Give yourself the best chance of a strong run and fast triathlon finish with our post-bike running tips.
Every triathlete wants to find themselves with magically strong running legs when getting off the bike but lacing up your shoes and leaving T2 can also be one of the toughest parts of the race. Here’s how to give yourself the best chances of running strong off the bike.
Hold back on the bike
If you find that your runs are never up to the standard you’d expect from your fitness level, it could well be because you’re leaving too much energy out on the bike course. Holding back on the bike is the number one way to maximise your chances of a great run. The longer the distance you’re competing at, the more important judging your effort becomes.
While you can certainly use power and heart rate to help you judge your bike intensity, a simple approach is to complete a couple of race simulations leading up to the race and judge these by feel. A great way to calculate your simulation distance is to take your target event’s distance in miles and convert it to kilometres. So, if you’re training for an Ironman 70.3, your metric simulation would be a 1.2km swim, 56km bike and 13.1km run.
During your race simulations, focus on not going too far into the red both to get a feel for the intensity you’ll be doing on race day and to reinforce the patience you’ll need to employ during your triathlon.
You can also review past race performances, focusing on positive things you can replicate from a race where you ran strongly off the bike or examining the reasoning behind a less successful run performance.
Ease up and spin your legs
Towards the end of the bike leg, ease up on the power and spin your legs with a high cadence. This not only gives your legs a bit of a break, but it also prepares your legs for the right run cadence, making the transition to running easier.
Spin up to 90-100rpm to get some high-speed life back into your quads. The length of time or distance you should take it easy differs with each distance. We’d suggest 5 minutes for sprint right up to 30 minutes for Ironman.
Eat your way to victory
Ensuring you’re adequately fuelled and properly hydrated by the start of the run is essential, so make yourself a fuelling plan for the whole race and stick to it. Practising your nutrition strategy during race-pace training or race simulations before your event will help you learn how much nutrition you can take on per hour and start to train your body to more comfortably digest the calories you’re consuming.
Especially in longer races, some athletes use the ‘easing-up time’ towards the end of the bike as an opportunity to get a last feed in to avoid having to eat at the start of the run. Meanwhile other athletes like to avoid eating during the last portion of the bike as this will still be digesting as you get off the bike. Again, finding out what works for you ahead of your big race will ensure you’re fuelled and ready to run strong out of T2.
Brick your training
Incorporating bike-to-run bricks sessions in the build-up to your race is a great way to experience the feeling of leaden post-bike run legs and get you prepared for race day. Adding a 15-minute run to your bike session at least once per week in the final phase of your training will really help normalise the feeling.
Adding specific brick sessions is another fantastic way to ready yourself for the big race. These can incorporate a single longer bike and run or multiple shorter race intensity repeats. Brick sessions are great for kick-starting your body’s ability to transition and get used to the bike-to-run sensations, allowing you to run well off the bike in your race.
- Sprint distance: 3x 10-minute bike, 5-minute run
- Olympic distance: 6x 10-minute bike, 5-minute run
- Ironman 70.3 distance: 3-4x 20-minute bike, 10-minute run
- Ironman distance: 4-6x 20-minute bike, 10-minute run
Pace your run right
Setting a goal time – and thus pace – for your run is simple but sticking to that pace at the start of the run is more challenging. A combination of relief from finishing the bike, the increased perception of speed from riding fast and the adrenaline that kicks in at the prospect of the race’s final part means it’s too easy to run way to fast out of T2, go too deep into your reserves and blow up before the finish.
More than just about any other part of the race, keeping an eye on your pace watch at the start of the run is essential. By holding back here and sticking to your pace zones, you’re much more likely to run strong right to the finish line and bask in a fantastic triathlon performance.
