10 Days Out
Well, 10 days out from the Hawaii Ironman…no matter what the IM, I’ve always thought of the final 10 days as the critical period where EVERYTHING counts…every hour of sleep, every ounce of fluid you drink, and piece of food that goes in your mouth. The last 4 weeks have had some fantastic training. Last Monday was the highest my 6 week trailing volume has been since pre Placid and it has shown in my performance indicators. I’m slightly faster than pre Placid in all three sports and slightly more durable. Overall, I think I’m in a great place going into this race with about 20-30 minutes better speed potential than last year at this time (estimated 9:35-9:45 under similar conditions). However, Hawaii is a tough place to race where anything can happen so I’ll of course execute the race plan to the letter and hope for the best possible race time output whatever that may be. Below is a figure showing my 6 week trailing volume for this season with some of the key races pointed out. The best IM racing tends to take place following (3-4 weeks after) a peak in trailing volume where fitness is maximized (through high trailing volume) and durability and speed potential is available (through 3-4 weeks of recovery).
For those of you who read my blog, I’ve been working on a new version of the triathlon calculator that accounts more explicitly for the triathlon bike course specifics and provides much better accuracy for some groups of people (light folks with good power/weight ratio). An advanced version of this can be found at HERE. Please don’t advertise this yet though since it’s not yet ready for the public launch since I am still working on it. Some sample bike course numbers for it are:
Timberman: 58
IMLP: 77
IMWIS: 63
IMFL: 10
Kona: 44
Mooseman: 48
The final version should be available at the normal URL in about two weeks. Comments welcome!!
Next post will be from the Big Island……!!!!
-Jesse
Comments (4)
Mary: IronMatron
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I used the calculator and it didn’t give me the time that I wanted, so therefore it must not work yet! haha!
Seriously, though. Why such the difference between the flat out run time and the time you’d run during a tri?
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Jessekrop
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Mary:
FYI…the new version doesn’t change the run predictions at all compared to the old version….just the bike.
Well, the reason there is such a difference between open and tri run times is the little bike ride you do before them in a tri! This ride causes significant fatigue before you even make it to the “starting line” for the run. The best folks in triathlon can get down to about 6 or 7% over their open run times. Many age groupers start in the 9-12% range (and that’s assuming they have met critical volume). If they don’t meet critical volume, it can be a lot more than that!
I hope this helps….
-Jesse
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Ed
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Good luck Jesse – I’ll be watching this weekend!
ps – the hills in Virginia are sick for ridding
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Joel
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Still trying to make the calculator come up with my IMLP bike time!
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