Do as I say not as I do!
This is just a short write up to act as a little reminder for everyone (and I am at the top of the list!) about how important pacing is and the price you pay when you don’t do it right!
I will start off with my Ironman Canada race in August, I had paced this race quite well, but unfortunately just didn’t have great legs on the day (the explanation for that is another story!) but in terms of pacing I had done a pretty good job.
My heart rate for the ride was right were it should have been, middle of Z3 with 55% of the time I spent in Z3, 15% in Z4 and 30% below Z3. My average power was 228watts, normalized power 246 with a VI (variability index) of 1.08 and a bike split of 4:54 followed with a fairly even split run in 3:02. My first hour on the bike was 239watts and right in where I wanted it to be. I had hoped to hold closer to 240 watts for this race, but I knew on the day that the legs weren’t there to do it so I held back a bit more. To the top of Richter’s Pass I was averaging 245 watts and to the top of Yellow Lake I was at 236. IMC is a course where you do expect some power variation, especially as the last 45min is mostly downhill and I averaged only 180watts over the last 42min from the top of Yellow Lake to transition, and my overall average dropped to 228 watts. My goal for the race was to be about 10 watts higher than I held on the day, but the pacing was good, I would like to have been 10 watts higher across the board but the legs weren’t there, otherwise it was well executed. This let me get off the bike and still have some legs left for the run, unfortunately they were the same not great legs I had on the bike, but I held a pretty steady pace to put together as good a race as I could have on the day.
IMC Stats:
Time = 4:54
Average HR = 153 (lower Z3)
AP = 228
NP = 246
VI = 1.08
Run = 3:02
Total Time = 8:57
Fast forward to Hawaii, my recovery from IMC had gone quite well and I was feeling that, despite it only being 7 weeks apart, I could realistically hold a similar power in Hawaii that I had held at IMC and still have a very good run (much better than IMC really). Hawaii is a course where you will hold a little higher wattage in the first half than the second due to the climb to Hawi, but it’s a more steady effort all round compared to IMC as you can pedal down all of the hills. So I had planned on holding about 230-235 for the first half of the ride and then finish strong and be in the 230 range at the end of the ride with lots left to run. Well that was the plan, but unfortunately I didn’t stick to it! I felt a lot better on the day in Hawaii than I did at IMC, I had good legs as was excited to be out on the bike and I allowed this to override common sense. My first hour in Hawaii was at an average of 252watts and heart rate in the bottom of Z4, I could feel I was on the edge but I was excited and didn’t back off, I rode to the turnaround at Hawi in an average of 248 and thought that I would get to recover coming down the downhill. But it just didn’t happen and I struggled for the rest of the bike ride, my overall numbers broke down like this:
Time = 4:55
Average HR = 158 (top of Z3)
AP = 227
NP = 238
VI = 1.04
Which on the surface looks like what I had been planning on, but it was the execution that was off, if we break the ride into first and second halves my numbers look like this:
First half
Average HR = 161 (bottom Z4)
AP = 248
NP = 255
VI = 1.03
Second half
Average HR = 155 (middle Z3)
AP = 204
NP = 214
VI = 1.05
Run = 3:55
Total Time = 9:55
You can see here how I completely over did it in the first half and really struggled coming home. My heart rate remained quite high but my power dropped dramatically. When you look at the numbers for the ride overall they were quite good and very comparable to what I had done at IMC so there would be an expectation that I could have run well but when you break it down you can easily see that I had ridden too hard in the first half and faded greatly in the second half. This then led to a very painful and slow marathon, which was hopefully painful enough to remember not to do it again!! If I had ridden a consistent 228 watts I could have had pretty much exactly the same bike split and yet come off the bike feeling good and ready to run, but by going so hard in the first half I buried myself and had nothing left come the run.
This is just a reminder to everyone how critical pacing is and how looking at overall numbers doesn’t always tell you the whole story
Looking forward to some smarter racing in 2008!
Nigel