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My First HIM Execution Needs Some Help

easton99easton99
in Racing Forum 🏎

Completed my first HIM (Muncie, IN) and felt good with it.  After a couple of weeks of pondering on it, not feeling as good, but still feel ok with it.  My time was right on goal at 5h59m.  I was happy with my swim and felt comfortable doing it, felt good coming out and had a better time than I expected.  Had a tire rubbing on the bike when I was out of the saddle pushing hard, but couldn't fix it on course so pushed through and ended up with almost exactly the split I expected.  I could have gone faster, but did the ride I should, not the ride I could.  Run felt really good, especially since I felt that my run training was the most neglected of the three and my run fitness seemed lower than I would like.  Felt like I left it all out on the course, not like I took it too easy.  Nutrition and hydration was pretty good, at least I didn't bonk and I didn't really feel dehydrated much.

My surprise was in my rankings for each split.  I felt that my bike was my strong leg, my swim was average, and that my run would be my weak one.  Turns out (according to my AG rankings at least) that the bike was my worst, and the run and swim were considerably better.  Would upping my effort a little on the bike a bit really kill my run performance? 

My later disappointment is in that I cranked all the bike workouts, and felt like I progressed significantly in my bike fitness.  Race results did not seem to support this assumption.  So I am firmly in the So Now What stage.  Do I need to crank out a bike block, stay with the level of workouts I have been doing, or just look into a different approach entirely? 

I am looking to do a Full IM in a couple of years, but want to roll back to Oly and keep doing HIM to try to become more competitive.  Are these goals mutually exclusive?

 

Thanks guys.

Comments

  • deleshdelesh
    If you are making good gains on the bike I would just continue doing what you are doing. If you feel you need it you can always skew your training towards a more bike focused plan if you feel you need it. I would not compare yourself to others too much. Most people push way too hard on the bike and end up going slower on the run so I wouldn't put too much on the race rankings. I'm sure you will get some really good advice from the WSMs here.
  • kurshingkurshing
    The ONLY place that matters is overall. A strong biking ability allows you to ride slightly slower than many others without using nearly the energy or output that they require for a similar bike leg. This seems to be 'the game' we play when races get longer than the Oly distance. What zone did you run the last 3-4 miles of the run in?

    I would recommend that you hop into OS and just add a little extra z1/2 time to the longer run and longer bike. OS will make you faster as well as keep you prepped for shorter sprint races you may have on your radar. In will certainly make you faster overall, more so than anything else.
  • kurshingkurshing
    Oh...and congrats on the race. It sounds like you did what you were supposed to!
  • jburbattjburbatt
    BTW, if you notice there were a TON of people at Muncie that went out too hard on the bike and then couldn't get it done on the run. So by doing it the EN way, you managed to put out a strong run when everyone else did their could instead of their should. Like Stephen said, it's not a bike race, it's a triathlon. And I'm going to say that yes, generally by increasing your bike output you'd likely have affected your run, especially with the conditions in Muncie. That being said, you can always compare your TSS of the race to the HIM race calculator and see where you fall. Might give you a good idea if you could have pushed it a bit more and still be able to run the way you did.
  • easton99easton99

    Good thoughts, thanks.  I didn't think about the others dropping during the run, which would explain the differences in my AG rankings for the bike and run split.

     

  • Al TruscottAl Truscott

    Comparing your relative ranking to others in your AG is a good metric to use when deciding what might need some work. Being balanced in all three disciplines is much preferable to trying to go all in on just one and hanging on for dear life in the other two. That said, in the final analysis, it is ONE race, not three, and as noted above, the only metric that matters is your own time and how it stacks against your expectations and previous performance. 

  • John StarkJohn Stark

    First, congrats on your first HIM!  That's a big frigging deal!  Be proud, brotha!  

    In regards to your post:

    In EN it is all about race execution based on holding our Gears (or HR) on the bike and the 3/7/3 execution pacing on the run based on our vDot.  How did you do with these?

    What I caught in your post was "out of the saddle pushing hard."  Looks like that was during the race?  That doesn't sound like an EN race execution strategy.  But maybe I am missing something?

    In regards to comparing yourself to others . . . .don't.  There could have been any number of factors on that bike course that had folks faster than you.  Including going too hard and melting on the run.  Or simply faster riders.  Who knows?

    What matters in EN is race execution.  If you did well with your plan and executed properly, then be happy with that.

    Rock on!

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