Sprint Triathlon Training – How Far Do I Need to Run in Training?
June 18th, 2009 | 
Author: I have written a few articles for advanced sprint triathlon training, but get a lot of questions about beginning run training for the sprint triathlon distance.
If you are doing your first triathlon, or running is not your strongest sport of the three you don’t need to necessarily go out and run advanced or complicated interval workouts. Simple working on endurance and frequency of running is sufficient.
So how far do you need to be able to run in training in order to complete a sprint triathlon? How far should you be running in training?
We can divide the type of training you could do into two distinct types. One type is to approach the 5 k portion of a sprint triathlon as a breakthrough event. In otherwords, the day of the race will be the longest and furthest you’ve gone, either at once, or in any of the three individual sports. The other way to approach training is overdistance training. Most of my questions have come from people who are brand new to running, so let’s just focus on the “breakthrough event” method of run training.
If you approached the 5k as a breakthrough event, you would be running 2 to 3 miles at a time at least once or twice during the week. But even if 3 miles still feels like a struggle to you, you can make up for your current lack of endurance (don’t worry, it will get better) and substitute frequency.
Let’s say you can only run 20 minutes at a time. Or not even that, say 10 minutes at a time. Here’s what I would do…
Set up your “long run” day to try and run continuously as long as you know you can. During that long run day, you can break up the effort with 1-2 minutes of walking, and consider adding 50 percent of your run time with frequent breaks. So your long run day might look like this…
Warmup with 5 minutes of walking
Jog 10 minutes
Walk 1 minute
Jog 10 minutes
Walk 2 minutes
Jog 10 minutes
Cool down & stretch
Can you see how even if you can only run 20 minutes continuously, the workout above should be easily doable? I say make this your long day, because the above workout will take about 45 minutes when you include warming up and stretching.
On a different day of the week, do your continuous run of 20 minutes (or 10 or whatever your current continuous run is).
These two days will make up the heart of your run training. But to be best prepared while still minimizing injury you should try to add at least one if not two additional days of running.
Those two additional days could be any of the following:
- Broken set #1: warmup, 10 min jog, 2 min walk, 10 min jog cool down
- Broken set #2: warmup, 5 min jog slightly faster than normal, walk 1 minute, repeat 3 times for total of 20 minutes jogging.
- Transition set: After your bike, walk briskly for 10 minutes, jog for 10 minutes back to your house. Cool down with another 2 minutes of walking and stretch
Posted in running
“Can you see how even if you can only run 20 minutes continuously, the workout above should be easily doable? I say make this your long day, because the above workout will take about 45 minutes when you include warming up and stretching.”
This is an AWEsome paragraph…when someone asks me “how much” I train each day, I say “about an hour.” With warm-up/cool-down, some stretching, etc.
Some days, shorter, some days longer…my completion/competition is based on that. About 5 hours of training one day at a time, and a long day on the weekend. (Yeah, I take a day off per week…Or so.)
Suzanne – I enjoy reading your coaching and look forward to your blogs. I’m very excited for my first sprint tri in October. I have been activetly running to loose weight (40 so far)and improve my health for the last three years (female/40/215). I’m a goal oriented person and I’ve completed 8 half marathons and numerous 5 and 10ks along the way. I’m training for my next half which is Labor Day so I’m building milage. I enjoy the endurance aspect of the event and think that the sprint tri will be a good next step. My swim skills are good but my biking needs focus so I’m using it as my xtraining during my half marathon training. My running pace is 12:15 – 12:30 with a goal of doing my next half at 12:00. Should I continue longer runs after my half? I feel that by keeping my running endurance high I will be able to perform in the sprint tri better. I’ve been following your schedule but with increased milage on the long runs. Do you have any thoughts or recommendations for me.
is there a way to read all your blogs without waiting to get email updates?
Hi Tracy, First of all, congratulations on losing so much weight! Your current training will depend on what your goals are. It sounds like right now, your goals are pretty clear…train for the half, using biking as cross training, then begin focusing on sprint tris. So I would give you this advice for each of these goals:
1) During your half-mary training, do not worry about your bike fitness, just get out and bike 30-90 minutes (or whatever your current fitness level is) as cross training. it will give you good basic bike fitness without interfering with your half training.
2) Dropping 15-30 seconds/mile is fairly ambitious depending on how much time you have to train. if you can do a 15 mile long run at 12:20 or less, you should be OK on race day due to the extra adrenaline. Not all Half Mary plans call for a long run of 15 miles, so if you can run your goal pace plus 10-15 seconds/mile on a training run, you shoudl do well. But measure your success by improvement, not by an arbitrary goal time
3) Once you are ready to focus on tris, the long runs will actually keep you slower than you could be. Sprint tris are only 5k runs, sometimes up to 4 miles, which is a significantly different type of training than half marathon training. My basic plan only shows one pace…an endurance pace. You would likely be ready for a intermediate run component for the sprint tri. Stay tuned for my updates and emails and blog posts for mroe info on intermediate and advanced training.
Thanks jason…sorry it took me awhile to approve your comment. I thought I’d done so already, but apparently not. THanks for reading.
Hi Lena, yes there is, just use the RSS feed from my site. I’ve pasted it below. You will need to use a “feed reader” like Google Reader, bloglines or a similar newsreader. Just paste in this address:
http://www.sprinttriathlontraining.org/feed/
I am training with some other friends of mine for a sprint triathlon. Our biggest hurdle seems to be the swimming. The breathing is the hardest part to get a hold on. Do you have any advice or suggestions? Thanks!!
Breathing while swimming in a triathlon, or even just in the pool is one of the most challenging parts of the swim for most triathletes. Without seeing you in person (or a video), it’s hard to give tips…but for starters these should help.
1) Don’t hold your breath – slowly exhale underwater as if vocalizing an “ahhhhh” sound. This keeps your glottis open allowing air to escape as needed and preventing carbon dioxide buildup.
2) Exhale all your air before turning to breath – there is not enough time to inhale and exhale while your mouth is above water. Before you are ready to take a breath, be sure all your air is exhaled below water. This will make the effort of taking in air even easier.
3) Don’t turn your head to breath. huh? I’ll say it again…don’t turn your head. When you are ready to breath, your head stays still in relation to the shoulder that is rotating out of the water. If your body rotation is good (rotating to 40-70 degrees on your side) and you keep your chin aligned with the shoulder that is recovering, your face will naturally clear the water to take a breath. quickly rotate your head back into the water without disrupting your stroke rhythm.
It’s all easier to demonstrate in person. Consider taking a few lessons from a qualified coach near you, or post a video for me on youtube.