Good Runners Are Made in the Pre-Season
by Mike Gwaltney

I was standing at the finish of last year’s L.A. Triathlon checking in with some clients and talking to them about their race when I overheard a conversation between a couple late finishers. “I felt strong on the bike but that run sure killed me.” “Yeah, the run is always the hard part – I figure I’m just not a good runner.”

From a coach’s perspective, the attitude that “I’m just not good” at swimming, biking, or running seems like resignation – coaches know that improvement is possible with a little focus. At TRIATHLETIX, we believe good runners can be made. We put our athletes through an eight-week preseason program focused on their “limiter”. If you can relate to the athlete who is frustrated by his run performance at the end of a triathlon, a custom-designed TRIATHLETIX Pre-Season Run & Strength Training Program may be what you need to take your racing to a whole new level.

Most triathletes have no problem motivating themselves to log yards or miles in the hopes of improving. The challenge is to make sure the training is focused properly – and when it comes to running, the challenge in the pre-season is to perfect your form and create your base while strengthening your muscles and staying injury free.

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect. Like swimming and cycling, running is technical. If you’re just out logging miles with no sense of technique, you’re practicing bad habits. To get faster, the key is to practice efficiency. With both triathletes and my cross-country runners, I’ve noticed dramatic improvements when athletes focus on just a few of the following:

• Run with your head, shoulder, hips, and ankles in alignment
• Make first contact with the forefoot or ball of your foot while keeping the heel slightly elevated
• Keep your upper body relaxed with your arms hanging naturally and moving forward
• Shorten your stride and speed up your cadence

Though a faster cadence and a shorter stride can feel odd at first it can lead to massive gains with practice. Check your watch during your run and count ever step for 10 seconds. If you can keep the count at 30, you can be certain that the heel of your foot is landing underneath you and you’ll be able to move quickly over the ground. If you can’t keep up the cadence, your stride is too long. By shortening your stride and increasing your cadence, you will reduce the likelihood of injury and ultimately run faster.

Since the run in triathlon comes at the end of the event, athletes are usually pretty tired and technique is the first thing to go. So the pre-season is the time to absolutely build “muscle memory” that you can call on when fatigues sets in. Try a couple of the following drills during your warm-up and your cool-down to help reinforce your developing run form:

• Run Pose – before you begin your run, practice good form by standing in your run position, with one ankle slightly elevated. Then, lift your other ankle while shifting your weight. In this way you can focus your mind’s attention on the proper position of your body before you begin running.
• Heal to Butt – this is not the “butt kicks” you may have learned in high school, rather, the goal here is to move your ankle vertically while providing equal flexion in the hip and knee. With each footstrike exaggerate lifting your ankle straight up toward your pelvis. You can do this one leg at a time or alternating. Focus on form and keep your upper body relaxed. Do this in sets over 20-30 yards.
• Foot Tapping – this is a drill often recommended to triathletes to help minimize their reliance on the quadriceps while they run (you may have notice that those muscles are pretty tired after the bike!). During your warm-up, stand in place on one leg and hold your other leg in the running position. Allow your foot to come down and “tap” the ground before quickly firing your hamstring to elevate your leg again. Try to keep your quadriceps totally relaxed and focus on using the hamstring. Do this drill several times for each leg in sets.

Base Fitness and Strong Muscles Lead to Stronger Running. In a typical “run-focused” pre-season plan that I use might build for a TRIATHLETIX client, I recommend 4 or 5 runs per week, a reduction of swimming and cycling, and some time in the weight room. The pre-season is a time to work on frequent running to practice form, as discussed above, and also to build the small muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your legs that will allow you to increase the volume and intensity when you begin building up your training closer to racing season. Sessions at the gym will focus on strengthening joints and muscles while helping minimize the fatigue many athletes experience in both the upper and lower body when they run. Ultimately, strength training will help your body deal with the stress of running.

To build the important base of fitness, the runs in this period are mostly aerobic – the only time that we might see an athlete’s heart rate really go up is in some “speed play” or in the weekly hill run. A major goal of the pre-season has to be to strengthen the legs and a focused hill session each week will nicely complement some time at the gym.

I recommend not building up the volume so early in the season but to put together 8 solid weeks of frequent running. Athletes get a much greater value from putting in a string of quality 20-25 mile weeks more than burning themselves out in the pre-season with huge weeks of long running that fatigues the body and ruins run form.

Occasional Fast Running is Good for You. No matter what an athlete says, I know his real goal is to run faster. And faster running comes from practicing faster running! In the pre-season throw in a “fartlek” run once a week with a few short minutes of high cadence fast running during which you glide over the ground effortlessly. Follow your aerobic runs with 4-6 strides with perfect form and feel like Carl Lewis. Of course we’re triathletes and we’re trying to get faster over long distances, but there’s really nothing like short, fast efforts to help build the fast-twitch muscles (and your spirit) for the charge to the finish line!


Additional Coach Articles:

Cherie's "Analyzing the Last Season to Have a Better Next Season"
Ian's "Bring your bike to a whole new level: A primer for PreSeason Bike Focus"
Konrad's "The Value of PreSeason Focus"
Carlyn's "Am I still a Triathlete? A Pregnant Woman’s Perspective"