There are several fundamental flaws with this volume focus:
1. As you've heard us say so many times, if volume is your only solution to a problem (as it is for traditional Ironman training), what happens when you run out of the ability to do more volume?
In our experience, the run volume of 90 percent of Ironman athletes is about 30 to 35 miles per week. Maybe the occasional 40+ mile week, 50+ are very rare. This is just where the volume of most age-groupers sorts itself out, given the need to integrate this with running with swimming and cycling.
In short, there are significant get-faster-through-volume limitations within the context of age-grouper Ironman training, i.e., you can only do so much volume before your body starts to break down or that volume seriously impacts other workouts.
2. A focus on volume does not yield very useful race-day guidance. After training with volume and heart rate, I still enter the run course on race day without very clear pacing guidance.
I've run x miles per week...but what does that mean in terms of what I should actually do on race day? I've been training at heart rate X...but what does that mean within the context of the Ironman run, where my heart rate can be significantly different than in training?
Our solution is to combine training and racing into one coherent system: by training with pace I finish the preparation phase of my training with a test yielding objective data—"this is what I can do with my current fitness." This data is then plugged into a system that's been proven across hundreds of athletes.
Lesson 3: Build Fast, Then Far
As you know, we preach that if you want to be faster you need to actually make yourself faster. The most effective and time efficient manner to go faster is to spend time...going fast. However, as an Ironman athlete, we also need to build your ability to go far.
Our solution is separate the need to make you faster from the requirement to make you "farther". This is done by making you faster in our OutSeason, months and months away from your higher volume training. We train all of our athletes to be faster 5K runners in the OutSeason.
Yep, I said it. Our Ironman athletes are training like 5K runners for five months per year. These athletes then apply this significantly increased running speed to PR's at the half- and full-Ironman distance after they build Far on top of this Fast. Please review the testimonials of our athletes.
Lesson 4: Intense Running Isn't as Scary as You Think
Traditional Ironman training says that you'll instantly implode on your first tempo run if you haven't first earned the right to run faster by having punched the high volume clock...a lot. Our experience says otherwise:
1. We work within a system (Jack Daniels') that has been proven through the results of literally millions of runners. In short, you always run at a pace that's appropriate for you, as determined by an actually run test or race.
In other words, what you do is function of what you have demonstrated you can do. Not a guess, not hope...but an actual test.
2. It doesn't take a ton of get-faster training to make you faster. For perspective, as little as two to four miles per week, total, at tempo pace, can significantly boost your running speed.
3. We've learned how to integrate this get-faster run training within a triathlon schedule. Most notably:
- Our "FAST then FAR" jazz above. This is huge.
- We have figured out and added a "Half Marathon Pace" to Daniels' pacing tables. This has been a very useful training pace for us.
- 5K's as running tests, as they are most repeatable and easy to integrate into an Ironman training schedule.