I'll play.

I would say that your max effort for this race equals a time roughly equivalent to your full-IM bike split time, if properly trained to work that hard for that amount of time. Most IM triathletes don't put down that much bike TSS for a 5 to 6 hour ride; they usually ride at or just above race pace. Because. Triathlon. And maybe a brick run is on the schedule for the day.

So if you are willing to invest the time in upping your 5- or 6-hour bike output/TSS/NP, then you can get what I suggest above = a 68 mile MTB of roughly 9K of climbing roughly in the same time range as a properly-paced IM split of 5-6k feet of elevation gain (i.e. Placid, Tremblant, Wisco).

Also, this race has sections of pretty high output wattage requirements. If you aren't used to putting out some sustained higher-wattage outputs, and by that I mean some continuous (nearly an hour) 225-250W, occasional 400-450W, one section of 20 minutes approaching 275 or more continuous watts (on Styles Brook Rd), then I suggest you work on increasing FTP as part of your plan. It's a legit race.

Does that help?

Best of luck. My favorite race, so far.

Bump because I'm interested in hearing responses and want to read about something other than course cutters :p

I did Wilmington Whiteface this year. My finishing time was 6:24. Not the best possible time for me as my new mountain bike crapped out (broken shock linkage), so I was riding a back up bike. I had a flat tire, rubbing brakes, and trouble shifting into the granny gear up front (which I needed!).

My most recent IM bike split was 5:23 at IM Texas a couple of years back. I had a 2:25 bike split at the VTS Kinetic Half last year.

I did Leadville this year with a 10:29 time. I would really have liked a better time at Whiteface this year as the corral I was in at Leadville left me stuck in some major traffic which took about 3/4 of the race to get clear of. It made sure I paced conservatively, but after I while I really felt like I was leaving a lot of time out on the course.

This sounds pretty close to what I was saying. Your 5:23 on a flat course translates to 5:45 ish for a climbing course. Ish. And your 6:24 being not the best gets closer to 6:00 without the issues you had. Fair?

Nice job on both races.

Thanks! I would agree with your assessment, and thought I had some useful real world data to add. My flat was a bit of a touch one to fix so I do think I would have gotten close to 6 hours plus or minus if I had no bike issues in the race. This was especially true in a long MTB race like this one with lots of road/gravel road sections. There is a bit of a road bike race dynamic where if you get dropped by the peloton and the chase groups you lose a lot of time due to the lack of a draft.

From what I've been gathering, Whiteface 100 is more like a road race than a MTN bike race in the sense that you have big groups, drafting and it's not very technical rather long steep climbs. Is that right?

It's largely a road and gravel race on a MTB, but there's enough singletrack thrown in that it strongly discourages use of a CX bike. The singletrack is in 3 different sections including the finishing 30 minutes on Whiteface Mtn. It's hard and steep but little is classically technical in nature. Probably a lot less drafting than you would think, since there's not a lot on flat, draft-likely areas (the 2 x 1.5miles on 9N being the main exception), and by the time you're on Springfield and Fox Farm roads at the end, you're largely on your own. In the beginning, of course. First 5 miles is 400-500 people in a single, large group. But that's not like a peloton of draft opportunities.

When you're going up, there's no real benefit. When you're going down, it's fast and steep, and I would just as soon have a little breathing room on some of those jeep trails :)

Awesome, thanks - Did you happen to stay for the awards ceremony? Do you know if slots for leadville tend to roll down far?

Of course it varies by AG, but in 40-49 it rolled down around 50 deep. They also had a mini lottery for race participants who wanted to go. It looked like amost everyone who wanted to go to Leadville got a slot.

They biggest incentive for race time is it determines what corral you start in (open lottery starts in the very back.) You do not want to be behind nearly 2000 people when the race hits the first narrow gravel road. (At least not if you care about your time.).

Hmmm. That is interesting. Thanks for the data point. I'm interested in Austin Rattler and potentially Leadville if I happen to get in there. You make it sound like a sure thing. I'm 32 and it's a different race, so I won't hold you to it ;)

Each time I've done Whiteface, the roll down is unpredictable because so many people are like "Leadville? No effing way. That's crazy talk!" That was me my first finish there, when offered the chance. Passed on it like many others. But they allocate about 50 "on-site lottery slots" and while I wouldn't say that everyone who wanted to go got to go, 50 is a fair chance to those who are interested and stick around until afterwards. Definitely not a sure thing, though. There were 500+ starters this year and 100 slots, so it's not like you just show up and bang you're going to Leadville.

Sorry, I did not want to imply that it was a sure thing at all. On the other hand, I got in, so it can't be that hard.! :)

I just wanted to point out that it is not like KQ these days where you need an AG podium spot in many AG's just to qualify. I like the fact that they encourage participation in their series by handing out (relatively speaking) a lot of slots.

Also big kudos the the race organizers, Whiteface was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the "calf contest". My wife was a finalist, but got robbed of victory!

They also had a 50k version of the race that she did which was a fun option for those not quite so hard core.

Cool. Thanks. My buddy did Austin, placed tenth in his division and 26th overall and was able to go to Leadville (he ended up under 8:30 overall time which is impressive to me). He's my age so I get the impression it rolls pretty deep in my division. Food for thought. At this point I just want to do Austin- Leadville is an afterthought and not the primary objective.