up the swim becomes less and less important time wise, but also sets up your day. Equally, your bike will take up the most amount of time in your race (hopefully… ) and how you pace the bike is a large factor in how your run will go. Browsing various race results over the years the fastest runs of the day are typically on the podium and the runs have been getting faster and faster (in 70.3’s especially) so there’s usually a lot of “low hanging fruit” available there for a lot of triathletes.
I’ve also been putting in lots of miles on the Pegasus 35 this year–I’m a big fan of all the Nike Zoom line and have been running in various models for years (usually picked up when I’m visiting a city with a Nike Factory Store, since I’m cheap. ). I’ve only got as crazy with them as going to the original Zoom Fly’s (bought at said Factory Store, since they were actually there), but haven’t gone to the vapor/alpha fly stage of the line.
So that would definitely be a weakness you could focus on. However, the question would be if the return on investment in terms of time you’d need to spend on that vs. how much time you’d gain in a race would be worth it compared to putting that time into improving your bike or run for the same amount of time gained in a race? That’s the balancing act. Anyway, this is getting a little off-topic for a running thread, but the question was in relation to triathlon so oh well.
Yeah Im not on board with the argument at all, Im afraid. Its a commonly held position, I know, but I think it comes from a place that essentially wants to find less reason to swim. Telling triathletes they dont need to swim so much is preaching to the converted.
I am on board with injury-risk-free training, building skills that take a long time to develop not restarting every season, and getting out of the water fresh in advance of most of the field with a smile on my face
There is even such a thing as a swim-focussed Ironman plan
I’m playing devil’s advocate a bit here and I’m obviously not saying don’t train the swim, but my original point was that to actually do a true single-sport focus you’re going to have to really back off on the other two (be that a focus on swim, bike or run)–this isn’t a long term triathlon training plan of course.
Without a strong or even decent swim you are under preparing yourself for the bike and run. If you’re getting out of the water rattled and exhausted how do you think that will affect the rest of the race? It’s a fact most triathletes don’t prepare for the swim enough but how many top finishers have a really bad swim?
I said the same thing so I’ll keep it to running now. What speed did you end up running your MLSSv intervals at and how different was it compared to how you originally thought you’d do them?
So for now I’m going to try to hold the pace at 6:15 and my VDOT T pace is 5:59-6:09
Feels sustainable, may slow it by another 5s if the longer intervals start getting to me
The study is so hard to understand because they state MLSS is slower than M, the runners all did HM in 83±5min and their tested TTE pre training for MLSS pace was 44±10min. Like if MLSS TTE was shorter than HM time then one should assume they ran faster than HM… But other factors could be at play like the 2x 20min runs they did beforehand.
There’s also the approach of looking at what’s going to get the greatest return on investment in terms of race performance. Certainly as the race distance goes up the swim becomes less and less important time wise, but also sets up your day. Equally, your bike will take up the most amount of time in your race (hopefully… 
) and how you pace the bike is a large factor in how your run will go. Browsing various race results over the years the fastest runs of the day are typically on the podium and the runs have been getting faster and faster (in 70.3’s especially) so there’s usually a lot of “low hanging fruit” available there for a lot of triathletes.
