Yesterday marked an important day in my Ironman Wisconsin 2010 training. It was my last long hard ride before Ironman. I have one half-ironman remaining, which is basically a long brick workout, and a few more longish rides, but nothing as intense. Effectively my training is officially over, and I’m just moving into a maintenance phase. I don’t believe in the three week taper that traditional triathlon plans stole from marathon training, which is why I am calling this a maintenance phase and not a taper.
I took a look at my power file, and I’m estimating somewhere between a 5:45 and 5:56 bike split. This assumes decent weather (light wind and hot, or windy and cool, but not both) no mechanicals and a full aero kit (aero helmet, Jet 6 front, and wheel cover on the back).
By the numbers
My current FTP based on my best 60 minute power output is 236/248 (average vs. normalized). 70% of this gives me my Ironman goal wattage values of 165/173. I sure wish those were higher, but the training doesn’t lie. I might sneak in one more power test before the race to see if I can give myself a little cushion, especially if I’m feeling good on race day, but I don’t plan on doing more then 170 average watts.
The ride consisted of 2 loops (Verona-> Mt. Horeb –> Cross Plains –> Verona), breaking the loop into 3 sections. The first time around I did hard, easy hard, and the second was easy, hard, easy. The hard sections were to get in a good sub-threshold workout, with the easy sections designed to get me used to riding the course at race pace.
| Section | Time | Distance | Average Power | Normalized Power | Average Speed | TSS |
| 1 (Hard Effort) | 49:33 | 16.35 | 226 | 249 | 20.2 | 89 |
| 1 (Easy Effort) | 53:13 | 16.18 | 170 | 185 | 18.2 | 54.5 |
| 2 (Hard Effort) | 41:36 | 15.05 | 182 | 215 | 21.43 | 58.1 |
| 2 (Easy Effort) | 45:01 | 14.93 | 142 | 174 | 19.8 | 40.5 |
| 3 (Hard Effort) | 33:05 | 11.9 | 208 | 242 | 21.35 | 58 |
| 3 (Easy Effort) | 39:01 | 11.84 | 148 | 174 | 18.08 | 35.2 |
While on the ride, I noticed a couple of things based on how I broke the course up. First, the section from Verona to Mt. Horeb is the most difficult. I think this is because: 1) Continuous rolling hills 2) Hwy 92 is a crappy road 3) No matter what the wind direction, it feels like there is a head wind on the 2nd half of Hwy 92.
The second thing I noticed was that the section between Verona and the bottom of Old Sauk Pass gave me the highest average speed. I was able to maintain almost 20 mph in easy mode. While the first part of this section has a couple of big hills, the second half you can take in cruise mode.
Reviewing the numbers shows that 2 of my easy efforts were well below my average power race goal, while one was slightly higher. The normalized values were right around race goal, indicating a high VI (average power / normalized power). The rule of thumb is that you want a VI of 1.05, but that’s a tough goal on a course like IMWI. I’d like to think that I can chance a slightly higher VI since I’ve been training on this course, and similar terrain for the last 6 months. The first time I went out on the loop this season I felt like I had regressed from the end of last season, even though I had 2.5 solid months of indoor riding. You just can’t simulate the course indoors on a trainer (well at least not my trainer, I don’t know how a something like a computrainer would compare). The comments I hear from first time riders of the course usually have the common theme of, “I wasn’t prepared for the hills”.
I took the times for my easy efforts and double them, then took my average speed over the easy efforts and accounted for the out and back from Madison. I came up with 18.69 mph average, and a estimated time of 5:56. The weather yesterday was warm and humid to start, and went to hot and humid by the end. The wind was nothing like it was at the start of the season, so it felt like there was no wind. I decided to set the lower end of my race day time at 5:45 based on the good weather we’ve seen the last two years, and the fact that I’ll have my full aero kit in effect. I don’t consider this to be cocky, but the best estimate I can come up with based on my training. The time estimates will also help me explain to my friends and family where they need to be on the bike course if they want to cheer me on. I plan on writing up a post in the next couple of weeks with instructions for navigating the IM course for spectators, so keep an eye out for that.
So what about the swim, run, and transitions? I just don’t have the same type of data that I get training with power on the bike to make any kind of firm estimate. I have some goals in mind, but since this is my first Ironman, I have to be pretty flexible with my expectations. Since I’m not fast enough to win the overall age group award, win my age group, or qualify for Kona, that leaves having fun, just finishing, and breaking X number of hours. If the best I can say is, well I finished, I would consider my training to be a failure this year. So I will say my bare minimum goal is to break 12 hours regardless of weather and mechanicals, with a stretch goal of breaking 11.