# Why Your Ironman Run Falls Apart (And How to Stop It Happening Again) | Ep 542

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 4 Jun 2025, 29 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/103087386/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-4-23%2F5e724a99-7e44-74eb-4c6f-788057f3453b.m4a

In this episode of the Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast, Coach Rob delves into strategies to improve your Ironman marathon performance. He highlights common mistakes such as: Running easy runs too hard... Not updating run paces as fitness improves... The impact of poor bike pacing... How to calculate accurate run pace zones... The benefits of the 9-1 run-walk strategy... Practicing nutrition and hydration on long runs... The importance of having a clear pacing plan... How to adjust plans for race day conditions like heat... ...and much, much more * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Book an application call to see if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply click this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello, and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:10] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the code Oxygen Fuel 25.
[0:16] Welcome to the show everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Wilby
[0:19] from Team Oxygen Addict Triathlon Coaching, and every
[0:21] week we'll bring you an episode of this podcast to help educate,
[0:24] motivate and inspire you. On this week's episode, we're
[0:28] going to be talking about things that can really ruin your Iron
[0:31] Man run, why your Iron Man run falls apart, and most
[0:35] importantly, the things that you can do to stop that happening
[0:38] again. So if you've had Iron Man run
[0:39] experiences in the past where it hasn't gone how you've hoped it
[0:42] would, hopefully the tips here are really going to help you.
[0:44] It's your first Iron Man this year.
[0:46] There are some of the tips here that are mistakes that you don't
[0:49] have to make. People have made them already.
[0:51] You can avoid making them and really increase the chances of
[0:54] having a really successful Iron Man marathon.
[0:57] Two quick things you can do to help us before we get started
[1:00] today. If you like this episode, please
[1:02] follow us on Spotify or Ale podcasts.
[1:04] Something like 80 plus percent of people who listen to the show
[1:09] don't subscribe to the show. It really helps out the growth
[1:12] of the show if people subscribe. It gets shown to new people all
[1:14] the time. That in turn helps me keep
[1:17] making these episodes and giving you the information for free.
[1:19] So I'd love it if you could subscribe there.
[1:22] That would be absolutely amazing.
[1:23] And if you're looking for help with your training for your
[1:26] first Imano 70.3, please consider checking out our
[1:29] coaching memberships over at teamoxygenattic.com.
[1:32] I think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[1:35] programme that's specifically designed for busy age groupers.
[1:39] If you're interested, there's a link in the show notes to book a
[1:41] membership call with us and you can see if you'd be a good fit
[1:44] for joining the team. Right, let's get started with
[1:47] these mistakes and let's talk about what we can do to fix
[1:50] them. Running easy runs too hard.
[1:54] This is I think the biggest challenge that most people have
[1:57] with the run training. If you go online and you look up
[2:01] Jack Daniels run pace calculator, if you haven't done
[2:04] so already, he's an amazing, amazing physiologist.
[2:09] He studied literally thousands of runners around the world and
[2:12] he's come up with a system where he did VO2 Max tests on runners,
[2:18] worked out how fast they can run various distances, and then
[2:21] produced a series of tables that essentially predict how fast you
[2:25] can run different distances based on how fast you can run
[2:30] any distance. And then more specifically gives
[2:33] you a series of paces to train at that are specifically
[2:36] targeting different aspects of your fitness so you can directly
[2:40] improve the aspect of fitness to help you with your running.
[2:43] It's a fantastic tool for runners, especially if they're
[2:46] just pure runners and not triathletes.
[2:48] There's a kind of five pace training system that allows you
[2:51] to do all the different kinds of training that you need to do to
[2:54] really improve as a runner. Now I took this system and I
[2:58] applied it to triathletes. I spent a long time working in
[3:01] the club system looking for ways to help take away the questions
[3:05] from triathletes minds, which is how fast should I be running?
[3:08] How do we predict how fast I should run?
[3:10] Should I just go out and run with other people?
[3:12] Is there a system to this? And what I found was there are
[3:16] two paces that are really specific to preparing for Iron
[3:19] Man of 70.3. The one that's most useful for
[3:23] Iron Man is what Jack Daniels calls E pace.
[3:25] It stands for easy pace or endurance pace, and it is the
[3:29] pace at which if you can deliver your run perfectly on race day,
[3:34] having delivered your bike pacing perfectly on race day,
[3:38] you might be able to hold the top end of E pace home race day.
[3:43] It gives you a really good answer to that question of how
[3:47] fast should I be able to run on race day?
[3:49] And often people who come into Iron Man, they're not sure how
[3:52] their open marathon would translate into what they can
[3:55] expect to do on on marathon race day.
[3:57] They see pros running 240 and they think, well, perhaps I
[4:01] should be able to run really close to my PB of three hours.
[4:04] This answers all those questions.
[4:06] If you can run at the fastest end of Jack Daniels E pace on
[4:09] race day, you're doing a really, really good job.
[4:12] So what does that mean in training?
[4:14] It means in training, E pace is the most specific pace for you
[4:18] to train at. That's most specific for how
[4:21] you're going to be running on race day.
[4:23] We're going to do all manner of other training on the swim and
[4:26] on the bike in order to help improve engine size and improve
[4:31] your aerobic fitness. But the running specifically,
[4:34] we're going to train at the pace you're going to race at on race
[4:37] day and that's how you're going to get in great shape to do and
[4:40] deliver great Iron Man run. So the big mistake people make
[4:44] here is going out and doing run sessions like runners in a
[4:48] running club, doing tempo runs, doing fast runs, doing interval
[4:51] runs, doing really hard uphill Sprint intervals.
[4:55] All those things that runners need to do in order to improve
[4:59] the top end fitness, which triathletes don't need to do.
[5:01] Because we can train on the bike and on the swim for those
[5:04] aspects of fitness and vastly reduce the amount of injury risk
[5:08] we have whilst doing that. We all know that running fast
[5:11] and hard carries the biggest reward, but it also carries the
[5:14] biggest risk of injury and we can mitigate against that almost
[5:18] entirely by doing all of that training in the pool or on bike.
[5:23] Now there's that old joke. If you haven't seen a runner for
[5:25] a while and you want to catch up with them, the best question to
[5:28] ask them is how's your injury? Because all runners are carrying
[5:31] some kind of injury all the time.
[5:33] I want you to avoid that as an Iron Man to athlete, not be
[5:36] carrying an injury. Your runs should be almost
[5:39] exclusively at the pace that's directly applicable to how
[5:43] you're going to run on race day. And the great news is that's a
[5:46] really small chance of you picking up any kind of injuries.
[5:50] So the E pace runs are going to help build durability.
[5:52] They're going to help, if you like, strengthen your body, your
[5:56] ligaments, your tendons, make you more able to absorb more
[5:59] training. And ultimately that's what Iron
[6:02] Man race day is all about. It's not about who's the
[6:04] fastest, it's not about who's the best runner even.
[6:08] It's about who can continue at a submaximal pace for 26 miles
[6:13] without getting fatigued. It's all about your ability and
[6:17] fatigue resistance and only a very, very small amount about
[6:21] how fast you can actually run. Now, if we're going to go all
[6:24] the way to the top end with the pros, there's obviously going to
[6:27] be some exceptions there. The the males and females racing
[6:30] at the top end of pros, especially these days, are
[6:33] running frighteningly fast. So there's other training that
[6:36] they're going to have to do and there's going to be a trickle
[6:38] down of that to our very, very top age groupers.
[6:41] But if this is you doing your first Iron Man, you have to have
[6:44] a very, very good reason to do training that's harder than it
[6:48] needs to be. And because I saw a video of a
[6:51] pro doing it on YouTube isn't a good reason.
[6:54] So don't make the mistake of doing it easy runs too hard next
[7:00] mistake it's not updating your run paces when your fitness
[7:04] improves. So I'm not a big advocate of age
[7:07] group is doing frequent run races, especially not just doing
[7:11] them in order to test, but we need to be aware that our
[7:15] fitness is going to increase, especially for training like a
[7:18] lot of athletes do with me. They train for a year in the
[7:20] lead up to an Iron Man. We're not going to just stick at
[7:23] the same pace for that whole time if our fitness is
[7:25] increasing. So what we're going to do
[7:27] instead is we're going to make sure we update our run paces
[7:30] every six to eight weeks. We're going to make sure that
[7:33] stays appropriate to the paces that you need to run at.
[7:37] You're not going to see a massive jump forward in six to
[7:39] eight weeks, but you might see a movement of five seconds per
[7:43] kilometre, maybe even 10 seconds per kilometre across an 8 week
[7:47] block. But those eight week blocks will
[7:49] consecutively add up over time. So what we'll do is we'll do a
[7:53] submaximal run test. We'll do it at Jack Daniels M
[7:56] pace. We'll do a 45 minute run at M
[7:58] pace. So it's fast enough to be faster
[8:01] than you would usually be running.
[8:02] It's kind of a sort of tempo pace or a half marathon kind of
[8:05] race pace, so you're not going absolutely flat out and it's
[8:08] only 45 minutes, so it's not the full distance of 1/2 marathon.
[8:12] But we're going to look at your average heart rate across that
[8:14] 45 minutes. And off the basis of that test,
[8:17] we can then make adjustments to your own pace so we can make
[8:20] sure that you're progressing across time and most
[8:23] appropriately, that your run paces are also changing as your
[8:26] fitness changes. Next mistake I see people making
[8:31] is running with friends and therefore go in at the wrong
[8:34] pace or the wrong distance for you.
[8:36] So running with friends is a fantastic way to make the miles
[8:40] go by quicker and it's a great way to have social interaction,
[8:43] great way to spend time with your mates.
[8:45] But when you're preparing specifically for an Iron Man,
[8:47] you've got to make sure that the people you're training with know
[8:50] why you're training and know what you're training for and
[8:53] know what your specific targets are.
[8:55] And the the classic mistake that tends to happen here is it's
[8:58] training with friends who are going a bit too fast for how you
[9:02] want to be going, or going for friends who are going for the
[9:04] wrong distance, either too short or too long.
[9:07] It's very rarely that the friend you're running with is too slow
[9:11] for you. And this is interesting.
[9:13] Training for an Iron Man is a great time to go out for a run
[9:15] with friends who are slower than you are and ideally more
[9:19] motivated to train than you are. Because that way you've got
[9:21] somebody who's actually going to keep a cap on the pace that
[9:24] you're running at, rather than pushing you on to run too fast.
[9:28] And they're also more motivated to help you get out the door,
[9:31] which works brilliantly as well. There's a great example of this
[9:34] story from back when I was racing in the early 2000s.
[9:37] It was really fortunate to be training with a group of
[9:39] athletes down at Simply Running Track.
[9:41] There's some really, really good runners down there, a couple of
[9:44] whom who went on to represent Great Britain at the marathon.
[9:47] They were sort of 215 marathon runners.
[9:51] I was not a 215 marathon runner. I was a guy who might, might
[9:55] hope to run 245 at my best. But when we went out to do our
[9:59] long run, I would comfortably do my long run at the same pace as
[10:03] these guys who were, you know, almost knocking on the door of
[10:06] the British Olympic team. And it made me question this.
[10:09] And I talked to them about this one day and I said, you know,
[10:12] your race pace is a full minute, a mile, perhaps a minute and a
[10:15] half a mile faster than my marathon race pace.
[10:18] Why is it that you're doing your long runs so slowly relative to
[10:22] marathon race day? And their answer was really
[10:24] interesting. They had three quality sessions
[10:27] a week and the rest of their runs were all done at that pace.
[10:31] They were all done at a pace that was at my E pace, let alone
[10:35] at their business, the slowest end of their E pace.
[10:38] And this is one of the pieces of the puzzle that fell into place
[10:41] for me. If top marathon runners are
[10:43] doing their, the majority of their mileage at a pace that I
[10:47] was really comfortable doing, you know, it was, it was not an
[10:50] inappropriately fast pace for me.
[10:53] Maybe I need to apply that same idea myself to my training, make
[10:57] sure that all of my or the majority of my running was done
[11:00] at the appropriate pace. So making sure that you're
[11:03] running with runners who are going to be running at the pace
[11:06] you need to be is the key here. And pick some runners who are a
[11:09] bit slower than you are. That way you're not going to be
[11:12] tempted to try and hang on to runners that go in a bit faster
[11:15] than you. OK, next mistake is doing all of
[11:19] your long training runs as a continuous long run.
[11:23] I'm a massive advocate of the nine one run walk method where
[11:27] you have a minutes walk break in every 9 minutes of running.
[11:30] And I'll advocate this to my athletes for every run that they
[11:32] do that's an hour or longer. There's something magical about
[11:36] that minutes walk break. It changes your gait, it gives
[11:39] you a micro recovery, but something happens within your
[11:44] body because of that change of gait.
[11:46] That means you just don't fatigue anywhere near as much.
[11:50] You don't get anywhere near the level of soreness.
[11:53] And most crucially, you can run for much further as a nine one
[11:58] run walk than you can as a continuous run.
[12:01] So if you're capable of running for an hour today as a
[12:03] continuous run, I pretty much guarantee you could run for two
[12:07] hours as a nine one run walk and not be any more tired or sore
[12:11] the next day because of that. And why is that important to
[12:14] Iron Man training? Well, the key to this is you've
[12:17] got to bounce back to train again the next day.
[12:20] You've got to make sure you can train day in day out for, you
[12:23] know, a 16 week block of training for the the peak
[12:26] training time for Iron Man. And if you're sore for two or
[12:29] three days after a long run, it's really going to impact the
[12:32] rest of your training. It's honestly revolutionary.
[12:35] And if you've not tried it, please go away and try this in
[12:37] your next long run. Even if you don't extend the
[12:40] length, if you run just to the normal distance you were going
[12:42] to shoot for, you'll find just so much less sore the next day.
[12:47] That has a massive knock on effect on how you can carry on
[12:50] into your training and then get the rest of your training done
[12:53] that week. Now next mistake I sometimes see
[12:56] people making is either skipping the long run during the week or
[13:01] cutting them short or doing them as a a double run day because
[13:05] they're short of time. Now with my athletes, I'll split
[13:08] the long run away from the long bike ride.
[13:10] I'll put the long bike ride at the weekend because usually by
[13:13] necessity people need that time to do a 4567 hour ride.
[13:17] And I'll move the run into the middle of the week.
[13:19] It's usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday and it's usually done
[13:22] either before work or after work.
[13:25] And one of the challenges with this is that sometimes athletes
[13:28] come to me and say, look, I just don't have the time to do this.
[13:31] Is it OK to either cut my long run short this week or to do it
[13:35] as two runs, one before work and one after work?
[13:38] And my answer to this is always no.
[13:41] Like, I can understand the constraints that you've got, but
[13:45] the demand on your body on race day is going to be a continuous
[13:48] 1 long run. So therefore you need to do this
[13:51] in training. It's not going to have the same
[13:53] effect if you do an hour before work and an hour after work.
[13:56] So make sure that you carve out the time either before work or
[14:00] after work to get that continuous length of the long
[14:04] run done. Don't cut it short, don't break
[14:06] it into chunks if you possibly can avoid it.
[14:09] Now the next mistake is having no nutrition or hydration during
[14:14] your long runs. It's going to be absolutely key
[14:17] on Iron Man race day that you've practised taking in calories in
[14:21] the form of carbohydrate, taking in fluid and electrolytes in
[14:24] order to stay hydrated. The challenge here is on Iron
[14:28] Man race day you will already have exercised for five, 6-7,
[14:32] maybe 8 hours before you get to the start of the marathon.
[14:36] For most of us, when we start our long run, we're doing it
[14:39] first thing in the morning, last thing at night.
[14:41] We've we've eaten, we've drunk all day, we're well hydrated,
[14:44] we're well fuelled. You won't be well hydrated and
[14:46] well fuelled on race day or, or certainly not as well as you
[14:49] would be normally. So we tend to not practise
[14:52] eating and drinking while we're running and training.
[14:55] Big mistake. We need to practise this so that
[14:58] we know how it feels on race day.
[15:00] I'm a big advert of carrying a bottle with you all the time
[15:03] when you run so you get used to carrying some fluid.
[15:05] It's great practise for race day that there are plentiful aid
[15:09] stations on an Iron Man, but having your own bottle with you
[15:11] that you can refill at the aid stations means you can drink
[15:14] whenever you want and it's really important that you
[15:16] practise this in training. Next mistake I see is not
[15:20] including brick runs consistently in training.
[15:24] Now I think you only have to do brick runs in the last 8 weeks
[15:27] in the lead up to race day, but make sure you get one done every
[15:31] week. They don't have to be long runs
[15:34] off the bike, but make sure that you get in the habit of once a
[15:37] week running for at least 15 minutes.
[15:40] And the main aim of that brick run is mentally to learn that
[15:45] although your legs may feel like Jelly as you start the run off
[15:47] the bike, they are going to come around again.
[15:49] They are going to feel normal. Usually it takes 3 to 5 minutes,
[15:52] but once your legs start to feel normal again, programme that
[15:56] into your brain so that you know on race day and my legs are
[15:59] going to come back, they're going to feel fine again.
[16:01] I'm going to be able to run. It's going to be all right.
[16:04] You don't want to get in the mental habit of thinking I'm
[16:07] completely destroyed and I'm not going to be able to run my
[16:09] marathon because you are. So that's what the purpose of
[16:12] the brick ones are. This is a great point to have a
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[17:29] This is the first thing we'll talk about before we talk about
[17:32] run pacing. If you've overcut the bike, if
[17:35] you've gone even 5% too hard on the bike, then the chances are
[17:40] that it is going to be impossible for you to deliver
[17:42] the marathon that you're capable of.
[17:44] It's absolutely essential before you even think about trying to
[17:48] deliver a good Iron Man marathon that you consider the fact that
[17:52] how fast you go on the bike on Iron Man race day is irrelevant
[17:56] to your Iron Man time. It's how fast you go on the bike
[17:59] relative to your bike fitness that's important.
[18:03] And so when you hear anybody saying I had a really good bike
[18:06] split, but then I had a really poor Iron Man split, what that
[18:09] means is they didn't pace their bike well relative to their
[18:12] fitness. Now that's an easy mistake to
[18:14] make, but it's also an easy mistake to avoid.
[18:17] It starts by being really clear and what your bike pacing needs
[18:21] to be. It starts by having a really
[18:23] clear understanding of your FTP on the bike using a software
[18:27] package like Best Bike Split to work out what a reasonable bike
[18:31] split for you is going to look like so that you still have the
[18:34] energy left to deliver a really good marathon on race day.
[18:38] That's not easy, but there's information out there about this
[18:41] with our athletes. They're completely clear what
[18:44] the training stress score cap is on their bike leg, so they can
[18:48] go on and they can deliver a really, really good Iron Man run
[18:51] leg. If you go a bit too hard on the
[18:53] bike, even by 10% or even 5%, the chances are you're going to
[18:57] fall apart at the halfway point on the marathon.
[18:59] And almost always a bad marathon result is the result of bad
[19:04] pacing on the bike. So that's the first thing to
[19:07] consider. You're going to have to ride
[19:08] more within yourself than you even think that you are in order
[19:12] to be able to deliver a good Iron Man marathon.
[19:14] That's the first thing to think about.
[19:16] Next mistake is starting the marathon too fast.
[19:20] Once you finish the bike leg, it's really common to finish the
[19:24] bike leg feeling good. You go through transition, the
[19:26] crowds are there, you're full of adrenaline and you go into too
[19:30] fast a race pace too quick on the on the run.
[19:33] We see it happen all the time. The first thing you have to
[19:37] consider here is do you have a really clear strategy, but how
[19:41] how fast you should be running off the bike.
[19:43] If you're just going to go and run on field coming out of
[19:46] transition, the chances are you're doing yourself a massive
[19:49] disservice because you are going to have that effect of
[19:53] adrenaline coming out of transition.
[19:55] You are naturally going to be having that anaesthetic effect
[19:58] of the adrenaline. You are going to feel as though
[20:00] you can run at this pace forever and the chances are you're not
[20:04] going to be able to. So making sure that you don't
[20:07] set off too quickly at the start of the marathon is the 1st and
[20:11] most important thing you do. Now that leads us on to our
[20:15] Third Point, our third mistake. And that's not having a clear
[20:19] run pacing plan. So with our athletes going on to
[20:22] the Iron Man marathon, they will know exactly how fast they can
[20:27] run an Iron Man marathon as a best case scenario and be able
[20:33] to do that on race day and be really confident they're going
[20:35] to run strongly to the end. There will be no guesswork for
[20:38] them. They will know exactly how fast
[20:40] they're going to be able to do that because every week in
[20:42] training they'll have practised it.
[20:44] It will be based on having done run testing and training of how
[20:49] fast they can go and it will have a very clear pace guidance
[20:53] for if you are feeling good, you can let yourself run at this
[20:56] pace. If you're not feeling so good,
[20:58] it's going to be at this pace. If you're really struggling for
[21:01] a while, it's going to be at this pace, but there's going to
[21:03] be a very clear pace zone that our athletes are going to go and
[21:05] run at. You need to know what that is.
[21:08] You need to educate yourself. You need to go and read up
[21:10] around Jack Daniels running formula.
[21:12] You need to learn about what is a reasonable run pace to hold.
[21:16] And I'm going to give you a clue here.
[21:17] You need to read up on Jack Daniels E pace, run paces.
[21:21] So his easy pace or endurance pace, he calls it.
[21:24] And it's not going to look very fast on paper.
[21:27] That's the challenge here. It's not going to be anywhere
[21:30] near your open marathon split because here's the news for
[21:33] everyone except the pros and the very top age group is people are
[21:37] not going to be running anywhere near their open marathon
[21:41] runtime. Honestly.
[21:43] It's usually in the region of 30 to 45 minutes slower, and that's
[21:47] if you have a good run. That's if you have a good run
[21:50] where you run all the way and you don't fall apart and have to
[21:52] walk. So there's already a
[21:54] considerable slow down from what people consider that they're
[21:57] going to be able to do even without knowing what the
[22:02] appropriate pace zones are. So if you're going into this
[22:04] blind and you're just running on feel, the chances are you will
[22:08] make both these last two mistakes.
[22:10] You'll go out to transition far too hard, much harder than you
[22:14] realise you're going because of the effects of adrenaline, but
[22:17] you also don't really know what you're aiming for or why.
[22:20] It's mostly best on based on guesswork.
[22:23] And if that's the case, you can see that your result isn't going
[22:27] to be very, isn't going to be very reliable, isn't going to be
[22:29] based on science. So know the run pacing plan that
[22:32] you've got. Have that based on your actual
[22:35] fitness numbers rather than what you hope you can do.
[22:38] And that's the first point of starting to come up with a
[22:41] reasonable pacing plan, knowing exactly what you're shooting for
[22:45] and why. The next mistake that I see
[22:47] people making is ignoring the effect of temperature on race
[22:51] day if they get a particularly hot race day and they're not
[22:55] used to it. So the caveat here is if you're
[22:58] from a hotter country, if you've been living in a country that's
[23:01] had hot weather in the lead up to race day, you're probably
[23:04] going to find that your performance on race day is going
[23:07] to be about what you think it's going to be.
[23:10] The challenge tends to be going to race in a situation or going
[23:15] to race abroad where the summer is much hotter than it is where
[23:18] you live, or even there being a mini heat wave over the weekend
[23:21] where race day is. If the temperature is suddenly
[23:24] 510°C hotter than it's been in training, you are going to have
[23:28] to adjust your expectations of how fast you can run because
[23:32] running produces heat. Getting rid of that heat is one
[23:36] of the biggest challenges of the day.
[23:39] Not just the actual producing energy to run fast.
[23:43] It's getting rid of that heat. If you layer on top of that an
[23:46] extra 5 or 10°C of of the weather being hotter, it's
[23:50] incredibly challenging. So you have to be willing to
[23:53] say, right, I was expecting to run 6 minutes a kilometre.
[23:57] Given the fact it's 28° on on race day, 28°C.
[24:02] It seems reasonable to add, I don't know, 15 seconds a
[24:06] kilometre or 30 seconds a kilometre onto that pace.
[24:10] Get yourself to the halfway point of the marathon on race
[24:12] day with your new adapted pacing strategy and then see how you
[24:16] feel. If you've been out in the sun
[24:18] for two hours at that point, you can then make a decision about
[24:21] deciding to push on. But for most people, the heat
[24:25] stress is going to be really, really difficult.
[24:27] And I'm often brought back to a comment that my university
[24:31] professor said to me when he was discussing training for the
[24:34] marathon. He said two things.
[24:35] He said, Firstly, most people in everyday life, you know, they
[24:39] talk about wanting to run a 3 hour marathon.
[24:42] Most people haven't stood up on their feet without sitting down
[24:46] for three hours, let alone try to run for three hours.
[24:50] That in itself is a physical challenge.
[24:52] And he said the same thing about running a marathon in the heat.
[24:55] Most people would not go outside in the midday sun and stand in
[25:00] the heat for three hours without going into any shade because
[25:05] it's so unpleasant and it's so difficult.
[25:07] And then they wonder why they can't do that on race day if
[25:10] race day is really hot and they have to be out, you know, under
[25:13] the glare of the sun for three hours.
[25:15] Now, for our Iron Man athletes, that's even more difficult
[25:18] because the Iron Man is going to be starting in the middle of the
[25:20] day. The marathon is going to be
[25:21] starting in the middle of the day at the hottest point.
[25:24] And you're already going to have been exercising in the heat for,
[25:27] who knows, 567, perhaps 8 hours at this point.
[25:31] So if it's especially hot and you're not acclimated to it, you
[25:35] have to accept that you're going to have to dial down the pace in
[25:39] order for your body to deal with the, you know, the heat
[25:42] challenge of the day before we even deal with the fitness
[25:45] challenge of the day. And the last mistake that I want
[25:49] to talk about is skipping walk breaks or, or the aid station
[25:54] structure in order to try and gain time on the run.
[25:58] So I'm a big advocate of the 911 walk method.
[26:02] You all know that if you've listened for a while, it's taken
[26:04] a one minute walk break every 10 minutes on race day time.
[26:07] That minute walk break, it doesn't have to be exactly every
[26:10] 10 minutes time it so that you do that going through an aid
[26:13] station that has two benefits. It means it gives you a target
[26:17] to run to that you can a lot of the time physically see in the
[26:20] distance you're just going to run to that aid station.
[26:23] When you get there, you know you're getting a walk break and
[26:25] you know from your training how effective that's going to be at
[26:28] helping your overall marathon time.
[26:31] But it also means when you get to the aid station, you'll have
[26:34] the time to consume calories, to have electrolyte drinks, to have
[26:38] water without, crucially, spilling it all over yourself,
[26:41] all over your hands, getting Coke into your shoes.
[26:44] It's a long time to be sticky and uncomfortable if you do that
[26:48] early on in the in the marathon. But most importantly, gives you
[26:52] a chance to get all of the drink down.
[26:54] It's very, very hard to drink from a cup as you're running
[26:57] without spilling over you or even to breathe as you're trying
[27:00] to run. So taking that walk break can be
[27:02] absolutely crucial. So make sure you have the walk
[27:05] break both from a getting the calories and hydration point of
[27:10] view in, but also from a maintaining the 91 run walk
[27:15] strategy that you've practised in training that's really,
[27:18] really going to help you going forwards.
[27:20] And that brings us to the end of this week's show.
[27:22] Here are some discount codes and deals for you over at Precision
[27:25] Fuel and hydration.com. You can use the code Oxygen Fuel
[27:28] 25 for 15% of your first electrolyte order.
[27:32] And over at teamoxygenaddict.com, I think
[27:34] we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching programme
[27:37] specifically designed for busy age groupers.
[27:40] If you're looking for coaching VRI -70.3 triathlon this year,
[27:43] please get in touch. Dead simple.
[27:45] There's a link in the show notes to click.
[27:47] You can book a membership call with us.
[27:49] It goes through to my calendar and you can pick a slot that
[27:51] suits you. We'll have a chat.
[27:52] We'll see if you'd be a good fit for joining the team, and even
[27:56] if you're not sure yet whether whether you're 100% into the
[27:59] idea of doing an Iron Man, I'd much rather have a chat with you
[28:01] and help you decide that before you decide you're going to join
[28:04] up for coaching or before you join up the event.
[28:06] Even then, have you make the mistake of committing to
[28:09] something you might not be able to do.
[28:11] The flip of that is lots of people sit there and they listen
[28:14] to this part of the show and they think, I've thought for
[28:16] ages about having a call with Coach Rob and talking about
[28:19] whether I should come on for coaching for my own man.
[28:21] If that's you, if you've been listening to dozens of episodes
[28:24] and you're thinking, should I or shouldn't I get in touch?
[28:27] Just go for it. Come and have a chat with me.
[28:29] Let's see how we can best help you out.
[28:31] So remember, there's links in the show notes so you don't have
[28:34] to remember them. And until next week, have a
[28:36] great safe training and racing week.
[28:38] I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've been listening to the Oxygen
[28:41] Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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