Oh yeah, congrats!

Congratulations on a fantastic race.

I knew it, he did not use Powercransk in his training! Where is Frank?

How can anyone race that fast without any 6hr bike/2hr run bricks on a regular basis? I'm soooo confused...

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Congrats indeed. Very nice.

Well, without the data, we really don't know do we. He also claimed to ride the hills,,......


So, if he was going easy on the ups, coasting on the the downs, and steady on the flats, it seems he wasn't "pushing it" at all on the bike. It seems as if he was just out on a Sunday ride enjoying the scenery. If that is the case, the impressive win is even that more.... well,... impressive. It's not really indicative of any particular pacing strategy other than taking it easy on the bike, which, again depending on your definition of "taking it easy", is a great approach if you have a nice cushy lead and can finish off the run. Again, without data, this is all merely speculation and I may be waayyy off.


Well, that's exactly why I refrained from mentioning the "elephant in the room", but since Tressitori seems to have mentioned it the thread is going to get buggered up regardless.

BTW, congrats to him on the win.

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Steve

http://www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com

Awesome stuff Dr Tommy!

Sounds like your plan was dialed in for training and executed to perfection.
Enjoy your time off
Andrew

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C'mon legs run faster!
Being fast on a crappy bike is cool
Fueled by Guinness, Tuborg, Anchor Steam and Creemore Springs

THat's because I think they've misunderstood the modelling.... while the optimum powerprofile on a hilly course will have a low VI, and have you pushing down the hills at between 50 and 60% of FTP, the optium powerprofile for higher VI's where you take it much easier down the hills, and reapply that power on the uphills is only fractionally slower.

And I would submit that you're wrong. ;-)

As a steady power (i.e., VI=1.00, AP=NP), 75% of functional threshold power is on the border between a level 1 recovery effort and a level 2 "all day pace" effort.

One other thing to note: we don't know if Dr. Tommy performed well because of, or in spite of, his pacing strategy on the bike. IOW, although he rode and then ran well, that doesn't mean the strategy he adopted was optimal.

Nice work Dr Evans!! Congrats to you and Joel.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

Dude, huge congrats...it's been a while since the IMC-IMFLA double.

So what's next on the agenda? Will you try to set a PB on the home town IMC course, or back to Kona to put down a 2:50 run in the lava fields?....

I love the 4 hour max bike, 2 hour max run and doing "hard stuff" approach. Now I'm feeling better about my "ironman on half ironman training plan this year..."

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...0on%20half%20ironman;

Although I did do an extra 6 hour ride this past weekend.

By the way, what was your max run mileage week in the final 8 weeks and what was your max run mileage week in your winter run focus? Did the winter XC ski racing help the "intensity plan"

Dev

Wow, another thing we can agree on. I think that makes two now (but the other was so long ago I can't remember what it was).

It is clear he had a very good race plan and it fit well with his "physiology" for the day. One can never know if it was optimal or not as there might always have been a better plan, but one cannot know unless one tries it and does better. One would have to think it was close to an optimal plan for him due to his dominance on the bike and run over everyone except two people, the, odds down, best biker of the bunch and one of the better runners of the bunch.

Further, the best plan for this course may be completely different for another course, where the profile and turns are completely different.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Makes me wonder why I'm doing 6 hr rides and 3 hr runs for a solid MOP finish.

I think you should seriously be looking at the incremental training value of that 3 hour run, vs the recovery penalty and impact on the entire week that follows....

How can anyone race that fast without any 6hr bike/2hr run bricks on a regular basis? I'm soooo confused...

More importantly, how many squats was he doing every day? I'll bet THAT's the secret. :)

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Steve Perkins

The secret is not doing squats every day. Just squats every second day...the non squats day is a PC day...and every swim day is doing band pull, no pull buoy. Did we miss anything?

Dr. Tom, what was your fastest Apex TT time leading up to CdA and how does it compared to your last few 2nd place finishes at IMLP and IMCdA? For those who don't know about the Apex TT, this is an uphill climb that is just as hard as doing Alpe d'Huez...the difference between the 2 mountains is barely a 1 minute. Dr. Tommy would do this climb in his aerobars training for Kona....the theory being if you can stay aero on a sustained 45-50 min climb (for Dr. Tom....55+ for mere mortals), you can stay aero in the worst wind gusts that Kona has to offer.

Dev

The secret is not doing squats every day. Just squats every second day...the non squats day is a PC day...and every swim day is doing band pull, no pull buoy. Did we miss anything?

It's hard to keep up with all the latest on the benefits of squats to the IM athlete. But I can certainly see how interspersing squats with PCs would maximize the benefit. :)

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Steve Perkins

No no....the key here is overlaying the band pull on top of the alternative PC and squat days. Without that you can't link the positive benefits of squats with those of PC's. Consider it like two sine waves that are out of phase...you want to bring them into phase so that the amplitudes are additive and not destructive. Band pull is the Dr. Tommy secret way of making this happen...EDIT: forgot to mention that you want to also do all your training with your seat too high and drop it an inch on race day and switch over 190mm cranks...

Fair enough. "Pushing it" isn't exactly an accurate phrase, and depends wholly on the context. However the "all day pace" effort I assume is different than letting the watts drop next to nothing. I guess if Dr. Tommy will share his power file, we will see if the original statement from the other thread that riding in an IM one would want to descend by putting out 75% of one's FTP was accurate in this case (of course with a giant asterisk that did he win "in spite of, or because of" this strategy).

Congrats on a fantastic race and for justifying smart training rather than plain old bulk training. Great job.

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-Andrew Saar
It is better to do the right thing and be paid poorly,
than to do the wrong thing and be rewarded richly.

Congrats, awesome race - Saw you about mile 20 when I was headed out on the run and couldn't believe the gap you had on VZ. That must have been really fun after last year. Great speech at the awards dinner too.

dr tommy already shared his powerfile on the first post of this thread....go back and see.

and the graph and data are express in a very similar way as with my own brainpowermeter also!

sorry.... but you wont get any more data than that.... he dosnt ride a srm or powertap or ergomo..... just a brainpowermeter!

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

The problem with such an empirical approach, at least for events such as an Ironman, is the "cost": because each race represents a significant physical effort requiring prolonged recovery, and is also usually quite important in its own right, there is little opportunity or incentive to experiment with different pacing strategies. In contrast, somebody doing, say, a 3 km pursuit in cycling can try different pacing strategies several times a week in training, and thus quickly hone in on the one that produces the best performance (i.e., lowest time).

The upshot of the above is that the modeling approach becomes more and more useful the longer the event becomes. That's especially true because you have the "luxury" of being able to adjust your pace "on the fly", vs. something like a 3 km pursuit where if you overcook the 1st couple of laps your chances of a PB are dramatically diminished even if you do attempt to compensate.

Something tells me that modeling of pacing strategies is going to come 'round again as a discussion topic quite soon. ;-)

I'm ready and waiting.

Heh. Right after posting that I surfed over to the wattage list on google (which I haven't visited in a while) to see that Alex had posted his 'pacing optimization index' article...good stuff!!

I'll hve to take a look.. i've been reluctant to join so far for fear of creating another sink on my time...