Endurance...much needed endurance...

[nando]

Alrighty fitness folks of cougarcycling.com,

I am in need of your advice.  I have always been one much like a cat.  I'm great with speed (at least running), go all out, burn my energy and then rest...and repeat!  And I can do this forever...probably one of the reasons why I like soccer so much...I can actually keep up with it and not have issues.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work for du's, tri's, marathons.

I have been running now for a year and can consistently run 7's for a 10k and have even pushed it to sub 6's for a 5k ...but when we talk about marathon distances, I'm looking at upper 7's to about 8:00 min/mi paces.  And this is looking back a year ago when I was running mid 8's for even a loop around Rice or Memorial..heh.  I want to bring my pace up to about 7 for a marathon (goal is to qualify for Boston next year)...and not get fatigued or start to feel a cramp after 15-17 miles of running.

For cycling, well, I've improved my pace a bit with the new bike, but haven't been doing as much training as I should.  Especially since I've only been on it three times now...ha!  There's work to be done there.

For swimming....uh...what's swimming?!? 

Now, having the Longhorn Tri in the Fall and doing the Texas Challenge of marathons as goals this year...well, I need all the endurance I can get!

So...particularly in running (but in all three sports really), what do you guys recommend for building up endurance in them? 

Thanks for the help!

-thumby

[awcarpenter]

For cycling and swimming you just need to do them, and swimming is all about form. Get the form down. As Joe can attest to you can work your butt off in swimming and if you don't have the right form you will be dead. Cycling you need to establish your base miles and then work on speed.

[Aiar(Izzy)]

try looking on line for marathon work outs such as this one

http://www.marathontraining.com/marathon/m_sch_2.html

try few of them, it should help thats how I started working out actually. it's not too hard and its really gradual.

you can also look for workouts that combine also heart rate zones and distances as well.

Hope I helped and didn't say things that you all ready know.

[awcarpenter]

http://www.furman.edu/first/fmtp.htm

This is really good and it allows you to have lots of cross training days for your other disciplines.