Stefan's "chasing that 70.3 World Championship slot" race
Vision:
Get a slot for the 2015 Ironman 70.3 World Championship that will take place in Zell am See only a 2 hour drive from my home!
As this is most likely a "once in a lifetime" opportunity I REALLY kicked my ass this season spending tons of hours in Z4 and above while cruising through the GetFaster Adv. and HIM Adv. plan TWICE
Last year only 3 slots were available in my AG (M30) and typically in Europe there is almost no roll-down. This year they doubled the total slots from 50 to 100 so I expect that I need a Top-5 result to get that slot!
I won't go into the pre-race day stuff here as I already have a perfectly working plan for these last days from my previous races and thanks to your inputs on my previous race plans!
Swim Split
Not much time for swim-warmup.
Develop strategy for proper warmup (tubing, pushups, &hellip
Don’t start out hard - better find your rythm and totally focus on strong form and swimming STRAIGHT (sight more often).
Go at 70-75% for first 400m and totally focus on form and smooth movements (feel how hips and core drive enables you to have a strong catch and pull).
Turn up the effort to about 85% for the main part of the swim. On approaching the swim exit start increasing kicking to get blood flow in your legs. Mentally walk through T1!!
Nutrition:
As usual have a gel 10min before swim start.
Will get out of water with about 4min down to the leading pack in my AG (hopefully)!
Transition 1
Reduce moving parts to minimum - Edge 500 on bike - 910xt not in use at all until run.
Use no socks on the bike! Use the body-glide trick to speed up wetsuit-exit
Know your way! Mark your bags with color-tape!
Bike Split
Target TSS 185 - 190
Target IF 0.85 - 0.86
Gearing front: 53/39 Q-rings
Gearing rear: 11-28
Goal time (calculated by bestbikesplit.com): 2:25:30 (+12:30 from 2013)
Section 1 - Approach to the climb
Length: 22km
Duration: 0:33:00
Nutrition: BTA bottle and aero-bottle filled with Isoactive or IsoFit+Salt (need to calculate here!)
Eat a powergel as soon as it is safe due to traffic but aim for first 10’.
Eat half a powerbar at the 30’ mark (shortly before the climb)
Section 2 - The Climb:
Length: 13,8km
Duration: 0:37:30
Nutrition: Keep hydrating all the way especially on the easier mid section. Have a gel on top of the hill.
Climb of 667hm @ 13,8km (5%) building gradually till the end.
Staring sort of steep then with a easy incline in the mid section until Dienten. Last 1,7k are really steep (>15%) - go first gear or standing.
Grab a bottle of perform @ aid-station in Dienten. Refill BTA asap!!
Expected climbing time: approx. 37:30 minutes (VAM 1000 / 305W / proven stuff)
Calculation based on 78kg rider weight and 9,5kg bike weight
295W = 38:37
305W = 37:30
315W = 36:37
Section 3 - The downhill
Length: 17,5km
Duration: 0:11:00
Nutrition: Hydrate using BTA-bottle and have half a powerbar at the 1:30 mark.
Reload back bottle at aid-station after the downhill.
Section 4 - Flat way home
Length: 36,3km
Duration: 0:52:00
Nutrition: Hydrate using BTA-bottle. Have a gel at 2:00 and 2:20
Race plan:
Ride easy and get through the field until km 8-10.
Then start picking it up to goal watts even it’s going downhill (sure I’ll gain some sec here)
Hill starts steep so just don’t kill yourself here.
Ride @ around 95% until the final 2k of the climb (Section 2)
Final 2k sightly above 100%
First steep and curvy downhill keep it safe
Starting at 39k keep pushing and try to keep NP @ 250W (IF 0.84) for this section 3
Section 4 is where I need to push hard to gain some time for the run!
Transition 2
Garmin 910xt +2pcs gel (Sponsor Energy PLUS) waiting right beside shoes.
Get socks on - get shoes … Visor / Cap (if sunny), put Gels in side-pockets and go.
Have a small bottle of perform waiting here as the first aid-station will be at 4k most likely - need to verify this.
Run split
Goal race pace: 4:05/km
GPS Track: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=lxbvjpvkhdibplrg&referrer=trackList
Only 2 laps - less elevation but will be longer (2013 was too short by 0.6k).
Give yourself 2-3k to build slowly into race-pace but go “easy” first kilometer!
Go for a strong finish the last 3-4k running the last 500m ALL OUT (to outrun everyone that may be close).
1x gel at 7k mark
1x gel at 14k mark
Get a sip of perform at every aid station (3 stations each lap)! This worked awesome in my last long temporun.
IF YOU FEEL GOOD -> EAT OR DRINK!!
If you don’t feel good eg thinking of backing up … EAT something or get a coke (blood sugar level drop!) Once started with coke stick to this!!
At least 2 gel on the run to avoid the bonk and to stay focused mentally!
Overall thoughts
Use your bike-strength to benefit from the hard bike course!
go uphill at IF 0.95 - 1.00
hammer the downhill but don’t cook your legs here as the time benefit is significantly lower than flats or hills
ride the rest steady @ 0.85-0.86 IF!
be prepared for a badass run that will hurt A LOT on the final 5k! Get mean, get angry, steal every energy you can get from your opponents!
When thinking about slowing down - run faster!
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Comments
You've done a lot of thinking about this race - your plan reflects that. Now, put those thoughts away, and let them drive you from deep within on race day.
I've found a good way to go deep on the run is to focus on breathing (like counting strokes when swimming) - one per four steps (every other left) in the first half of a race, every other step (every left foot) on the back half - and keeping my HR steady and slowly rising. Helps me keep the negative thoughts from bubbling up.
Thanks for the breathing tip - I've recently found a new way to re-focus by touching my hips with my fingertips and counting these touches just 1-2-1-2-1-2 ... but it's always better to have a backup plan
I think on race-day it's still about EXECUTION - so having a well prepared plan is almost EVERYTHING
There are 360 athletes registered in my AG so I just have to beat 355 of them ...
Regarding qualification, the problem with a 100 slot race is that a lot of fast guys will show up for slots. That said, depending on your AG you could have over 10 slots for sure. Remember that the first 20 or so slots go to "1 for each AG", so incremental slots are ALL allocated to the AG's by size. So unless Europran reces get a lot more young people or women compared with the US, you will see the big male AGs 30-44 get a crapton of slots.
WU for 25' then 40' (10,8km) uphill with 700hm (NP here was >310W) the rest as ABP
I did a lot of calculations and the climb is where I (as a pretty strong cyclist) can gain the most out of additionally spent power ...The last 500m in Zell starts with a short but very steep ramp followed by a long descend to the line. I've seen a lot of people getting out-sprinted there last year so I just want to avoid this situation as I know I'm NOT a sprinter at all
Last year it was a 50-slot race and my AG got 3 allocated slots. I ranked 4th and the 3rd slot rolled down until the 5th ... I think because it's a HUGE financial story to travel to Canada for a 70.3 race even it's the world championship. As you said this year will be different first because it's a 100-slot race and 2nd the race to qualify for is right where we are all racing at the moment so no millions of dollars needed for 2015.
I just checked the starting list and my AG is among the three largest M30, M35 and M40 which contain all almost the same amount of athletes (around 365 on average).
Therefore I'm pretty confident that there will be 6 slots allocated for my AG but I don't expect you will get a roll-down slot if you rank outside of the Top-10 ... too much local-heros there
I also had your concern about "more fast guys when it's a 100-slot race" but they changed from 50 to 100 after the registration was already open for months so a lot of the available starting-slots have already been sold before .... but still this is a valid concern I'm aware of.