My RR 112 mile course is an out/back from my doorstep down along Utah lake (yes, where the guy died in 2002 at IM Utah). It's flat and rollers and about 75 miiles of it is 100% uninterrupted and free of stops. It yields a total ride time for me of 5:10 - 5:30, depending upon wind conditions. This is a good ~20 minutes faster than what I would expect to ride the new course at CDA. I have plenty of canyons and hills available to me for riding. I do some hilly portions of riding on weekday workouts and also on my Saturday and Sunday riding (during the Z3/Z2 stuff). Could easily do 3-4 canyons and some killer elevation for an RR but I don't for several reasons.
#1 - Minimal stops or interruptions is important to me. It simulates real race conditions. Always moving.
#2 - Climbing a canyon is great for learning to ride steady up but then you have a 10-15 minute descent @ crazy ass 45 mph which is dangerous on a TT bike and all you do is "roll up zeros". I admit it, I like a pretty power file at the end.
#3 - I've done IMCDA, IMMOO and IMSG - there's some hills on those courses. My experience has been that there are very few hills in the IM race where I am saying "shit this is hard" or "man, I should have ridden a lot more hills". Most of the time I'm just following these other idiots on bikes up a hill and keeping my watts in check.
But yeah, I admit it that not doing hill repeats or long sustained climbing (ala Friel) makes me wonder how prepared I really am.
I think that's the right call for you Jim. We have rollers here that can give you from 3-5K elev per century but Wiseman and I went to Boone, NC and rode some longer sustained climbs over Memorial weekend to get a good dose of those "canyon" type climbs w/ long descents.
I like to mix it up during training but agree RR should be on same or similar course.
Comments
CTS jersey? LOL!!!!!!!!
Nice job crushing the Fred in 04! Ha
My RR 112 mile course is an out/back from my doorstep down along Utah lake (yes, where the guy died in 2002 at IM Utah). It's flat and rollers and about 75 miiles of it is 100% uninterrupted and free of stops. It yields a total ride time for me of 5:10 - 5:30, depending upon wind conditions. This is a good ~20 minutes faster than what I would expect to ride the new course at CDA. I have plenty of canyons and hills available to me for riding. I do some hilly portions of riding on weekday workouts and also on my Saturday and Sunday riding (during the Z3/Z2 stuff). Could easily do 3-4 canyons and some killer elevation for an RR but I don't for several reasons.
#1 - Minimal stops or interruptions is important to me. It simulates real race conditions. Always moving.
#2 - Climbing a canyon is great for learning to ride steady up but then you have a 10-15 minute descent @ crazy ass 45 mph which is dangerous on a TT bike and all you do is "roll up zeros". I admit it, I like a pretty power file at the end.
#3 - I've done IMCDA, IMMOO and IMSG - there's some hills on those courses. My experience has been that there are very few hills in the IM race where I am saying "shit this is hard" or "man, I should have ridden a lot more hills". Most of the time I'm just following these other idiots on bikes up a hill and keeping my watts in check.
But yeah, I admit it that not doing hill repeats or long sustained climbing (ala Friel) makes me wonder how prepared I really am.
I think that's the right call for you Jim. We have rollers here that can give you from 3-5K elev per century but Wiseman and I went to Boone, NC and rode some longer sustained climbs over Memorial weekend to get a good dose of those "canyon" type climbs w/ long descents.
I like to mix it up during training but agree RR should be on same or similar course.