W.D.L. April 2018: Dealing with Drafting on Race Day

Coach Patrick

Ok folks, time for a deeper dive into what it means to handle a race situation like we saw at Ironman® Texas 2018 (last weekend). At it's core, drafting is not only illegal, it's incredibly unsafe. In this month's WDL video, I give you my perspective on the drafting situation. 

Remember, this is really only an issue at the longer races - 70.3™ and Ironman® distance - as other races are too short and are typically broken up by wave starts and many turns, etc. 

https://endurancenation.wistia.com/medias/dslyehy2oe?embedType=iframe&seo=false&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=2

Main Notes

• Make Your Racing Decision Before the Race Starts
  
• Triathlete Drafting Is Very Inefficient
• The Real Racing Happens on the Run (especially after Mile 10 / Mile 18!)
• Save Your Energy on Race Day to Race Better (vs yelling at others) -- Stay Inside Your Box
• Create Change By Voting with Your Race Dollars

I really look forward to your input and the Team Discussion below!!!

~ Coach P

John Withrow

Great chat coach!   This is crazy frustrating during a race and it is super helpful to think about what to do NOW as opposed to thinking about it for the first time when it happens at mile 40 on the bike on some course somewhere...   I like the sitting 5-6 bike lengths behind the blob and getting in your nutrition concept, but this takes a TON of discipline as numerous Ricky Racers fall back from the blob and race up constantly coercing you into becoming part part of the group.  It also takes a ton of discipline to sit back legally behind a group pedaling at 10-20 Watts below your goal power and not let your mind play games with you making you think you are going backwards vs your goals for the day.   The rational mind will tell you that you will arrive to T2 in about the same time you otherwise would have had, but with fresher legs, so be patient and disciplined as this happens.

The one thing I will add to what you already said is that these Draft Packs or Blobs become completely chaotic as they approach and exit aid stations (or near penalty tents) but especially aid stations...   40 riders riding 3-4 across ALL think they will be the one to not move and be able to be on the right side in a line to grab water or a Gatorade from one of the 3 volunteers handing them out...   So be EXTRA careful in these areas.  EVERY single Ironman has crashes at or near Aid Stations and this risk is exponentially higher if you are anywhere near one of these packs full of Ricky Racers...   

Tony Ledden

Great advice to hang at least the legal distance behind these draft packs. In addition to aid stations, as John noted, these packs will become chaotic on hills/climbs as each Ricky Racer hammers up the hill differently.  A crash happened right in front of me during IMWI back in 2014.  A draft pack rolled past me on Highway G and as they turned right on 92 the bite of the hill began to slow them down, but each Ricky Racer slowed down at a different rate. As I made the turn on to 92 and start up the hill, I see the pack bunched up and churning near the crest and suddenly 1 of the racers aerobars clips another's and 3 bikers go down. Was far enough behind to react in time to avoid the crash.  Definitely believe things eventually work out for the best for those who race with integrity!

Al Truscott

Another way dealing with draft packs in an IM can be dangerous...I DNF 3 of the 30 IMs I started. First time, it was 100F at the start of the run, and I didn't come out of T2. The other two were downstream results of not being smart when confronted with folks rolling along together, closer than the legal distance, each time at about miles 20-30 into the bike. Instead of falling back as Coach P recommends, I tried to get ahead in one case, and in the other, I found myself not falling back fast enough and getting a penalty, which led to going too fast to try and "make-up" the time lost. Eventually, I dropped out at mile 10-12 of the run, having spent too much variability and TSS early in the bike.

Note Tom Glynn's Texas RR, where he went over his race plan watts trying to stay ahead of a "blob". Lucky for him, he had a conservative plan and was in great shape, as his run was still successful. But don't count on that. Trying to go faster than a draft pack is risky business.

Tom Glynn

Great topic and currently very relevant given the Texas race last weekend.

I have to disagree with you on a number of points!
1,  Triathletes may be terrible drafters with horrible bike handling skills, but sitting in a pack of 50+ people will accrue benefits, regardless of your bike handling skills. Sitting in the front versus sitting the back is worth at least 50 watts.That's a really big number.
2.  IM is the only game in town.  Not showing up to an IM race and going to a local race and competing against a bunch of newbies on mountain bikes isn't really helping anyone.
3.  Bagging Texas with 80 slots and going to another race that gives one or two slots to an age group is not a good option for those close to the KQ limit.  Marshall problems were caused by the local sheriff telling everyone that there were too many motorized vehicles on the course and it was too dangerous for the riders. IM officials probably should have been in front of the problem months ago, but they are certainly not going to override local police.
4.  Saving 50 watts on the bike should have an effect on the run.  Never heard that a bad bike has no effect on an IM run before.
5.  Calling someone out for cheating can be extremely gratifying .  It may get me out of my box, but I had no problem calling someone a cheater to his face.  Sure he flipped me off, but saying nothing is worse than speaking up in most cases (for me anyway!).

Having raced IM FL last year, I agree there can be problems with an overcrowded field.  When you have 1000 people swimming under 1:10 all getting on their bikes within a few minutes of each other and then all biking somewhere around 5:15 or so, there are bound t to be crowds

Paul Hough

I am voting with my $ and heading to Norway with over 6500' net gain on the bike and fewer than 1000 competitors (can't wait to see the participant list to find out how many less than 1000)!

Meanwhile, neither the recent Florida 70.3 nor IMTX had any refs out on the bike course, but for very different reasons, neither of which are in the public domain.  For Texas, Tom's comment above regarding the sheriff is a partial truth.  The whole truth is more discouraging, but both races have caught Messick's attention and my sources tell me that he considers the situation unacceptable.  However, the fixes for each will require very different courses of action so I'm only moderately confident that next year's events will be better...but I'll be going elsewhere just in case.  

@Tom - congrats again.  Isn't it something that a cheater flips you off for calling having called them out...as if you were the bad guy!  You think they would have hung their head low at the shame.