Race Strategy, Long vs Short
Seen the downloads for the HIM and IM racing guidelines. Disciplined approach catching all those who burn the matches early. Good stuff. Understood. Will tape it to my bars. Looking forward to a Half in the Fall.
In the meantime, doing the intermediate SC plan for 1 (maybe 2) oly's before I pick up the HIM plan. Question...Is there any comparable strategy to the SC events? I'm guessing not. Seems like the races are too short to be too patient. If you hold back too much, the early rabbits are gonna be done before they have time to burn out from the matches. So, I'm thinking sprints and oly's must be, basically, a test of all of the hard intensity work that we've been building. I assume the strategy is...know your limit and race right at that limit al long as you can, building and neg split stuff.
Anything more complicated than that?
Comments
Thx
Thx
It has been touched above, but I will try to sum it up using pace. Covering olympic distance first than sprint below.
olympic:
swim: do not go too hard at the start, 1500m is plenty long to put a dent into your bike and it will if you find yourself breathless in the
first 400m, very easy to get carried away, either swim your race control the effort or sit on feet that don't make you breathless.
bike: 92-95% FTP, start first 15min at 80-85% if the course allows, than turn it up from there
run: HMP becomes the target
sprint:
swim: little less restraint here, but still controlled
bike: 95%FTP
run: 10k pace
On the power guidance wheteher AP or NP, not sure. I would think it matters less the shorter it gets.
This is a summary I read here, power is from Skiba's book, but matches coaches advice here, run is from some other sources, but I would say pretty close. Coaches or WSMs will correct me if I am wrong.
Hopefully, with RnP getting into Short Course training plans, EN will develop over the coming months and years a systematic race execution stragey like we have for long course. Until then, we'll keep developing an internal consensus through discussion like this, I suspect.
My thoughts, for Olympic:
As AT notes for the SWIM, 1500 meters is a serious distance, and needs to be paced properly to avoid a blow up, either in the water or in later stages. Personally, I've found I can't go much faster for 1500 m than I can for 3800. I use the same basic strategy Rich recommends for IM - go as hard as I can while sustaining the feeling that my stroke is not falling apart. And I do NOT try to blast out of the blocks - that's a good idea if you are (a) a former high level collegiate swimmer and (b) intent on and able to finish near the overall top of the race. Otherwise, save your breath.
As folks have noted, there seem to be a range of suggestions for how hard to pace the bike, from mid 80s up to and including 100% of FTP. I'm a little more aggressive than AT at the start; for the first 3-4 miles, I try to be hitting about 88%, then work my way up to 92%. I'm willing to pop up little hills, and sustain higher power on longer hills at this distance. Coming out of corners well is also critical, and requires higher than 100% FTP watts. I also will pick up the pace for the last 3-4 miles, until about 200 meters out from T2.
On the run, I find what AT says to be absolutely true: in general, run "one gear slower" than the distance. Sprint: 10K, Oly: HMP, etc. It sure FEELS like I'm running at 10K RPE in an Oly, but my speed is HMP.
Sprint: once I'm out of the water, I'm on my personal redline the rest of the way, which ends up being about 98% of FTP on the bike and a TEENY bit faster than 10K pace on the run.
For those new to racing, it would be helpful to have our coaches develop some basic instruction about this that we know will work as well for shorter distance as what we have for longer. Advice from stronger, experienced racers may not be the best thing for someone in their first season of triathlon.