Jordan Rapp
According to the November/December issue of Inside Triathlon magazine Jordan Rapp averaged 293 watts at IM Texas.
Holy crap!
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According to the November/December issue of Inside Triathlon magazine Jordan Rapp averaged 293 watts at IM Texas.
Holy crap!
Comments
I think Rapp has a legit shot at winning tomorrow. He can outbike everyone in the field with the possible exception of Kienle. He has shown that he can run in the heat and humidity with a 2:46 run at TX. No, he won't outrun Alexander so he will have to work with Kienle to put some time on the rest of the field on the bike.
Rapp's weakness is the swim. He's a second pack pro swimmer at best. There's Andy Potts, the first pack pros and the second pack pros. Jordan will be in that second pack and so will Kienle. They should be able to make up that deficit pretty quickly once on the bike.
He's also a Kona virgin so that not working in his favor at all.
Btw, when/why did he decide to race Kona this year? I thought he was putting off his shot at Kona until next year because of Leadman? Sorry, I've been really out of the loop over at ST. I'd ask over there, but I feel like I'd get my ass kicked for my ignorance
Somehow Rapp seems to get the other pros to race his race. Probably not going to work tomorrow as guys like Alexander and McCormack aren't going to play Rapp's game but if he can somehow put a few minutes on the field coming out of T2 he will have a fighting chance because very, very few of the guys can hang with him on the run.
I absolutely respect Rapp's physical ability and think he is a freak that works really hard, is smart, and 'could' threaten to win this thing. His Power charts are so stable and strong, most could only dream of that output. And he's a pretty sick runner to boot. BUT, I personally still don't like him and hope he fails miserably.
"I personally still don't like him and hope he fails miserably"
LOL
well, you're not pulling any punches. he does seem to put people in one of two camps.
Now, the Patriots, we'll have to agree to disagree :-)
Mike, I remember your exchange with him a ~year ago over at ST in the "no bricks" threads. I'll admit I had a chuckle seeing him get called out like that. Not out of schadenfreude, but boy the two of you certainly have a way with words.
No self-respecting Cornell rower would let a Princeton rower off easy :-)
Jordan had the following to say about his race...
I'd also say that was definitely a subpar swim for me. And the run was a bit aggressive given the conditions, but I also knew I needed to take a risk to make the top 10. With a fair swim - swimming with guys I've swam with in other races, I also think I'd have biked faster, and been in a better spot to start the run, and I could have paced to run slower because I'd have been in a better position.
Right now, I think my best race (pretty much everything goes right) in Kona gets me 5th. Maybe 3rd or 4th with the right conditions. Maybe.
Can I win Kona? Right now, not without a lot of luck. And some bad luck for a few folks.
Ever? Who knows. Need a lot of work on my swim and need to jump another level (or two) on the run. That's why I do this. If I knew I could or knew I couldn't, it wouldn't be much fun.
I think I could certainly have finished better than thirteeth. But for a bunch of reasons, today I didn't. So I'll have to wait a year to see if I'm right about that.
I got gapped early and swam the whole thing solo. That was really bad with the strong current coming back in. I lost maybe 30s-1min on the way out to the very front. The rest was all coming in. But I *SHOULD* have swam with that 55+ group. But I just got gapped at the start and that was all she wrote. 200m in and I was pretty much screwed. The start is key here. Really key. And the start is my weakness. Clearly not an acceptable one if I want to do well here in the future.
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/VYVPHWFEX766DIR324567CRHAU
This is something that I admire about Rapp. He open and honest about his processes and results and shares like no other pro when it comes to his metrics. I believe (perhaps naively) that there is an genuine intent to help other Triathletes along by his sharing. If so thats admirable, regardless of what other aspects of his personality might rub people the wrong way.
He made the best of a rough swim at Kona and ran himself into a respectable showing (right behind Crowie is a great day!) Congrats to him!
Interesting. Training Peaks just published the file for multiple pros:
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/races/ironman-world-championship-kona/2012.aspx
It looks like many of them hold IF to the high 70s and their TSS in the 280-295 range. I always wondered whether they push harder IF and rack more TSS than AG's but really thats not far above what we're supposed to ride, they just have wickedly high FTP.
One thing i saw about Jordan, he's very good at riding with power. For the flat course of TX, his avg was something like 295, with normalized power of 293, and a max of 320 or so. (WAGs here) he has said before that he isn't punchy but he sure is steady.
So with that I took a peek at some of the Kona numbers (VI) that were published for some of the Male Athletes:
Rapp: 1.02
Ronnie Schildknecht: 1.02
Farris: 1:03
Jacobs: 1.04
Bockel: 1.05
Luke McKenzie: 1.06
And Females:
Kelly Williamson: 1.05
Rachel Joyce: 1.05
Amanda Stevens: 1.06
It will be interesting to see how our in Haus teammates numbers went.
Here is Rapp's blog about Kona:
http://blog.rappstar.com/2012/10/falling-dominoes.html
I agree with you Mike (and John too), although I suppose I don't really wish any particular misfortune upon him in racing, I certainly don't wish him any particular success either.
And really, that's kind of strange if I think about it. On the surface I should be a huge Rapp fan. He is an Engineer, as am I, he takes a very scientific and technical approach to his training and racing, he favors science and technology over "passion" and "feel". Really, a lot of what he preaches is not at all dissimilar from the core EN methodologies. And of course, his story of being left for dead and his eventual recovery and comeback should be incredibly inspiring.
What prevents me from being a fan however are two things, one that is really probably not his fault, and the other that is. The first is of course his god-like status within Slowtwitch, where he can literally do no wrong. He could take a BM and be greeted with an official "Jordan Rapp Congratulations thread". It was fun at first, the whole ST resident up-and-coming pro, but really it seems over the top now. I couple that with my own perception that he was probably already a little full of himself coming from a background as a Princeton rower (that’s not exactly humble blue collar pedigree), combined with his universal reverence on ST-- I just have to assume that he is a little full of himself.
Now, let's be honest here, my second beef with him is because I obviously resent his comments about EN, and more specifically his personal attack on RnP. Jordan as a person should be able to freely state his subjective opinion, misinformed or not, about whatever he feels like. However, with great power comes great responsibility, Rappstar, as the demigod of ST has to understand that his subjective opinion is accepted as divine truth by the mere virtue that the words passed his lips, even when his word is from the perspective of a potentially-elitist professional athlete and is being attempted to be interpreted and applied directly by your average every day age-grouper.
On a side note I was extremely impressed with the manner in which Coach Rich and Coach Patrick handled that whole scenario! True leaders and proud to be an EN member.
As far as Rapp's power file I thought it looked the best out of all the KONA files released. But if your racing KONA with the pro's you gotta do whatever it takes to be in the front. I don't think sitting back and riding your own race is gonna work there!
So that issue between Rapp and RnP happend before my time here I think. Actually before I even knew who Rapp was (or EN for that matter) Curious for a summary or link.
And I will 2nd what Time had to say as well. We have 2 of the most outstanding coaches and overall stand-up guys leading us in da Haus.
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=3604793;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=3605894;page=1;mh=-1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC
Jordan fields a lot of questions about his opinion. and while he's pretty harsh, he does say they are just his opinions. Rich closes out the final post on the thread. he comported himself pretty well.
its kinda funny . . . ST is packed with EN people, and packed with people who laud EN and ride the EN way (ML), and packed with people who don't know EN but thru Coggan's book ride the EN way anyway.
but like all things ST, the forum is also packed with people who make themselves happy by being rude or obnoxious or mean or whatever. such is life.