This photo (courtesy of byrn photography) is from our 3 day high altitude training camp . We (Denny, myself, John, and Jeff) had just gotten done swimming at over 9,000 ft in a 90 degree pool using 3 stroke breathing. I’m not really sure if I could have told you my name after getting out of the pool. If you ever get a chance to swim up high I recommend you give it a try. It takes complete relaxation to be able to do so.
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I have a ton of ideas running through my head right now. I’m going to start making a book based on various discussions that I have with Gordo and other members of the squad. I ask a lot of questions and being new to the sport I think about issues that may now seem elementary to the experienced veterans. This book will be the foundation of my blog entries.
To kick things off, I’m going to talk about what I learned during an Ironman simulation ride this past Sunday.
To be honest with you, this was probably the first time I had ever gone out and rode over a 100 miles just like I would expect to in the race. I have ridden over a 100 miles on several occasions, but not with the sole purpose of dialing in my bike pacing and nutritional requirements. It seems very silly to me that I had never done this because every bad race I’ve had, has been due to poor bike pacing, which is most likely the culprit to the nutritional problems that have ended my day
If you plan on being successful at your next Ironman, workouts like this are a must. You don’t want game day to be an experiment nor the longest, hardest ride of your life. Bike pacing and nutrition are the keys to running a good marathon. The purpose of these types of workouts are to determine how slow/fast you need to bike in order to run strong. A year ago, I wouldn’t have even considered this type of strategy. I would have thought by going easy on the bike I would just be losing time to my competition. In reality, it probably wouldn’t make any difference because chances are they are biking too fast also. The only real way to gain an advantage is to find the appropriate efforts which allow you to run well off the bike.
Are you noticing a theme here?
It seems like the bike portion of a triathlon is the section that turns into an “ego” thing. I think a lot of athletes have the mentality that “I may not finish this thing, but I’m sure as hell not going to have a slow bike split.” I don’t believe that it is a lack of respect for the marathon that cause people to ride so hard, but more fear. Maybe they don’t want to know where their true fitness lies. Maybe they can’t face the reality that they are racing above their current fitness level and would rather blame their failure on sugar and water instead of poor pacing.
I want to share a discussion with you between Gordo and the Lads (squad).
Gordo was describing his race strategy for Canada and was talking about HR caps and the efforts he was going to use on the bike during IM Canada. The strategy he described didn't sound like one that would be coming from the 2007 Ironman Canada Champion. I thought to myself, "what?", no mention of drilling it or going off the front. Finally, Brandon asked, what sort of bike split he would expect from those efforts. Gordo's answer was, "it is what it is." Those are the efforts that he must use in order to run a fast marathon. Swim+Bike+Run=Overall fastest time.
The key is to build up swim and bike fitness and then not have to use it.
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Here are the key points to our long ride.
*Stop as little as possible. We had one scheduled stop at the halfway point to re-stock on water or whatever else you needed.
*No drafting
*Start out easy and try to have an evenly paced ride. No fading towards the end.
*Race day fueling
*Run an hour off the bike as a “reality check”
I had a few concerns to start the day. First, how hard to ride and second, how many calories should I take in. I had no idea what my race-day caloric requirements or limits were because I’ve failed at races and had never done this in training. You would expect for me to be able to look over at Gordo while we were inhaling our morning breakfast and expect him to be able to give me the answer, but that is one of the misconceptions about a good coach. Gordo can give me values or ranges for everything, but it is my job to determine what is right for me. My caloric requirements could range from 250-450/hr. That is an awfully wide range, so testing is needed.
I consumed more calories on this ride than I ever had before (2,000 cal in 5 hours) and the key to this was when I choose to take in those calories. You want to consume calories when you are relaxed and able to settle your heart rate. I choose to do this on downhills, crest of climbs, and during the first half of the ride. I’ve read where a lot of people set their watch or have a plan to take in a gel every 15 minutes or so. I don’t believe that this is the best option and can lead to an athlete getting behind as the race progresses. How many bikes do you think are sitting in T2 with half the athlete's calories still sitting on it because the times they were scheduled to fuel didn’t fit in with the dynamics of the race or course and they got behind? This is where knowing the course or at least the general profile of the course can help your nutrition strategy.
What was going through my mind during this ride was, anytime I saw a chance to fuel I did and I didn’t just put down a little. I would eat a whole bar or take a big drink of my concentrated bottle of Infinit, almost saying to my body, “here some calories, now work on that for a while.” Then I would just have some water to keep up on the fluids and aid in the absorption of the calories I just ingested.
Here is a quote from Scott Molina, that Gordo shared with me before the ride.
"When your feeling good, don't go harder, EAT!"
After the ride I changed into my running gear and pounded about a liter of Infinit sports drink. I was pretty thirsty and probably a bit dehydrated. You never quite know how your stomach feels until you begin to run. Your body has been in a static position for hours while you’ve been consuming calories and now you are asking it to do so while you’re up-right and running. This puts a lot of stress on your stomach and this is one of the major reasons to start out slow. Turns out my stomach was a mess. Did I ride too hard? Take in too many calories? Drink too much in transition? I really don’t know the answer, but it took me 40 minutes before I was able to run comfortably. I’m thinking that the liter of sports drink that I chugged right before I took off had something to do with it and I can probably dial back the bike efforts even more. My legs felt good, but if your stomach shuts down, it doesn’t really matter.
My first reaction to this was anger, but then Gordo got me to realize just how much I learned today. At least I’m figuring this out before my race and have several more IM simulation rides to try and get it right.
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One last thing.
Gordo mentioned yesterday, that if you feel like you are working within the first 2 hours of the bike, then you are riding too hard. You should have seen us at the beginning of our ride, it was a joke how easy we started off. This is something that takes tremendous discipline to do during a race when everyone else is going bananas.
Give yourself a chance,
Mat
