Little Smokies HIM
Cliff's notes version: 5h39m. Race weight: 161#.
13 minutes slower than my PR (on a pancake flat course) but there was approximately 3000-3400 feet of climbing on the bike (Depending on my garmin vs Mapmyride.com) and approximately 1500-2000 feet of climbing on the run. I was quite ecstatic. Not sure where I finished but I think it was 5th or 6th OA (awaiting results to be posted) although there were only 90 competitors or so. Most were doing the Triple-T format which was hard-ass!!
Pre-Race: Set alarm for 0200 and drank 600 cals of Infinit Mud/Milk. Prior to this, I thought it was ridiculous to get up in the middle of the night to feed. In hindsight, this was spot on. Didn't feel hungry at all at the beginning. Awoke at 0500 and had 2 bowls of cereal. Drank 20oz of Infinit Run at race site.
Swim: Time: 32:10
Haven't done an OWS this season. Took it easy. Only problem was that I overswam the first loop turn and swam an additional 50 meters or so. Had to get out and run back to the starting point. Best pool 1900m time was 34' but I finished this in 32' despite the detour. Didn't even feel tired.
Bike:
VI: 1.10, NP 180W (Goal 208), AP 164W HR avg: 152 bpm
Time: 3:07
VI was all over the place but I couldn't control my pacing due to the relentless hills and a lot of twists and turns. I heard that some woman did a face plant after hitting a pothole and had to get life-flighted out. I got 3400 feet of climbing in 56 miles (see screenshot link below) The website says 2800+ Anyways I couldn't hit my power goals as my HR was spiking all over the place. Listening to Coach P, I set my HR limit @ 154 bpm (85% max bike HR) with the occasional spike to get over some tough hills. I really utilized the PM to cap my efforts going up the climbs. On the descends it was difficult to pedal to 205W without spinning out of control or wiping out. Also took 2-2.5 minutes to urinate/ refill my bottles (you had to refill at the cooler yourself). Felt great riding within myself. Never cramped and stayed aero for a large part of the bike. Peed while riding for the second time in my life. Just whipped it out after looking back to make sure no one could see ;-) Ended up peeing 2x on the bike and a third time in T2.
Run: Time: 1:54 (8:48/mi) , HR avg 157 bpm
Tough run with approximately 1900' feet of elevation gain. It was done on fire roads which is essentially a dirt/gravel path approximately 15 yards wide. First 3.25 miles out were really tough but finally got into a groove. The section back was predominantly downhill so made a lot of time back. Discarded pace early and went with HR. First loop the limiter was 155 bpm, second loop 160 bpm. Walked up some sections but limited that to 15-30 steps at a time.
This race is the first time that I have felt comfortable on a HIM race. Never felt in distress (except near the last mile when I had skipped a couple of aid stations). I realize that my riding should have been more even but I am not sure that I could ride this course with a low VI.
Comments
Your VI is too high and YES YOU ABSOLUTELY COULD HAVE RODE A LOWER VI!!! I have not examined all of my data yet but I can tell you that my overall ride VI was 1.03 for the Sunday race. You can practice and make improvement there!!!
Great run too. I'll be interested to see how many people ran under 2 hours on that course. Not many I'll bet. That is one tough-ass run course. Agree you cannot use pace as a metric any any given point, and that HR is a good governor. I ran that out-and-back 4 times over the course of the weekend and each time I hit the lap button at the same places (the 1-mile marker and the turnaround) so as to be able to compare paces for equivalent segments. But for sure it is impossible to force yourself to "speed up" at any given point just because your Garmin tells you you're off-target!! Limiting the walking was a really great idea...no matter how slow you run, it's always faster than walking.
Matt, a question for you. Did you pace by power the entire ride? How does one reconcile riding an even VI when going by the metric of HR? And, how does one reconcile a power difference with HR. For example, I had made a decision early in the race to limit my HR to 154 bpm with the exception of hills where I would go by a upper power limit of 227-237W (goal race + 5-10%). Subjectively, I felt great during the ride and could have probably pushed it up a little more if my HR wasn't so high. Upon review of my rides are the following:
I looked at the 10 significant climbs of 200-950 feet and got the following info. As you know, since it was a 2 loop course the hills repeated. I tried to get them to match up as best as possible
Hill# Climb (ft) Dist NP HR
1,6 616, 564 2.24, 3.2 180,213 160/156
2,7 255, 230 .94, 1.16 204,191 158/154
3,8 950,934 5.42,5.22 204,180 158/153
4,9 377, 453 1.07,1.46 205,195 156/157
5,10 264,231 1.19,1.13 204,198 152/154
On the descents, I was unable to get my watts even close to ra
ce goal (208) due to the technical course and steepness of the descents. I did try to go as fast as I felt I could safely go w/o crashing. On these descents my avg HR was 145-150 so I wasn't really coasting too much. I have noticed this in my outdoor vs indoor training as well. It appears that my HR settles in around 154 but my IF would be approximately .75. Indoors, I can ride at .8 for 2h with an avg HR of 140. I am not sure how to reconcile this difference moving forward. Do I accept a lower wattage when racing or go to a slightly higher HR to hit my power? I am going to post this onto the general power thread as well. Thanks for any help.
One other thing is that your HR/RPE/Power calibration may differ indoors vs. outdoors. Mine is for sure different…I'll be at 160 HR at the end of a 2-hour ABP ride on the trainer (i.e. riding 0.85-0.88 IF or so), but outside at that IF I'll be in the low 140's typically.
On descents I certainly did some coasting but only when really "spun out". I do not have my computer set to show speed on any screen, and so I have no speed threshold for when to coast. My top speed in Sunday's race was 47.8mph and I'm sure I hit that after cresting a hill, maintaining my power over the crest of the hill and well into the downhill. I also make sure to start pedaling as soon as my gears are once again effective. This may in fact be before the descent flattens out. I really like Rich's "conservation of momentum" mantra and I think it serves people really well on that course.
I'm somewhat confused
You mention that your HR is lower outdoors than indoors. Mine apparently is the opposite. Is your indoor workout area well ventilated and cool. My basement is typically 69 degrees with a really potent fan. I am not sure why this should be the case. Even on a flat course my HR hovers around 152 bpm with an IF of .78. Although I swam before the ride, I have noticed this even in training although not to such a degree. I assume my HR remains elevated due to the climbs but I am still in a quandary as to whether I should seek a optimal power level or HR. Do I let my HR rise a little more in order to get to an IF of .8. especially if I feel comfortable. Perhaps I will experiment in training and see where my HR settles out at for my power at race goal watts. Undoubtedly I felt very comfortable during and after the ride.
Thanks for all you input/advice.
Kar-ming - congrats on a well executed race on a truly difficult course. You are applying your growing racing knowledge well.
Regarding hills, and how to manage them. Matt's right about a lot of stuff, of course. I pretty much ignore HR on the bike. Although I do collect the data, I don't display it while racing (on the bike; I do on the run). If your display unit has the capability to show IF or NP for an interval, you can break up the course into intervals based on up vs down vs flat. And for those longer hills (900' ones?), yhou want to try to just settle in @ 80-85% if possible. For shorter ones, you might be able to get away with 85-90%. You'll probably see that your VI while climbng the hills is 1.01-02; if its higher than that, you have some work to do on learning how to ride up a hill steadily.
As to elevation differences... GPS based elevation totals will be higher than barometric or map-based numbers. When I compare my Garmin vs Joule (GPS vs barometer) total elevation gains, the GPS is usually up to 20% more.
Kar-Ming - Sorry I missed you at the race. I was there with Matt doing the TTT.
Congrats on a well executed race. You are right about the difficulty of the course and you did well. I agree with Matt and Al's comments, except that I do monitor my HR on the bike as well as the run. To me, it is just another piece of data that helps me guage how I'm doing given the weather conditions and my fitness. I thought that watching HR was particularly important at this race (TTT) because of the cumulative effect of the races. I experienced the same thing that Matt did on Sunday...HR was in the normal range but I had muscle fatigue manifesting itself in lower watts.