Hi Guys,

I am a newbie at Tris (finished my second race yesterday) and have been training for these events since November. I am a member of a Tri club and have been doing their enticer distances. My Drama is that I am doing reasonably well in the Swim and Bike leg, but the run is killing me. I cut about 10 mins off my first race time (november) to my second but i just cant make the legs take me around the run course...

At the moment, I train about 3k twice a week which is slow and then do a 5k once a week. I am averaging about 35mins for the 5k which i know is really slow, but is a massive improvement for me from the 3mins that i was able to run when i started in November. I struggle to find motivation to run as it is the leg which i find so much harder than the others.

I have been doing some brick sessions, which are hard but still dont compare to the race day. Am completing the womens enticer this Saturday in syd. Any ideas for how i can make the legs work better?

Cheers
Tj

I suppose it could help a little to say that the run kills *everybody* TJ, but don't worry - you've come to the right place for running advice. There are other much-wiser heads than mine over here, and even if you don't get direct replies, you'll find heaps of useful info in these pages (go searching through the messageboards homepage).

If you're doing regular brick sessions, then you're a long way to solving your problem. Perhaps another strategy has to do with your bike riding itself (strangely enough). Are you sure you're fitted comfortably to the bike and in an ideal riding position? Poor efficiency on the bike leads to poor efficiency on the run leg.

Another simple tip is to ensure that you don't grind big gears on the bike, and you try and "spin" more, particularly when you're into the last stages of the bike leg. Good spinning at the finish of the bike leg primes the legs for a quick turn-over at the start of the run.

As to your running training itself, I would recommend you start introducing a long run once a week. Once you have a comfortable and well-rounded running program in place, you can start to introduce speed or hill/strength sessions. In the meantime however, get yourself running longer (even though it will be slower) at least once a week. As a general guide, build your current longest run up by say 10 minutes each week until you're comfortably running up to an hour at a time. Take the run itself nice and slow (while it sounds odd, this *will* make you faster), and take your build-up to an hour nice and slow also - don't rush it. This is where a lot of people injure themselves early on.

And for motivation, particularly on the long slow run, find yourself a training group or running partner in the area. There should be countless similar runners down there in Newie :)