# Recovery Weeks, Race Simulation Weekends, Hilly Long Rides, and Run Pace Testing: IRONMAN Training Q&A | Ep 587

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 22 Apr 2026, 27 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8692359459.mp3

Coach Rob Wilby answers four listener questions covering some of the most common areas of confusion in IRONMAN and 70.3 training. In this episode: Recovery weeks: Complete rest or deload? Race simulation weekends: What, when, and how? Hilly long rides: How do you balance elevation with time and TSS? Run pace zones: Do you need to race a flat-out 5K? Got a question for the podcast? Send it to help@oxygenaddict.com. * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. We’ve just reopened for new athletes with only a handful of slots available. Book an application call today to find out 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 use code OXYGEN26 at checkout to claim your 15% discount

## 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] on hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the covered Oxygen 26.
[0:16] Welcome to the show everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Wilby
[0:18] from Team Oxygen Addict Triathlon Coaching, and every
[0:21] week bring you an episode of this podcast to help educate,
[0:24] motivate and inspire you. All right, so before we get
[0:27] started, there's two quick things you could do to help us.
[0:29] Please, if you like this episode, please follow us on
[0:33] Spotify, like us on Apple Podcasts, leave us a positive
[0:37] review. All that stuff helps.
[0:38] If you watch it on YouTube, like and subscribe.
[0:41] If you leave a comment, that's awesome.
[0:43] Second thing, if you're looking for help training for your first
[0:46] Iron Man or 70.3, I'd like to check out the coaching
[0:49] memberships over at teamoxygenetic.com.
[0:52] Genuinely think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon
[0:55] coaching programme for busy age groupers.
[0:57] That's people who've got full time jobs, families.
[1:00] They're trying to balance their training in and around.
[1:03] All of that stuff Can't take over.
[1:05] Your life has to fit in around it.
[1:07] So that's how I design it from the ground up.
[1:10] It's not a dumbed down, thinned out version of the pro's
[1:14] training plan. It's built from the ground up.
[1:16] For someone who's got limited hours, If you've only got 468
[1:20] hours, whatever that is, we'll work out the best way to use
[1:23] that. And Crucial will give you advice
[1:25] during the coaching process on to the best way that you can use
[1:28] the training time that you've got.
[1:30] I've got a system within my training plans that says, well,
[1:33] here's your plan for the week. Here are all our sessions.
[1:36] Here is a priority order of the sessions.
[1:39] These four key sessions are the most important.
[1:41] Do them in this order if you have limited time, If you've
[1:45] then got more time, great and in a perfect week get all the
[1:48] sessions done, that's wonderful. But if not, we understand and
[1:52] here's how to prioritise your time.
[1:54] And by doing that on a really challenging week where you maybe
[1:57] only have 3 or 4 hours to train, if you do the right things, not
[2:01] only does it not dent your overall progression, you're
[2:04] still making progression towards your overall Iron Man goal.
[2:08] Now I'm going to lie to you, you can't train fireman on 4 hours a
[2:11] week, but if you can keep those four key hours rolling every
[2:15] single week and you can add in the important ones as race day
[2:19] comes by, you're going to be in much, much better shape than if
[2:22] you just panic training spaces that you've got.
[2:25] OK, so if you're interested, there's a link in the show
[2:27] notes. You can book a membership call
[2:29] with me, we'll have a chat for an hour.
[2:30] We'll see if you'd be a good fit for joining the team.
[2:33] And genuinely, if you like what you hear here, I'm, I'm just
[2:38] being me. I'm sitting here with fairly
[2:40] dubious beauty background in my spare bedroom talking to you
[2:44] about the coaching that we do. And I'm a much better coach than
[2:47] I am content creator. That's guaranteed.
[2:50] So if you like what you hear on the podcast or YouTube, that's
[2:54] the approach we take to coaching.
[2:56] There's no surprises. You'll talk to me on the call.
[2:58] I'll be sitting here in this seat most probably.
[3:01] So I'd love to hear from you if this sounds like the can't in
[3:04] would work for you. All right, so let's have a look.
[3:07] So from Mustafa Al Qawaldi, coach Rob, I know you prioritise
[3:12] recovery a lot in your plans. And when you mentioned taking a
[3:16] week of recovery after every four weeks of training, do you
[3:19] mean complete rest week or a deloaded tapered week?
[3:24] All right, so it's a really great question.
[3:26] The way I build plants out is either every 3rd week or every
[3:30] 4th week will be a recovery focused week.
[3:34] It won't be a total rest week, but it will be a recovery
[3:37] focused week. So what does that mean?
[3:39] Well firstly it means if you're really tired after three weeks
[3:43] of training, do the things during that week that are going
[3:46] to give you the best chance of recovery.
[3:48] So for some people that means more absolute rest and recovery
[3:52] days doing no training whatsoever.
[3:55] For most athletes who are in a cycle of training though, they
[3:58] find that they don't need total rest.
[4:01] They can do much lower intensity training, they can do shorter
[4:05] sessions. And if you get the the length of
[4:08] those shorter sessions right, your body will recover and and
[4:11] fitness will still build even though you're on this recovery
[4:14] week. So in almost all cases it won't
[4:16] be a complete 7 days of training.
[4:18] It'll look something like a day off on the Monday and then the
[4:22] Tuesday when you usually have hard bike intervals.
[4:25] It'll be an easier bike recovery session of between 30 and 60
[4:29] minutes short and swim on the Wednesday in a short run.
[4:33] So we might drop the the duration of that run down from
[4:37] what might be 45 minutes or an hour.
[4:39] It might drop down to 20 or 30 minutes Thursday.
[4:43] We'd probably have a longer run in our build up to Iron Man, so
[4:45] we'd reduce the length of the long run all the way down.
[4:48] So we'll reduce it down to 30 to 45 minutes.
[4:51] And again, that might sound like a lot right now if you're a long
[4:54] way away from Iron Man. But if you're used to repeatedly
[4:57] doing 91 hour, 45, two hour, even longer runs than that, a 30
[5:03] to 45 minutes relatively short and an early phase of your
[5:07] training, a 45 minute right might feel relatively long.
[5:10] So the key is it's at least half as long as your longest previous
[5:17] run. So to get it nice and short, if
[5:19] your runs been an hour and a half, make it 45 minutes, but no
[5:22] longer than 45 minutes. On Friday, again, we'll have an
[5:26] easy ride. We'll have a swim that we might
[5:28] shorten down again. So if you've been used to
[5:30] swimming for 40 minutes, cut that down to 20 minutes,
[5:33] etcetera. Again, at the weekends when
[5:36] you'd have your long ride, my standard recovery week long ride
[5:40] is between an hour and 90 minutes and it's recovery type
[5:44] pace for the majority. For some people they'll still do
[5:47] their that short and long ride at their endurance pace that
[5:51] would be anywhere from sort of 60 to 75% better TP.
[5:55] But again, the guiding principle of all of this is if you will do
[6:00] better, if you will recover more by resting rest.
[6:05] If you then are at the point where, OK, I've had a couple of
[6:08] days rest and feel and start to feel recovered, you still go out
[6:11] and do the sessions, but you dial that intensity right down.
[6:13] You dial the duration of those sessions right down.
[6:18] And the key thing here is even if you feel great after a few
[6:22] days, don't be tempted to pile in and do a long run or a long
[6:25] ride or a hard session at the weekend.
[6:28] I used to do that all the time in hard racing.
[6:29] It's the biggest mistake that I made, I think prioritise that
[6:34] block of rest every 3rd or 4th week, just as though I just like
[6:38] I tell you to prioritise that recovery day every week, at
[6:43] least one look every day to make sure you recovered and you've
[6:46] absorbed the training that you've done.
[6:49] As I've said this before and you'll, you know, you'll be sick
[6:51] of me saying that if you're a regular watcher or listener, if
[6:54] you don't recover from the training that you've done, you
[6:57] may as well not have done it in the first place.
[6:59] It's really important to take in.
[7:01] It's not about constantly doing more harder.
[7:04] It's about doing training that extends your comfort zone, but
[7:08] then backing off so you recover from it so that the fitness
[7:11] gains then can happen. You're actually going to get
[7:14] fitter during the periods when you rest overnight, when you're
[7:18] asleep and your recovery day. That's when you're going to
[7:21] absorb it. And if you never give yourself
[7:23] the chance to do that, you can drive yourself into the ground.
[7:27] Now that might not be over 4 weeks, but it would be over 4
[7:31] years. So get, get into that habit.
[7:33] I want you to have a lifelong habit of exercise and a lifelong
[7:37] habits when bike run, whether it's Iron Man every year or it's
[7:39] a variety of different, you know, different things in sport.
[7:44] Stay fresh and keep on doing it. 53 this year.
[7:48] I've been doing this pretty much every week since I was 13,
[7:51] building those breaks in along the way, allowing you to keep on
[7:55] doing this, you know, forever. And it'd be a lifestyle
[7:58] essentially. So I hope that answers the
[8:01] question. Thank you very much for sending
[8:03] that one in. Right.
[8:04] OK, I can read this without the glasses.
[8:06] Actually. Let's have a go.
[8:07] This is from Eugene Curtin. Hi Rob, firstly thanks for your
[8:12] podcast which I've found enjoyable and informative over
[8:15] the last few months as I prepare for my first 70.3 in July this
[8:18] year as I plot out the later weeks of my training plan.
[8:22] I'm a little bit confused by what you mean when you say a
[8:24] race simulation weekend? I've seen different takes on
[8:28] this online from doing all the events in one day, sitting in,
[8:32] from doing all the events in one sitting in a single day, to do
[8:36] in a swim one day, a cycle run brick the next to do in each of
[8:40] the disciplines on a separate day.
[8:42] Do you have any thoughts on the best way to approach it and what
[8:46] distance or pace to aim for? OK, so I'm going to break this
[8:49] question up right? So there are different ways of
[8:52] doing this out there. I always sketch out the same way
[8:55] in my plans and I'll tell you what that is, but then I'll tell
[8:58] you how we managed to adapt it for different people.
[9:00] So the way I approach this for an Iron Man will do typically a
[9:05] race SIM weekend over Friday evening to Sunday morning.
[9:11] So long swim Friday evening, long ride Saturday morning,
[9:15] followed by brick run long run Sunday morning.
[9:18] So the idea is you're essentially getting in the
[9:22] duration of your your event, if you like, over a 36 hour period.
[9:28] In my Iron Man plans, I'll actually do 2 racing weekends.
[9:31] I'll schedule 15 weeks out and 1-2 weeks out.
[9:35] But for the purposes of simplicity, think about aiming
[9:39] toward doing your racing weekend 2 weekends before race day.
[9:43] With a lot of my athletes, if they've got a 70.33456 weeks
[9:47] out, they won't do that first racing weekend.
[9:51] O let's talk about this as though it's two weekends out
[9:53] before race day. You're basically building new
[9:54] fitness to the point where two weeks before race day you can do
[9:58] this racing weekend, and then you've got just under 2 weeks to
[10:03] recover and taper down for your Iron Man 2 weekends later.
[10:08] Typically that racing weekend will look like 3.8 to 4
[10:12] kilometre swim on the Friday evening, done either in a pool
[10:16] as 8 by 500 or in open water in a wet suit, ideally as a
[10:21] continuous lung swim. Then Saturday morning you're
[10:24] going to go out and ride 180K race efforts in race kit on race
[10:30] bike. Make it as much of A race SIM as
[10:32] you can, and then when you get back, you'll already have set
[10:37] your trainers out either in the garage or the back of the
[10:39] kitchen. Bike comes in the house, bike
[10:42] shoes come off, helmet comes off, running shoes go on and
[10:46] you're out of the door as quickly as you can.
[10:48] That's the way to think of it. Make it as much like race day as
[10:50] possible and you're out to do 45 minutes running there at goal.
[10:54] Iron Man, race day, race pace. That's how I'll have athletes do
[10:59] it in an ideal world. Now the challenge is here, often
[11:04] people can't get to swim on a Friday night after work.
[11:08] Fine. If you have to do it Friday
[11:10] morning before work, that's absolutely fine.
[11:12] If you can't get into open water on a Friday, fine.
[11:15] You can do it in the pool. Some people say I've got access
[11:19] to open water Saturday morning, first thing.
[11:22] That works great as well. So you can do the swim, get out,
[11:25] have your bike there, head straight off on your bike, get
[11:28] back. Do you run?
[11:30] Takes a little bit more planning to do it that way.
[11:32] Some people go to their open water swim venue, do the swim,
[11:35] drive back home, have some breakfast, get on the bike and
[11:38] go. That works fine as well.
[11:41] Actually. Don't have a preference between
[11:42] the two of them, but the more like race day you make it, the
[11:46] better. OK, so I don't have a problem
[11:49] with people swimming and then getting straight on the bike.
[11:52] It's just a big logistical challenge for a lot of people to
[11:55] be able to do that. OK, But bear in mind this is the
[11:58] last big weekend of training, so you're ready for it at this
[12:01] point. There's you're gonna be tired
[12:04] because you're not tapered yet, but you are.
[12:07] You're gonna gain a lot by doing this weekend while you're tired.
[12:10] That's how we're thinking about it.
[12:12] So that's fine. And then Sunday morning you're
[12:14] gonna get up very first thing and you're going to go out and
[12:17] you're going to do your run. And typically that'll be a 2
[12:20] hour run first thing in the morning on tired legs.
[12:24] We'll have you do that as a nine one run walk.
[12:27] It is one of the only times I have our athletes do the long
[12:31] run the day after the long ride and Brick, because you're ready
[12:35] for it at this point. All the rest of the time I'll
[12:38] separate it out so the long runs in the middle of the week and
[12:42] the long riders at the weekend because we weren't doing the
[12:44] long run. When you're fresh and you're not
[12:46] injury prone essentially. But this last big weekend, 2
[12:49] weekends out, that's your time to really get out there and
[12:55] you're fit enough to do this. A lot of athletes comments it's
[12:59] harder than race day. Doing it on your own or with a
[13:02] single friend without any crowds around you and you're tired from
[13:06] training, it's harder than doing it.
[13:08] But you get a massive amount of confidence from getting through
[13:11] the racing weekend and you also get a really big fitness boost.
[13:16] So you're going to be tired Monday, Tuesday.
[13:18] I give our athletes Monday, Tuesday offers complete rest
[13:21] days. Then we've just got some easy
[13:23] taper sessions all the way through to rest day and again a
[13:26] rest day two days before race day, short workout day before
[13:31] race day, and then on to race day.
[13:34] So I hope that answers the first part of the question.
[13:37] That's the second part, what distance and pace to aim for.
[13:40] All right, so we've covered that.
[13:41] So it's a 4K swim, 180 K ride, then 45 minute run.
[13:46] Sunday morning is a 2 hour run and the distance and the paces
[13:51] that you're going to cover these at are your goal race day case
[13:55] power, heart rate, speed. So at this point it's a really
[13:59] good if you do your 3.8 K swim in open water in a wet suit, you
[14:04] get a really good feel for the kind of swim time you're going
[14:07] to do come race day out on the bike.
[14:10] If you haven't used best bike split yet, go away.
[14:13] Do the numbers work out from a 280 TSS budget, how hard you
[14:18] should be riding, how long it's likely to take you on the
[14:22] colours? You can map all of that out
[14:23] within best bikes, but and go away and ride at that power for
[14:28] the duration of the time that you're going to be out there.
[14:30] That's the way to approach this. Get yourself out there and and
[14:33] make the ride that you do a similar in terrain as the ride
[14:37] you're going to do on race day. So if you go to I'm on Wales,
[14:40] you need to be hit in the hills. If you're racing Flat Iron Man,
[14:43] you need to find Flat Rd stride and make it as much like that as
[14:46] you possibly can. And in terms of pace on the run,
[14:50] while anyone who's been listening to our show for a
[14:52] while, we'll know our talk about the Jack Daniels pace methods,
[14:55] Jack Daniels E pace, which stands for endurance pace or
[14:59] easy pace. Typically the faster end of the
[15:03] pace range is a best case scenario for what you're going
[15:06] to do come race day. So if you can do that for the
[15:09] run sections of the 91 in training, you're doing really,
[15:13] really well. I'd strongly advise you to not
[15:16] push the pace even if you feel you're capable of it.
[15:19] There's nothing to be gained at this point.
[15:20] You're not going to gain an extra run fitness.
[15:22] You're just going to dig yourself deeper, fatigue hole
[15:25] and put yourself at risk of injury.
[15:26] So first, do no harm, protect your ability to go and do this
[15:30] race that you really, really want to go and do.
[15:32] And then go out and have at this point you will have a really
[15:36] clearly laid out race plan. You'll already have prepared it
[15:39] right? You've already prepared your
[15:41] race plan 2 weeks out from race day and you can just put that
[15:45] into action. All then rehearsed.
[15:47] And when you go to your Ironman race day, all you've got to do
[15:50] is do it again. I mean, simple, but not easy.
[15:53] But this would be the hardest thing that you do in training.
[15:57] Not everyone is going to do this.
[15:59] In fact, most people who don't listen to the show are not going
[16:02] to do this. Lots of coaches don't get
[16:05] athletes to do this for a variety of reasons.
[16:08] But I'm going to strongly advise that you do.
[16:10] We've seen it works with over 1000 athletes at this point.
[16:14] It is not easy. It is a lot of logistical
[16:19] setting up and preparation beforehand, but a bit like when
[16:23] you had exams at school, the best way through it, it turns
[16:26] out, is to be really prepared and to practise, not just stick
[16:29] your head in the sand, pretend it's all going to be all right.
[16:31] It can race day, right? So when you get yourself there
[16:33] on race day and you overhear somebody in transition saying,
[16:37] not only is this my first race, it's my first triathlon ever and
[16:41] I've never even dot, dot, dot, you know, fill in the blanks
[16:44] here. There's always going to be
[16:45] people like that. That's not going to be you.
[16:47] You're going to be really, really super confident.
[16:50] All right, Eugene, So I hope that helps you out at this
[16:53] point. Then it's a really great time to
[16:55] give a shout out to our sponsors, Precision Fuel and
[16:57] Hydration. You can use the free fuel and
[16:59] hydration planning tool on the website and you'll get a
[17:02] personalised hydration strategy and personalised fueling
[17:05] strategy for your next race that you can then practise in
[17:09] training and you know it's all going to work for you.
[17:11] So again, that ties in with your race SIM weekend.
[17:13] You'll know what your strategy is ahead of time.
[17:16] Just got to go and practise the electrolytes, the fluid and the
[17:19] grammes of carbs per hour. Done it all in training.
[17:22] You know what you're eating, you know what you're drinking,
[17:25] practise it and deliver it and you race them.
[17:26] And then you know what you're doing come race day.
[17:28] I can't praise precision fuel and hydration highly enough.
[17:33] I really do believe that getting the carbohydrate intake, the
[17:37] electrolyte balance and the fluid intake correct on race day
[17:41] is as important to your race day success as getting the training
[17:46] right on the way there is. Really it is important that
[17:49] can't do it without fueling. Just can't, you can't do it
[17:53] without fueling correctly. For a lot of you that the
[17:56] electrolyte balance part's going to be a really big part on race
[17:58] day if it's hot. And again, a lot of people won't
[18:01] realise that if they've never tried to exercise for 9121417
[18:06] hours in probably in the heat. So practise that in training and
[18:11] then you'll also know through the PF and H planning tool how
[18:14] to adjust it if it is hotter than usual, how to separate your
[18:18] carbs from your oxalate and your fluids.
[18:20] So you've got that balance there ready and you've got a range
[18:23] then of things you can eat and drink as well.
[18:25] So head over to our website, check that out.
[18:27] You can use the code Oxygen 26. Get your 15% off your first
[18:31] order and love these guys. PFH, love the products that they
[18:37] have. They've supported the show for
[18:38] 10 years and I am really grateful.
[18:41] But most importantly, they're a sponsor of the show because I
[18:43] approached them and said I think what you do is perfect for
[18:45] Ironman triathletes. It's really going to help our
[18:48] athletes out. Let's work together.
[18:50] So they are a genuine product. I genuinely have my athletes use
[18:55] all the time. It's not me shilling some a pair
[18:59] of trainers or some kind of green drink mix or whatever to
[19:02] you. I genuinely, genuinely believe
[19:05] this stuff is really going to be useful to your triathlon race
[19:07] day. And by the way, thank you to all
[19:10] the listeners in companies over in China who've listened and
[19:13] watched on podcasts and happy to send me the option of a free
[19:17] pair of smart glasses to do a video on.
[19:20] Not really interested. Thanks.
[19:22] Right, next question. Hey, Rob, I'm planning to do my
[19:26] long ride tomorrow, which is Friday.
[19:29] The 70 mile route I'm planning has 6 to 7000 feet of climbing.
[19:34] I'm anticipating it's going to take me 4 1/2 to five hours.
[19:39] How shall I be balancing the long ride distance versus time
[19:44] with respect to the elevation gain?
[19:47] And so it's a great question, this the more elevation gain
[19:51] that you've got in your long ride, the longer it is going to
[19:54] take you to do so. All right.
[19:57] You know on race day at Iman at the same distance, but they
[20:00] won't all take you the same time and the same athlete, Iman Wales
[20:04] will probably riding an hour longer than they would be Iman
[20:09] Germany or Iman Austria or a challenge Roth.
[20:12] So all bike courses are essentially they're not equal.
[20:16] If you're riding for seven hours versus riding for six hours,
[20:20] you're out there for an hour longer.
[20:22] You've got to measure your TSS budget differently.
[20:25] So the thing to be getting into your training is making a
[20:28] training ride as similar as it can be in the in the profile of
[20:33] elevation gain as you possibly can for what you're going to
[20:36] face on race day. So if your ride is mostly flat
[20:41] with a couple of hills, even if it means riding up and down a
[20:45] stretch of main roads quietly on a Sunday morning and then going
[20:50] up a single climber back down and going out and back along the
[20:53] flat Rd, if that's what simulates your ride, go and do
[20:57] that too much as you possibly can.
[20:59] If you're doing Iron Man Whales, you need to be finding lots and
[21:03] lots of hills to go and practise and ride on in training, right?
[21:07] If you, if you don't have the ability to do that, I've had a
[21:11] few emails from a guy who lives out in Norfolk where it's
[21:14] completely flat. And the theme of the question
[21:17] was always, I don't have any hills near me.
[21:19] How can I trade that hills vent time and Wales.
[21:21] And the answer is it's really, really difficult to do that.
[21:24] It's really difficult to prepare for a hilly Iron Man if you live
[21:27] somewhere really ultra flat and vice versa.
[21:30] So you have to try and do the thing you can do to make it as
[21:34] much like race day as you can. Now in in his instance, my
[21:38] advice to him was get yourself a couple of weekends away in the
[21:41] lead up, do as much in the riding as you can on the flat
[21:44] and get the hours in and then go over to Wales and practise on
[21:47] the course and see whether you're going to be ready for it.
[21:50] We used to use an Iron Man leap that we came up with around the
[21:53] Cheshire area that went out around some of the flat time
[21:56] trial courses and then went into the some of the hills over in
[22:00] the Peak District and we did a couple of big climbs and then
[22:02] back onto the flat again. When we were, we were training
[22:05] for various Iron Man back in the day, but we'd sketched it out so
[22:09] it the hills were roughly the same length and the same
[22:12] placement on our course as the course we were going to go and
[22:15] ride ourselves. And I think that's the way to
[22:18] go. You just have to try and balance
[22:20] out the demands of what you're going to do on race day and make
[22:23] your training as specific to that as you possibly can.
[22:26] OK, next question. To work out my run pace zones,
[22:29] do I need to run a flat out 5K effort to work those out right?
[22:34] Great question. And I always say to athletes,
[22:36] no, you don't need to go and run a flat out 5K effort right now.
[22:41] If you are from a, from a running background and you've
[22:45] currently been doing lots of races by, sure, you can go and
[22:47] do that, but you don't need to because you've got the rough
[22:49] time from a recent race. The best estimate of what your
[22:53] 5K or 10K time is right now is enough to go into the Daniels
[22:58] pace calculator and come up with what we need, which for the vast
[23:02] majority of training is just to know what your E pace zone is.
[23:05] And honestly, if your 5K time is, I don't know, 19 minutes, 50
[23:10] or 20 minutes and 10 seconds, that's not really going to
[23:14] affect your E pace very much, not more than a couple of
[23:16] seconds. And E pace is going to be a zone
[23:19] of about 45 seconds wide anyway. So it doesn't have to be
[23:23] completely exact. So your best guess for where you
[23:26] run fitness is right now, that'll do for now.
[23:29] Then that way you can get your zone set out.
[23:31] And then that gives us a really good ballpark range where we're
[23:36] at. And often athletes will, they'll
[23:38] feel whether the zone needs to improve without needing to go
[23:42] and do a race. I'm more than happy for people
[23:45] to do this. But obviously the risk that
[23:47] comes especially from middle-aged athletes is the more
[23:50] racing you do, the more you put yourself your risk at soreness
[23:53] and niggles and injuries. And if you follow the social
[23:56] media of a lot of the successful 70.3 and Iron Man guys and
[24:01] ladies who are 455055, really common thread in there is people
[24:06] who were doing running races and picking up niggles and managing
[24:09] niggles all the time. So honestly, I just think stay
[24:13] away from the thing that's most dangerous to you, the thing that
[24:16] is threatening your ability to do the thing you want to do.
[24:19] If it takes a couple of percent off your very top end, I think
[24:22] that's worth it to be able to go out and and run year after year
[24:25] after year without picking up injury.
[24:27] Now what I do for run testing is it's leading on to the next
[24:31] question. The next question here says I've
[24:34] got my run test coming up. So I schedule run tests within
[24:37] Team Oxygen Addict every eight weeks or so.
[24:41] I'm assuming I should run the same route that I did the last
[24:43] time and just see how my heart rate responds to see if I've had
[24:47] an improvement. So the way I've approached run
[24:50] testing and training is I recognise that if nobody ever
[24:54] runs fast, people never feel as though the run fitness is
[24:57] improving. So what I do is I let them go
[24:59] out and run 45 minutes at end pace, do warm up and then it's
[25:05] like a 45 minute tempo run. And ideally you'll do it over
[25:09] the same course that you did last time.
[25:11] You'll run at end pace from Daniel's pace calculator, you'll
[25:15] have your heart rate monitor on and you'll record your heart
[25:18] rate and at the end of it, we'll have average pace and average
[25:21] heart rate for 45 minutes. And then when we do the test
[25:24] again 8 weeks later and you can go out again, you can run at the
[25:29] same pace and see that your heart rate has dropped by 568
[25:33] beats a minute. Or you can go out and run by
[25:36] perceived efforts. It's about the same heart rate
[25:38] and see how much faster you are. Either way, it shows you you've
[25:41] made an improvement in your aerobic running without having
[25:44] to work really hard in run training because the bike has
[25:47] been doing that hard work for you.
[25:49] So that's the way we go through it.
[25:51] I do a little bit of. It's more of an art than a
[25:54] science to adjusting athletes run paces based on their test
[25:57] results. But for most people, all that
[25:59] they need to see is if you're 10 seconds a kilometre faster at
[26:02] the same heart rate and pace. Repay sounds 10 seconds a
[26:06] kilometre faster as well. It's shown you that you're
[26:08] making improvement. The most important thing to your
[26:11] run fitness for Iron Man is the consistency of training three
[26:15] times a week for six months. It's not how fast you're going
[26:19] in the fastest session every now and again.
[26:22] All right, so listen, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
[26:24] It's wrapped us up. Here are some discount codes and
[26:26] deals for you. Over at Precision Fuel on
[26:28] hydration.com, you can use the code Oxygen 26 for 15% off your
[26:32] first electrolyte order. And at teamoxygenaddict.com,
[26:35] we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching programme
[26:38] specifically designed for busy age grippers.
[26:41] If you're looking for coaching for Iron Man this year, there's
[26:43] a link in the show notes. Please get in touch.
[26:45] You can call with me and we'll see if you were a good fit.
[26:48] So remember, there's links in the show notes so you don't have
[26:50] to remember them. Until next week, have a great
[26:53] safe training and racing week. I'm coach Rob Lilby, and you've
[26:56] been listening to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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