The Runner’s World triathlon training program I’m using calls for five different types of running throughout the 12 week schedule: Foundation, Strides, Transition, Tempo, and Threshold Intervals. A rather in depth article about how runners can train for a triathlon preceded the program but it didn’t go into detail about the various types of running (or swimming or biking for that matter) as there are definitions in the sidebar of the program. All of the work-outs made sense to me except for the description of Strides, which happens to be one of the first running work-outs on the schedule. The program defines it as “Run 20 seconds at 5k race pace; jog 40 seconds after each stride” and each run work-out says how many repetitions of this to do.
In my mind, a stride was the forward movement of the leg. I was baffled as to how I was to jog for 40 seconds in just one stride. But I knew what 5k race pace meant, so at first I would just sprint for the designated number of repetitions and not worry about the 40 seconds of jogging. The more I started to read about triathlon training, however, the more the term “strides” came up and the more I wanted to know the true meaning. Continue reading
