Has EN ever pulled off an ENTrain @IMFL?

morpheus

 Yep, I said it.

Don't villianize me.  Put the tomatos down.  Just hear me out cuz I'm sure I'm not the first to think about this.

First, refer to this...  http://members.endurancenation.us/Training/TrainingForums/tabid/101/aft/6514/Default.aspx

Then, let's play.

Imagine 3 or more of us with pretty close sizes, abilities and FTP's.  Then, first few on the bike soft pedal (as prescribed, actually) waiting for the slower swimmers, like myself   Not forever.  A time window is set prior and if you're not together by then, no train for you.  But, if it came together, then we're looking at 3, or hopefully more, riding 10m apart while staying very close to goal watts.  Yet, going faster and even saving a few watts cuz there's still aero benefit at 10m, been proven.  Taking turns?  Front signals (the top secret signal) slows a bit to allow the others pass on .....the left.   Looking like he's getting passed as opposed to dropping his 10m lead on the others.

I think it could be done.  Would have to be very disciplined to do it legally.  But, it could be done.   And without regret, if we do it right.  Legally.  I think the part about getting together after a mass start 2.4mi swim of differing paces would be the hardest variable to control.

Question:  Let's take 3, or more, guys, similar sizes.  Odds are that they each have different Goal Watts.  How big is that bubble?  The guy with the 'biggest' Goal Watts would have to be willing to back off a touch so that the guy with the 'smallest' Goal Watts doesn't blow up.  Basically, sabotaging a teammate.   I wonder how close this range of Goal Watts needs to be for this to be effective for everyone.  What do you think?

I would expect that there would be some times of separation due to other groups.  However, if we rode our plan correctly, the other groups would probably leave us behind.  The guy I'd worry about is the random dude that is group hopping and could fall in between our 10m.  I guess we could bark at him.

Hit T2 having saved a few watts and having had some fun with teammates.  

Then, off to the run where everyone runs their own race.

 

 

Note:  I AM NOT A CHEAT.  I have no prob doing any and all of this stuff solo.  There are rules about this.  We follow the rules.  And, see if there really is a benefit at 10m.

if you are offended by this, please understand that I'm not trying to justify stealing time or cheating.  Just looking to seize every opportunity to go a little faster while saving some gas.  As I said, it's in the rules.

 

Al Truscott

 AG IM draft is 7 meters. 10 m is for pros.

The Thompson Brothers and B Kelley COULD have done this @ IM Moo, if only they'd known how close they were to each other.

It's riskier if you all have the same kit, you might be scrutinized more closely.

A swim draft is also a good idea, maybe even better. Best is when you run with someone out of T2; I did that with Matt S last year @ IM AZ; Bruce Thompson and Brian Kelly did that this year @ Madison. No draft, but mental benefits are HUGE.

GMAN 19030

There were three brothers from Denmark (I think) who were in the same AG that did that at IMNYC. They came in 1,2,4 in the AG (and were 1,2,3 off the bike) and ruffled more than a few feathers in the process. It doesn't appear they drafted or cheated but they pissed off a bunch of people because nobody could sandwich in between them without incurring a drafting or blocking penalty.

Norton

Rules is rules, but how close do you want to get to the moral line? Life's not black and white.

morpheus

@ Al - Swim draft would be great, but such chaos at the start, how do you know you're with a buddy? And for the run, I would love to have company. Preferably, someone running just a couple of secs faster than me (keeping in mind that my paces are very ordinary). But, isn't the blowup risk bigger on the run than the bike, at that stage of the race? Seems like running a few sec faster per mile could bring me into an entirely different zone? And, as for the kit similar kits, that's an ez fix

@ Bob - got nothing for that one. Just thinking this...I'm not there to make those other guys my buddy. Again, playing within the rules, then I have nothing to lose sleep over.

@ Bill - in short, 7 meters!

mgraffeo

No judgement here, but I think there's a question of the spirit of the rules.

It's one thing to be legally riding 7m behind someone for 5, 10, 15+ minutes until the natural ebb and flow of a race breaks things up.

It's another to pre-plan to ride in a 7m paceline for 100+miles.

Again, no judgement, but that's how I view the rule.

morpheus

Good point. noted.



but, how is that different than staying 4 bike lengths off of any bike? (as discussed in the Legal Drafting Thread)





Won't matter, tho. This is probably too much hassle to try to control. Too many differences in the swim exits and different Goal Watts to make it come together. Ummm...right?

morpheus

Rich's post stresses ''Intent''.

Is the intent evil if my bike stays 4 lengths back from from the lead bike?

John Withrow

Chris--

I'm game... AND, I'll be wearing my Team ReserveAid (charity) kit during the race, just sayin'... I got SOOOOO much free speed in IMNYC "Legally" drafting, but that was totally different, because I was the last one in the water so I spent the first 85 miles of the bike passing people and I made sure to aim for the wheel in front of me until I was right on it before I passed in the "legal" amount of time after entering the draft zone, usually much quicker.

Florida is a much different animal though. And yes you will get an advantage sitting 7m behind the guy in front of you. I think you get a bigger advantage as you pass that person through the draft zone, and even you also get an advantage as they pass you.

Just out of curiosity, what are your "goal" swim/bike/run splits?

John Withrow

Chris-- go here: http://www.tri-talk.com/podcasts.asp and Listen to Episode 65. I think he starts talking about the "legal draft" about half way through. This was one of the drivers for me starting last in the TT start at IMNYC (about ~40 mins after the first people). And with the wicked fast currents, all of the swim times were compressed so most of those people were still ahead of me at the start of the bike.

morpheus

swim: 1:15-1:20
bike: goal watts will be around 180-185, don't know what that correlates to in speed.
run: race pace 9:30's before the walk breaks.

tim cronk

IMFL is so notorious for drafting the officials are everywhere all the time. I would worry about getting a draft penalty while riding legal. There was some recent questionable calls on drafting at the 70.3 World Championship.

Coach Patrick

** OFFICIAL REPLY **
With my this-is-my-business-and-livelihood hat on, and my best "if this gets out to the world I lose massive credibility as a professional coach and leader" I have to respectfully ask you to organize any "legal draft train" in a place that is not associated with EN. As in Facebook, your inbox, or your phones.

I get it's legal. But please "get" that 99% of other triathletes won't get it, and therein lies the rub.

So talk legal drafting. Talk strategy. Organize a conga line for the run.

BUT please don't use this space to do something that is as much a moral as it is a technical issue for the vast majority of triathletes.

THANK YOU

** END OFFICIAL RESPONSE **

Coach Patrick

Now with my athlete hat on, having raced IMFL twice and spectated another 5? 6? I can say the whole course is a virtual peloton. Why bother waiting for Slow Swimming Sammy when you are being pulled along by the other 2900 racers? Yes, it's messy to navigate it, but you can do so safely and effectively. Yes, at mile 80 most folks will have blown up, but if you have raced smart you are looking at a 32 mile TT back to T2, which beats the pants off of, say, almost every other IM on the planet.

Besides, the idea of triathletes organizing to draft makes me laugh. Why? Because 2900 showed up to race, they are all going the same way, at roughly the same speed, with the same goals (good time) and yet race after race, year after year, hundreds if not thousands of triathletes get penalties because they can't ride their bikes legally.

IOW, even IF your super squad (organized elsewhere!) were to connect and start working, I can only imagine another 500 folks spending all day squeezing themselves in the "wide open spaces" that exist between your bikes.

Your results might vary, but you'd have some good stories to tell.

Addendum, I know some pro male/female couples who always have the same swim time...a much higher return on investment in terms of saved energy I think given the cost of swimming for most AGs....

John Withrow

And in comes Coach P to ruin all of our theoretical fun 6 weeks before the race with two very different but both very on point responses...

For my money, I think the logistics make it impossible to premeditate unless you regularly train with someone or happen to have very similar paces like the Thompson 'twins'... But I still love discussing every single aspect of any race I'm looking to do. Gives me things to think about while swimming during the week...

morpheus

P- last thing I wanna do is put EN in a bad light. I've just never looked at 'racing' 140.6. My previous efforts were 'finish'. And, I was only thinking along the lines of getting the faster time, while staying within the rules. But, as you understand my point, I understand your point. Topic officially killed.

I'm not a bad guy, just a guy who does bad things.....

Sincerely,
Slow Swimming Sammy

mgraffeo

Withrow, to this day that tritalk podcast sticks out as one of the best pieces of racing advice I ever received. I use that to the fullest every race I can, and love races where there's a lot of people in front of me. I would think it would be a slingshot-fest at FL!

Coach Patrick

Thanks guys...lots of free speed to be had out there on ANY IM day...esp IMFL.

ADDENDUM

Re the free speed above, I think it's one of the reasons why even though my swim is slower than ever, that my bike is still fast and I am running well. IOW, I bet someone smarter than me could figure out the "cost" that Coach Rich incurs with a 55' swim and a 5:09 bike off the front VS my 1:09 swim and 4:57 bike....on some random level I feel like I am more likely to have worked less (assuming I ride smarter) than the fast swimmer / solo biker combo....

[Deleted User]

Thinking about this from an IM Loo perspective you maybe could pull this off for the swim. All arrange to meet up for the team photo nice and early in the line. Take the photo and then you are all in position to get in the water pretty damn close to each other. Now once you are in the water how you work out who drafts from who I will leave to the smarter folks. However the nature of IM Lou time trial start would seem to make this somewhat easier than the organized chaos of a mass swim start. Just a thought ;-)

Coach Rich

Marine response:

ENDURANCE NATION OFFCIALLY DOES NOT SUPPORT ITS ATHLETES, OR OTHER ATHLETES, PLANNING TO ACTIVELY COLLUDE WITH EACH OTHER ON RACE DAY TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE ON OTHER ATHLETES WHILE STILL REMAINING WITHIN THE RULES

Talk about doing it, don't talk about doing it, just don't do it in my house. And if you are actually going to do it, don't race in my kit.

Period, full stop, end of discussion. 

Sure, discussions like this are fun to have and there are lots of places out there where you can have them. This forum is NOT that place.

The fact is that this topic is one "harmless, I didn't mean to" post made on another forum away from dropping a big steaming pile of shit into our business and therefore our ability to feed our families. We take that very seriously. 

 

 

John Withrow

@P-- I don't know exactly how to quantify that, but I 100% think you are correct. The slower swimmer gets that advantage. The tritalk podcast says it's a couple of seconds per person that you pass or are passed by at speed. And riding EN style on a hilly course allows you to double count several of the knuckleheads that re-pass you going uphill because you get to pass them again later. So at your 1:09 swim you prolly have ~25% of the people or so ahead of you (roughly speaking that's ~600 people). So lets just pretend you pass 500 people on your bike leg. 2s x 500 = ~16+ mins. That sounds like way too much. So even if it's half that amount, we're still talking about 8 mins or so of "free" speed. Keep in mind, in your example above, Rich would still get free speed by riding smart because he would get 1-2s for each person that passes him, but I think the point is that not all that many people will actually be passing him so he will have an "unassisted" 5:09 to your "assisted" 4:57. And if you had to ride that same course as a "solo" TT, you'd prolly be closer to a 5:03-5:10 split...



I've been trying to figure out how much different my IMFL bike will be vs IMNYC and this is one of the things I thought would actually make FL slower/harder. I'm like a 1:10-1:15 swimmer. In IMNYC, starting last in the TT start with massively compressed swim times do to the river current (48:30 for me) I was basically behind 90% of the whole field when I left T1. At IMFL "If" I can do a 1:10-1:15 swim, then I'll only be behind like 30-35% or so of the field when I start the bike. Then I need to forget about the 15% of the field that are just wicked fast and I'll never see... So Best case, I'll only have 20% or so of the field to pass. That is a big difference!

*EDIT*  I was typing this after the Coach P Post, and submitted it before I realized there were 3 others after it and certainly before the Coach R Post.   I was already onto the "off the original topic" direction of this thread...   Might be worthy of a totally different thread for any other free speed theoretical discussions.  -R I agree, but I still plan to pass people and get free speed while legally doing it.

GMAN 19030

Posted By Bob McCallum on 20 Sep 2012 06:31 AM

There were three brothers from Denmark (I think) who were in the same AG that did that at IMNYC. They came in 1,2,4 in the AG (and were 1,2,3 off the bike) and ruffled more than a few feathers in the process. It doesn't appear they drafted or cheated but they pissed off a bunch of people because nobody could sandwich in between them without incurring a drafting or blocking penalty.

 

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4106426

Here's the thread on ST. The brothers were Belgian and not Danish as I had thought. Lots of discussion involving the rules and spirit of the rules. Jimmy Riccitello (Ironman head ref) chimed in a few times as well.

I think there were a lot of posts deleted from the thread because it spiraled into a typical ST shitstorm but Slowman kept the more civil stuff in there.