Thoughts on the Run in a “Long” Triathlon

I can make this short because it’s simple. Too few age groupers actually run in the last 10k of an Ironman. This happens for lots of reasons but it happens most often because they have swam too hard and ridden too strong and have not saved enough for the run. This happens a lot in an athlete’s sophomore effort; they take the first one with an “experiential” attitude and then they take on the second one as a “race”. The ironic part is that just by taking the edge off the swim and bike pace they might give up two minutes on the swim and perhaps 12 minutes on the bike but just that slight 14 minute change can often result in an hour better run time.