RPE Disconnect on the bike out of the water

thekidduxc

I would be humbled if I could get some input on the following. Please let me know if I can add any additional details to enhance potential analysis:

Questions: Does anyone else experience this challenge? Any direction on what I can do to adapt and overcome? 

I experience what feels like a major disconnect on my RPE on the bike when I come out of the water. I experienced this @ the Abu Dhabi ITU, my sole RR for IM South Africa, & at IMSA itself. All this year.

To be more specific, my perceived effort I am producing to achieve watts well below my race goal IF is massive. If I compare my rides without swimming first to the rides where I swim first, the power produced have at an RPE is massively different.

During the Oylmpic ITU on 5 March, my HRM was much higher at lower watts than my training rides. The 1st 25 minutes of the ride was at NP 223w while my average HRM was at 153. (I came out of the water at 157 HRM). I came off an FTP in the middle of Feb at 287w. (I derived this FTP from a 70' cycle race where my NP was 287w). That NP 223w felt like NP 270w. It was hard. My IF for the full race was .79; but my effort felt like a .95. Yes I did perform/complete a split 26km run 60 hours before my race as I was training through this race. Yes my legs were a bit flat. But I know the difference between being flat/dead legs vs. RPE.

Here is my cycling file for my ITU Olympic race:

http://tpks.ws/3KRy

Here is my cycling file for my 287 FTP ride. My average HRM for that entire 70' was 158. and I was slaying myself.

http://tpks.ws/HIGPi

Here is my cycling file for my IM ride. While I experienced this same disconnect (my RPE well exceeded my effort level), my avg HRM was much more in line with what I experience on a normal training ride without first swimming. Note - I experienced a dip in my daily average TSS/CTL from my 287 FTP ride and my race. I fell out of training and lost focus a bit. In addition, I never succesfully transitioned to 5 hour power training.

http://tpks.ws/GL6Js

Though I do not have a massive history of triathlon or IM racing, I've never experienced anything such as this before.

Unfortunately, I did NOT do anything to address this in my training. My 2015/2016 season has ended and I am transitioning to my 2016/2017 season. I would like to be able to work this problem during training in my next season.

tim cronk

I think we often underestimate how much the swim takes out of us....Bricks are specificity and we do lots of bike/run bricks... Do Swim/Bike bricks in training , interval swim sessions followed as closely as possible with bike interval sessions .... We are also guilty of putting our RR swim the day before RR bike/run due to logistics and schedule (myself included) but if at all possible during your RR's make sure to do the swim on the same day as the bike/run , think specificity and steady race pace , those RR's with a swim first will not only help you nail down that target Watts for the bike but it will change your nutrition needs so try and mimic raceday nutrition pre-swim as well as for the remainder of RR.

Mark Maurer

David, two things come to mind. If I remember correctly you posted before the race that your swimming was better but not good enough to get you through IMSA. The lack of endurance there could tax you more than you think and put you in a hole HR wise. I've noticed that my HR has been high coming out of the water when I wasn't working on my swim endurance and I was swimming faster because of the race. The other thing is the effort you were pushing in the first part of the bike. Were you trying to hit your target watts from the get go or were you starting a little lower and building. I start the IM bike and little low to get my HR down, eat and drink, and let the crazies pass me. I know I'll pass them later. BTW, my swim time is about 70 to 75 minutes so I'm getting out with a lot of people so getting out ahead of the pack at the start usually isn't in the cards for me.

moetai@gmail.com

Hi,
1st, a road race is a very different story than EN "testing" protocol, I've road raced for more than 20 years and I can tell u that when u don't want to get dropped or wan't to go for the win in a break away, U push WAY harder than in TT (at least for me) plus the many surges @Z6 or 7 will impact the NP ride, so your estimated FTP from a Road race might be a little OFF. (i know it would be for me).

2- like Tim said, the swim is usually underestimated (effort wise) + when u get out of the water, we can run like crazy to T1: that run effort + the heart trying to get the blood back from your upper body to the legs + the stress of T1+ the fact that u are now biking, Basically, your body get lost and would be like: "what the hell do u want to do? swim, run or bike? can u make up your mind? ". Just remember the 1st time u ran after a bike...I think it's the same thing. U might need to practice the swim /(short run sprint)/bike brick to:
-get used (mentally) to the discomfort
-train your body to that effort so it will adapt and the discomfort (RPE high with low watts output) is lower (or gone)

William Jenks

I used to run into this, and I found it useful to do some swim/bike bricks for that very reason. Like others have said, Swimming does take a lot out of you. A couple thoughts:

Consider losing a few seconds in T1 by not sprinting it quite so hard and letting your HR recover a bit. I'm not saying dawdle...just saying don't kill yourself on the actual running around part of it. I can't remember which year it was, but even Coach Rich talked about almost exactly what you're saying one time after an IM WI effort where he decided to quite literally do the T1 as fast as he could.

Consider doing some swim/bike bricks where you use a parachute on the swim...You could probably do 30 minutes of parachute swimming and have it be a relatively good race simulation.

I think a lot of this is also just getting used to the odd RPE and knowing how to live through it for the first 15-20 minutes...without doing things that will make it worse. (not so different than learning how to live through the jelly legs when starting a run)

Good luck.