It may have been because you were working harder/going faster than in your training. What was your cadence? I find that if I try to push too big a gear during a race and my cadence gets bogged down, my lower back will get sore from the strain.

I am hearing of many accounts of severe back pain from multisport athletes this year and they all have a common denominator. The aggressive cervelo bike position is not for everybody.

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I was, now I will tri again!
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Any time is a good time.
God Bless you my friend.

What an obvious troll - how does "The aggressive cervelo bike position" differ in the slightest from QR, Kestrel, Lightspeed, Trek, C'dale, etc.? If your spelling was worse I would assume this was orang coming back.

efernand - good point, but for the last 8 weeks of training I did race simulation bricks. I maintained the same 95 cadence and hr as in training. One of my main goals for this race/season was to make the race as close to training as possible. This is why I am so confused - I've replicated the race as closely as possible for months. I don't understand why I got such back pain so quickly when this was essentially my standard Sat. morning workout?

Have you ridden long after an open water swim? My back hurts when I get on the bike after a wetsuit swim in open water. Less so after a swim without the wetsuit. Somehow my body position in the swim with a wetsuit sets me up for back discomfort. This isn't a solution but might determine if it is the bike that is the problem or the swim leading into the bike.

Mark

Whenever I hear lower back pain I think being too stretched out in the aero position. My piece of junk ITM stem broke just before St. Anthony's this year and I had to use a one cm longer stem. My back hurt quite a bit for the first two miles of the run, then it relaxed.

If you have a position problem, rough roads will make the problems worse since you will be tensing your muscles more. I haven't seen your position, but think about just shortening your stem for your next race. That may do the trick.

Rough roads can do it to me. Had a recent race on roads that were more agricultural than commuter and enjoyed lower back/ shoulder/ wrist pain and a lot of tooth grindage. I realised afterwards why only those who traveled to the race were on discs.

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"Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parents of it, the mind. No glass so mirrors a man's form or likeness so true as his speech." - Ben Jonson, Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter.

I have the same problem, I think Marc nailed it when he said it may be the bike followed by the swim. I have done tri's on a road bike and a tri bike and I have the same problem, the only constant factor is a swim before getting on the bike. It usually subsides about an hour after the race!

Tom,

If you're race speed is the same as your training speed you've made a tactical mistake. Either you didn't work hard enough in the race or your training pace is to fast. Race speed should be your fastest not just the same as normal weekend workout. You may be wasting your energy on meaningless training sessions. :-)

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**********************
I was, now I will tri again!
...
Any time is a good time.
God Bless you my friend.

The last 2 months of race simulations (build period 1 & 2) on Sat. were 40 mile bike / 6 mile run all at race pace. I used the same bike and bike setup, same nutrition, same clothes, course as close to race course as possible. On race day, adding a swim, 16 more bike miles and 7.1 more run miles is quite a bit more than the shorter race sim. bricks I was doing. Sorry that my earlier post was not more clear on the shorter distance of my training.

My primary goal in this race was to complete the race at a steady pace with no mistakes, but cross the finish line knowing that I could not have finished more than a couple minutes faster. Last year, my first 1/2 distance, I tanked really hard on the run b/c I got the nutrition and bike pacing wrong. I wanted to get these issues ironed out first. My next half distance race will be focused on extending the endurance and pacing skill that I have built into more speed.

I would question my bike setup, especially being too stretched out, except I have ridden this same bike and fit in the aero position for hours, yet after about 1:15 into the bike portion of the race I started to get horrible back pain.

As soon as it is practical, I will test the swim run theory. Tonight I will review my bike fit digital pictures to ensure that I'm not too stretched out.

I'd also give some thought to the swim being a factor. I've got an old low grade occasional lower back pain problem that sprung up in the discus throwing days.

If you're swimming with good posture, you've got a decent amount of arch in your back in the water so that you can be in a position with both your hips and head relatively high. When I was first getting started last year, I couldn't bike the day after swimming because of back soreness from my spine arching during freestyle.

It hasn't been a problem for me this year. My bike fit is acceptable but not super refined, so I suspect that strengthening core muscles had something to do with current absence of pain.

now this is coming from a newbie, but i had the same thing happen during a race. long story short, you may have been much more tense during the race than in a training ride. i think the extra adrenaline of a race--plus the bumpy roads--may have had you gripping the aerobars a little tighter and in general tensing your body up. this may be the case--i'm just a newbie.

On smooth roads, maybe you relax and let your skeletal system take most of the load of your upper body, and your lower back isn't working much. But, when the rough stuff begins, you use your lower back muscles to raise your upper body in order to relieve some of the pressure off of your arms/shoulders...a natural thing to do for many of us....I know I do that. Next thing you know, those old erector spinae are working harder than they are conditioned to work, and that's the source of your pain.

If you hadn't done so much other riding in the aero position, I would have suspected that first, but, you say you did train in the aero position extensively.

If swimming were a contributing factor, I'd think you would have noticed it earlier.

Congratulations on a fine race otherwise! Sounds like you did well!

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)