Grant.Reuter wrote:
LJS wrote:
x2 Dev. Amazes me how so many get defensive when challaneged on the difference between drafting vs non drafting. Its not an insult as to the quality of the itu pro's bike capabilities. Its simply not as hard on average vs the same race non drafting.
Thats not really true and its not being defensive. The race is just as hard as non-drafting you just have a different focus, the swim is significantly harder because the bikers can't lay back in it and you may be more rested for the run but you end up running it harder its just a wash.
Not to shoot hole's in Dev's argument but hy-vee is a horrible example. San Diego was pancake flat and hy-vee has a bitch hill they have to run up I believe 4 times. with winds that were 15-25mph. Its exactly why comparing two races together is silly. There's too many factors, the swim was also absolutely brutal due to it being a river swim with an ugly current that day. Also using hunter's time isn't very useful since he raced the week before in Chicago, vs being basically full on taper for San Diego. I don't think his conclusion is wrong that they run slower because they bike harder but you're just using one at the expense of the other. It's not harder for non-drafting, its just different.
Yeah, no arguement about the focus of one format vs. the other. In ITU, the bike is under emphasized, and in non drafting there is more focus on potentially making up more time and developing more of a gap on the bike, because the breakaway guy knows his peers will have to work pretty hard to limit losses and the gap developed on the bike is potentially defendable on the run. In draft legal racing, it is fairly rare that one can defend a breakaway lead off the bike, because guys are relatively soft pedaling at average powers of 4W per kilo and can save LOTS of juice for the run....as Jimmy points out in his post.
You're right comparing HyVee is not optimal, but even if you give Hunter a full taper and even if you flatten that hill, he's not closing the 3 minute gap between his HyVee 10K time and San Diego time. 3 minutes is 180 seconds....that's 18 seconds per kilometer, in other words exactly 10% slower than the San Diego run....a taper is not going to give you 10% and a hill that you go up and down 4 times is not going to add up to 3 minutes (you still get some of that back on the downhill)....the real culprit is a harder overall bike at HyVee for Hunter.
Another example is Mirinda Carfrae who was second at HyVee and outran Bennet and Haskins by A LOT. She is not regarded as a strong Ironman biker, but she's not an ITU caliber swimmer either. But when everyone has to push their own wind on the bike, she can outrun some of the best ITU runners that the US has to offer. Which plays into the points that Jimmy makes. Almost Everyone runs slower at non drafting races because the bike is harder. Everyone runs faster at draft legal because the bike is easier.
To the guy who asked about selection bias, I'm not talking about athletes doing one type of racing over the other. I'm talking about when the same athlete does draft legal vs non drafting, and the deltas in their run split.
Seriously, looking at Matt's Average power, is 4.24W per kilo ....his effort on the bike is drastically lower than a 31ish 10K. I think 4.24W per kilo equates to around a 35 min 10K pace (Rchung can chime in with the watts per kilo to meters per second conversion). In non drafting racing the watts per kilo on the bike would probably be closer to the meters per second on the run.