Lessons from Norwegian triathletes

Uhh wrote:

You don't need a bike to build the muscle to run at 4min30/mile pace. Any reasonably trained amateur already has that sort of speed over a short distance. It's the aerobic conditioning they need to work on. And that's what triathletes do a lot of on their bikes/swimming.

Lots of interesting thoughts here, thanks for the replies. I'll reply some more later, but for now just wished to reply to the above to keep the discussion moving. In particular, I'd like to discuss this very concretely.

Take someone who can only run 14.xx s for the 100m with a rolling start. This is perfectly possible for a 'reasonably well trained amateur', even one who has been trying to work on activating their fast twitch muscles and improve (think 'slow twitch runner' here if you like this terminology). Are you saying that this person can run a sub 15 5km if they have enough aerobic fitness? To run a sub 60 400m they'd more or less have to be able to maintain their all out pace for the entire 400m. Of course aerobic conditioning is important for that, but is that not more likely to be a question of anaerobic conditioning, e.g. the ability to buffer lactate?

If not, then what exactly are you saying? This person can run well under 4:30 / mile speed for 200m at least. Are you saying that they are not reasonably well trained? In that case, that seems to prove the point that they lack the muscle/power?

Not trying to blindly defend my point of view, am genuinely interested in your views on this.

cheesewiz wrote:

Say whatever you want I suppose, but you’re missing the point about how triathletes compare to running, and especially if biking can help runners become quicker through increasing power output. I could call you defensive as well for your last post, but we could argue this forever. Yes speed is relative, but from the OP’s perspective, no “amateur” runner is running 28 minute 10km.

You are missing the point. These weren't 14:30 runners who triathlon training turned into 14:00 runners. These are 13:30 runners (talent wise) who triathlon training turned into 14:00 min runners. Triathlon training didn't make them fast. It made them slow as runenrs. Now that is probably the right career choice for them. But if you want to be a fast distance runner, why would you look to them for training advice? And the NCAA has plenty of amateur runners doing 13:50 and on a regular basis sub 28:00 10ks (for an event that is rarely run in time trial situations). Very talented guys running fast doesn't mean that the training is right. I am not going to suggest running 40mpw cause Justyn Knight can run sub 13:40 off it.

Whenever someone runs a decent time people try to attribute it to some training method. Maybe they do Tai Chi in the morning. Or run barefoot 2x week. Or job backwards for 2 miles/week. Or lift weights. Or a zillion other random things. That is all petty much noise.

Cross training makes sense when you can't put in the miles. But it is of limited value and if it causes you start packing on lbs (and we are talking like 5-10lbs of muscle) in your upper body, it isn't going to help your running.

I don't think any sane person thinks that. Lets say your guy can run a 60s 400m. Is he running a 2:00 800? Of course not. He is running like a 2:08. And then a 4:30 mile. And like a 31 min 10k. And a 2:20 marathon. That would be an incredible display of endurance .Most people will never come close to that (how much is training and how much is genetic is hard to say. It is a combo of both). Most people are much more limited by their endurance than speed. But if you do hard training (call it 7+ hours/week) for a half dozen years after you are mature, you are going to get pretty close to your

aerobic limits.

Now if the above guy spends 3 years sprinting and packing on muscle and drops a 56, is he going to be running faster over 10k? Probably not. The training he did to run a 56s isn't the training he needed to do to run 31 min 10k. The question is there anything he can do to run say a 58 (hill sprints, overspeed training, strength work that doesn't add mass) that doesn't mess with his endurance. Or if your a young runner (<15), can you do training early on so that you end up as a 56s guy instead of 60s guy? There is limited evidence for both of those theories.

You can only run so much safely, say 12 hrs/week. If you have the time to fit in, say another 5 hrs/week, it would make sense to do the extra, on the bike on in the pool.

Alfie wrote:

You can only run so much safely, say 12 hrs/week. If you have the time to fit in, say another 5 hrs/week, it would make sense to do the extra, on the bike on in the pool.

Does it make sense? You are encouraging your body to develop muscles you don't need (maybe good from an injury prevention. Probably not from a performance point of view) and now you can only do 10 hours of running instead of 12 since you spend all that energy biking/swimming?

The evidence is you are doing <7 hours of aerobic training, getting more from other sports helps. The evidence that it helps when you have a high running volume is a lot more limited. If your running mpw, sure do a couple hours on a bike. If your running 120mpw, save your energy to recover.

Obviously if you are just doing this for fun, do whatever you find to be the most fun. There are more important things than running as fast as you can for most people.

Again, I’ve been saying this already. Don’t know why you’re trying to disagree when we’re saying the same thing

Let’s just put it this way, there are athletes that have awful speed but have excellent endurance, and vice versa. This is why I cited LT as very important for 5k performance. If you are well aerobically conditioned and have high lactate threshold you can keep using aerobic production of ATP and are therefore more energy efficient. If you have a poor lactate threshold and have to dig deeper and deeper into anaerobic energy production, you come quickly into oxygen debt and must stop.

I don’t think anyone who can’t break 14 off a rolling 100 can break 15.00, that’s a big stretch. But when it comes to 5k performance, the aerobic conditioning of heart and lungs is much more important than max power output

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

You are missing the point. These weren't 14:30 runners who triathlon training turned into 14:00 runners. These are 13:30 runners (talent wise) who triathlon training turned into 14:00 min runners. Triathlon training didn't make them fast. It made them slow as runenrs.

This is the question. What you are describing is what I would call the 'standard running point of view'. It would be really interesting to know what Blummenfelt can run for 200m or 400m or something; if anyone can find any workouts on Strava which might be helpful, that would be great. Personally I strongly doubt that Blummenfelt ever had really good speed, and I am not sure that even now he could hit a low 50-s 400m, possibly not even middle 50-s.

What I did find was the following.

This is the Norwegian cross-country championships from 2012. It was 6km, and he was 18 or 19 years old. You can see that he finished about 20s behind Filip Ingebrigtsen. Ingebrigtsen's 5km record on a track is I think 13.11,75. What does this tell us? I'm not sure exactly; cross country even at that point would have suited Blummenfelt better than Ingebrigtsen, and the time is not fast. There is quite an amusing picture of them running them side by side if one scrolls down at the following link.

Two completely different builds even then!

Anyhow, what I think is more likely the case is that the strength of Blummenfelt is helping him, not hindering him, run these times. With all that muscular strength, he probably could run a middle to low 400m if he practised it for a while. I suspect that he can't right now, but that is irrelevant; the point I am raising for discussion is whether all that power combined with the extreme endurance in those muscles is 'equivalent' to the 'wiry' power of the typical runner build.

Just to emphasise again, I am not talking about becoming a top level professional runner. I am talking about different ways for amateurs to improve; the standard running philosophy may work for some, but maybe these Norwegian triathletes are indicating a different path that can also work well.

possible inspiration wrote:

Just to emphasise again, I am not talking about becoming a top level professional runner. I am talking about different ways for amateurs to improve; the standard running philosophy may work for some, but maybe these Norwegian triathletes are indicating a different path that can also work well.

I would say really it depends on a lot of factors. I would think about it like this: every athlete has a race weight that is specific down to the gram. Trying to lose muscle/fat and putting yourself below that weight will lead to a decrease in power (because you have less muscle), and too high above that weight you will be slowed down because you carry more kg. This weight though is very difficult to find without extensive testing and work from professionals to find. If an athlete’s race weight for 5k is 60kg, and they weigh 70kg because of extra muscles and fat, I would say that they do not need to focus on generating more power, but rather doing more aerobic work and slowly trying to burn off kg when not training to intensely. But if an athlete is 55kg, they need to get 5 more kg in muscles and accompanying fats to generate the power they need. Genetics also play major role with supply of different muscle types and ratio of fat to body and mitochondrial density.

But if we are talking about true amateur runners (people that are not slow, but not fast either) than I think mostly they should work on aerobic conditioning with accompanying weightlifting, or like you have said cycling. It is hard to say because weight and genetics are very tricky to get right. But the key to running fastest times is maximizing power weight ratio. Too much weight and you slow down, too little power and the same happens. This is why elite runners are so small is because through their years and years of training (and some do have advantages from genetics) their bodies have maximized power from their weights

cheesewiz wrote:

I don’t think anyone who can’t break 14 off a rolling 100 can break 15.00, that’s a big stretch.

Exactly. But then we come back to the point I am making. If someone's endurance is actually very good, but they simply do not have raw speed, the standard running philosophy is not going to get them to really good times, because no matter how much they improve their endurance, they will be limited by their raw speed.

It could be that, for some athletes like these triathletes, cycling plus running allows one to build 'power' in a different way. Even though the muscular person with excellent endurance cannot actually hit good raw speed times that a wiry runner can hit, the power of a very muscular person running 64s 400m is much greater than the power of the wiry runner at that speed, and it is power that matters. I am focusing on cycling rather than say weight lifting because cycling builds muscle alongside aerobic benefits; i.e. I think one can say that the muscle one adds is already in a pretty good aerobic state, which can be refined by running specificity.

Yes they will be limited by raw speed, but from what you are saying about 64 second 400m. You want to produce less power and still be able to run that time, which you say is the smaller frame runner. And like I said before, more muscle does not equal more power in runners. Runners like Cheruiyot are very slim, but Mahkloufi is more muscular. But both produce very large amount of power, but one is much smaller. So it is not power that matters, but what speed you can run at a set power level, which is affected by many things among them weight, also LT and vVO2 and running form. It is also important to note that athletes do not train one system at a time. No one just runs aerobically who wants to run fastest. They run many paces and intensities and always work on speed and endurance. So for easier explanation, yes cycling might help build power, but so does running. If you can run more without injury, mostly you should. Take a look at top athletes for example: even Van Niekirk and Rudisha carry little weight and they are running much quicker than 5km pacing. I am thinking if cycling had any marginal effect on top end power compared to increased volume in running, we would see the majority of distance runners being much heavier rather than the minority, and we would hear that many more runners do cycling regimens

FinnJ wrote:

Xc-skieers are just as good

I agree that many cross-country skiiers are good runners, but I can only point to a recent example. Last year, Henrik Ingebrigtsen only beat Didrik Tønseth, who is a world class cross-country skiiers and I think the strongest of the current Norwegian team when it comes to running, in the 10km Norwegian cross-country championship by a spurt at the end. Blummenfelt is considerably better than Tønseth I think on latest evidence, and I think would have beaten Henrik Ingebrigtsen in that race, and maybe even Filip and Jakob too on cross-country terrain. There is talk that Blummenfelt may compete in the autumn against one or more of the Ingebrigtsen's over some distance. As one would expect, the triathletes feel they are actually stronger over 10km than 5km.

Talk to a triathlete and they will tell you about how weird it feels when they first start running after being on the bike.

This is because:

Cycling is a quad-dominant sport.

Distance running is a glute-dominant sport.

So why would a distance runner want to build muscle through cycling?

Interesting thread.

Rather than pointing out that runners could be faster if they did a lot of training swimming and biking, I thought you were going to point out that these Norwegians train like the Ingebrigtsen brothers (obviously different because training for triathlon).

They do large volume of training and focus on intensity control. They keep low intensity training sessions at a very low intensity. They do a lot of "threshold" work with lactate testing, often doing double threshold sessions. They use HR, Lactate testing, and other tools to control their intensity in training and to measure their progress.

And they aren't overly obsessed with getting as skinny as possible. It is funny how Filip Ingebrigtsen is an example of "skinny" in this thread, when the brothers are usually the biggest runners in the races they run.

Also, I do not think that training like a triathlete is necessarily the lesson.

Top triathletes train for 30 hours per week. Two possible conclusions:

1. All the extra training is successfully making them better runners

2. They are using an extremely inefficient (time wise) method of becoming fast runners

If the top runners in the world can get there with less than 14 hours per week of training, why would you want to switch to a method where you train twice as much and aren't as good?

I think one of the best things about running as an endurance sport, is that you can spend 1 hour a day as an adult and be decent. Cycling and triathlon require a whole different level of time commitment.

Very true. When dealing with injury I go on my bicycle and find it very frustrating I must cycle very long distances to get the same benefit of running only a couple miles. Very time inefficient

Again, lots of good points that I do not necessarily disagree with here. Just a couple of responses.

1) With regard to extra time spent cycling, obviously one needs to enjoy cycling to some degree, but I'd definitely counter the idea that it is much less efficient. That is probably true if one coasts along, but one can work hard aerobically on a bike much longer than running. E.g. I just did a 57km ride with 720m elevation at 27-28km/h average on a 20 year old mountain bike with 26 x 2 inch knobbly tyres. This was roughly equivalent to a tempo run in terms of aerobic effort I'd say, a tempo run on the easier end of the scale; but running one can hold that effort for a fraction of the time due to the impact. I could have gone quite a lot further. The cycling is surely better quality aerobic training. This was a 2 hour ride, but an hour's ride with this intensity is good training too. It is not a massive commitment. (I am only just starting again with regular long rides after just a short cycle commute for several years, partly with the goal of testing some of the ideas in this thread).

2) Touching on what several others have written, one question that I am raising here is: can one get effectively faster in the raw sense without ever actually running faster than say 3km or even 5km pace? I say effectively here, because maybe one could not actually run quickish 200m or 400m times due to lack of practise, but one can progress one's 5km times until one ends up with ones that are conventionally equivalent to quickish 200/400m times. This is maybe not too hard to believe theoretically; as one gets slowly faster and faster at 3km/5km, one is necessarily recruiting the fast twitch fibres as the intermediate ones become fatigued, and hence training them. That training may leave the fast twitch fibres in an optimised state for distance running rather sprinting, but they would surely also have a 'latent' ability to lead to faster sprinting too, through becoming stronger, through improved neurological processes, etc.

3) I raised the idea of greater power of a muscular runner at 64s 400m rather than a wiry runner. Good points were made in response. Is it not a negative that the muscular runner is using much more power to hit that speed than the wiry runner? No! Not for distance running. The wiry runner can hit that speed more easily due to much less weight. Their 'raw speed' may be naturally much higher. The muscular runner needs their muscles, i.e. needs their power to hit the speed at all. Now as long as those muscles are well trained aerobically, that power will be able to maintained, and hence the speed. It's no use being Usain Bolt (enormous power, but cannot hold it long). Blummenfelt seems the first example I know of at such a level of being able to hold such power (to repeat, because he is so muscular, the power he needs to run 68s laps is way higher than the typical runner) for a full 5km. This to me is a very promising and optimistic lesson for the amateur runner trying to run good times (sub 15 say), with good endurance, but who doesn't have the raw speed conventionally associated to those times (perhaps they have done cycling and other sports before, and are already relatively muscular).

I think you’re actually answering some of your own questions, but these are my thoughts.

1) You mentioned how this was a 2 hour bike ride and we are mostly discussing 5km training. I’m not trying to shoot down any of your ideas but I don’t know any 5km runners that do 2 hour runs. That is usually reserved for marathon racing due to fuel source usage. Generally, and I say generally, biking does not have the same aerobic density that running does. I’m not a physiologist, but I think it’s because running uses more muscles than cycling and therefore requires more oxygen. So for the 2hour ride that you considered a “tempo” effort, one could just run for a much shorter amount of time and still achieve the same aerobic benefit. This would give you more time to recover between sessions and refuel.

2) Again, I’m not a physiologist. Theoretically if your 5km pace gets faster, you will become more practiced in “sprint like” mechanics, but they will never be equal and neither will your actual sprinting become any faster. This I can name two reasons. First, your anaerobic contribution simply isn’t enough from running 3k-5k pace. As intensity increases (in this case we can make intensity and speed synonymous) you require more oxygen to replace the oxygen used for aerobic respiration and ATP production. When we can’t replace the oxygen fast enough, we rely more heavily upon anaerobic respiration which causes acidosis and can be maintained for shorter periods of time. This isn’t to say that there’s some oxygen uptake where we completely switch over; both aerobic and anaerobic systems work at the same time. Because sprinting speeds require so much anaerobic contribution, without true practice of heavily stressing that system, you won’t be very efficient at using anaerobic respiration and your speed wont marginally increase. It would be vary interesting to see if someone never ran faster than 3-5km pace if they ever became faster over short distances.

The second reason is through sprint mechanics. Sprint races are often decided by tenths or hundredths of a second. Optimizing sprint form for cadence and stride frequency will lead to much faster times in the sprints. Cadence is tricky and we hear 180 steps per minute thrown around a lot. Obviously that number is individual, but if you run at 180 steps per minute for a 5km, but at the finishing kick you run at much higher (over 200 steps per minute for example) your won’t have any experience running like that and your form will fall apart. Sprint mechanics are often overlooked but are really crucial for racing, even distances through marathon.

3) In this situation we come back to physics and the interference effect. It is true that sprinting literally requires bigger muscles because there is much more power to be produced to some extents. However in distance running any extra kg in muscle you have to carry will affect how much force (and therefore energy) you have to exert to maintain the same pacing. Acceleration equals force/mass. With a greater value of mass, your acceleration value is smaller. Now onto the interference effect part of this. Through extended amounts of aerobic training, hypertrophy doesn’t occur the same way as it usual does, but the strength can still increase. Basically, the density of the muscle increases. Without gaining size, it gains strength. So in essence, we don’t need the size of the muscle but the power.

Even in cycling, the guys that are winning the Tour de France are pretty skinny. Look at the sprint cyclists and they have massive quads. Because of the anaerobic and aerobic contributions and also because biking doesn’t translate to running and vice versa, I don’t think cycling is really going to bring about any noticeable change in sprint speed. That being said if we took two people one a biker and one who does not exercise, the biker would probably be faster over 100m because they are (and this is the key) more aerobically fit than the one who is sedentary. The best way to sprint faster is to practice sprinting though