Ironman Oz 2008 - Bike Plan

Ride.
Heart Rate: 128-139bpm Flats. 140ish and a bit on Hills.
No Catch Up.
Bring it all inline.

Again keeping things simple is the order of the day. The swim is behind me, good or bad I can't change it now. All I can do is what is required for the ride.

For the most part, the ride should be fairly comfortable, particularly the first 2 of 3 laps. Based on my training or past races I have found that a heart rate around 130 or so is about right. To keep things on track, and prevent myself from going too hard, too early, I will keep checking that I am working in this area. However, my race will not be dictated by fairly arbitrary numbers.


"Athletes will use any excuse other than “I went too hard early” to justify pace slow down mid and late in the race."

- Gordo Bryn


The heart rate ranges are guides only. If working at this rate feels too hard, then I will have to slow down. If I can sustain a descent pace at a lower rate then that is what I will do. If my heart rate sits high later in the race, but my legs, breathing and other indicators of exertion are low, then I may best be served by ignoring the heart rate. This requires having confidence in reading my body. I feel that confident this year.


"Nutritional issues are nearly always pacing issues in disguise!"

- Gordo Bryn

The majority of participants do not put out a 100% perfect bike leg. It is a very long distance and chances are there will be patches when you feel bad, lapses in concentration or something else interrupts your race such as a flat tire. My approach is that while I aim to avoid these altogether, I also accept that they are likely to happen. Therefore when they do, I need to recognise the problem. Flat tires are usually easy, but lapses in concentration can be harder to pick. I will use my 10/15 minute nutrition plan as a reference point to check that things are going as they should.

"Don't Panic."

- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy


If things go off track at any stage the trick is not to panic. Once the problem is recognised then all I need to is quiet any negative talk and steadily bring everything back in line. At no point on the bike will I ever attempt to make up any lost time. Attempting such an effort is likely to cost very dearly on the run.

All this detail can backfire. The Ironman bike leg should be a simple exercise in efficient cycling. Hours and hours have been spent over the last few months showing the body what it is meant to do. I just have to keep my head in the right space and make sure I keep up the fuel to keep those legs spinning as they should. One word can sum up what I have keep doing...



... RIDE!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gorge

For work I am currently stationed away from my normal branch. This is a recent roster change that I am not too happy about due to a number of reasons that I won't go into here. The good thing is that it gives me different roads to ride on when commuting. Nothing like a bit of variety to break things up. One particular bit of terrain that I now get to cover is known as the Gorge. It is exactly as the name suggests. The road that takes you into the Gorge is simple. One side is a very wide bend, that could almost be thought of as a straight road. The other side involves a couple of reasonable bends, which wouldn't normally be an issue, but can be when hitting speeds of 60km/hr on the descent. I want to make it clear that the Gorge is far from the toughest of climbs, while quite steep on both sides it is relatively short. So what is it about the Gorge. For me it has provided a good bench mark for my cycling fitness. Back when I first started on the bike it took all my ef...
Read more

Sandy Point Half Marathon

Image
Any race that uses a picture of myself as promotion makes me think I should compete in it. Wouldn't want to disappoint the masses. Last year my race slow and cold over the same course. A time of 1:30:20, was disappointing and a kick up the backside to get to what really works in training. Since then I have put in a lot of consistent kilometres and have seen some improvement. I was definitely going to race faster this year. Based on my race results over the last few months the hope was to see if I could get down to near 1:24:xx. The weather was very different this year. Far from cold, in fact I think it was our warmest night in a few months. However, there was a Damaging Winds warning issued, with predictions of 65km/hr gales to slow things downs a bit. The winds hit, according to the weather sites: NNE averaging around 50km/hr with gusts of 76km/hr. That made for some interesting race tactics. Luckily the rain held off until after the race. For some reason I felt ready with only 1...
Read more

Fitting Together

It's interesting how easy it suddenly becomes to prioritise aspects of life. I have missed plenty of training in the last week, but for the first time in my life, it really, and I mean really doesn't matter. That's not to say I am throwing training on the back burner. Far from it. Of course I am finding it hard working out how life now all fits together, but I am thoroughly enjoying the process. Training is now just part of the puzzle. What was a very easy load a couple of weeks ago, is now just manageable. This is what I anticipated. As things settle down and I work out of few things the training load should again become much easier. At the moment it looks like I will be able to get in all the key sessions, so in reality it is going fine.
Read more