Sprint last weekend, I do not look at power or HR on a sprint, it's just a redline effort and usually it's chasing a couple of people or being chased. When I went back and looked at the numbers, I had rode 96% of my FTP, the bike course is as flat as you can get with less than 100 feet total gain over 15 miles. That effort for 15 miles destroyed me. I got through the shit show of a run at a fairly decent pace but could feel the fatigue. I ran and swam last night, the run was fine but I had no legs in the pool lol. Kudos to you guys who push further than that on the bike. Breaking 100%, your FTP is off, but in a good way.

I love sprint racing!

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Regards,
J. Smith

Stop with all your fancy logic and science; you are ruining the absurdity of this thread.

Serious question - Why are you looking at your power during a sprint? If you are coming out of the water slow and have bikes in front of you, the only thing you should be looking at is the bike ahead of you and if you are catching them or not. If yes, hold it there. If not, pedal harder.

You're absolutely right. I'll try and stay quiet!

I am in one of the last swim waves. I could be pushing 160 watts and passing people as there is a huge mix of skill levels racing. I rarely can tell if people are in my age group as their body markings are almost always smeared off. I don't have tunnel vision focusing on my power. I'm certainly capable of hitting 120% of my ftp for a short period of time but that won't last very long so there is some level of pacing going on even in a sprint. I typically target somewhere over 90% ftp but almost always end up at 90% ftp and next race will try to stay at 95% ftp no matter what and see what happens with my run.

Starting out on the bike too fast or too slow has gotten me into trouble. I have a difficult time reading my body after trying to jog with pace from the water to the bike and get going up to speed. I often can't really catch my breath for the first few miles of the bike, especially if I'm trying to hold a power goal close to my FTP, so it's much easier to look at the number (AP and NP) and try to keep it close. Yes, I'll look to 'hunt and kill' the person in front of me, but if I've been in races where I was in an early swim wave with literally no one in sight and it helps to know if I'm not pushing hard enough. Sometimes it 'feels like it's almost all out' but if the number is below my goal, and so I dig deeper. Or in later swim waves, with everyone in the world on the bike in front of me, it' hard to go super fast weaving around people too. In those situations, it's usually just 'hammer time' until I'm clear and safe, and I don't bother looking at the PM.

It's just another tool. But the ability to bury yourself, well, that's a skill. And sprint triathlon HURTS when done well.

I understand where you are coming from now.

By using HR in my mountain bike training I've found nearly the same thing for myself.

No shit, Sherlock. But the original sentiment wasn't referring to standing up out of corners. Rather, it was that you pace a 180 km race but ride a sprint with wild abandon with no regard to pacing whatsoever.

I don't know how it happens, but every now and again a thread like this gets started and takes off where people talk about these wildly optimistic power and pacing numbers for sprint and Olympic triathlons. Tales of tunnel vision, barfing on the bike, and other hubris abound. By the time someone with a shred of a clue steps in, whole kilobytes of bad information have been preserved forever in the annals of Slowtwitch, only for some poor person to read it, ride the bike leg of their next sprint race at 110% of FTP, then come here and ask why their running sucks and if pickle juice will keep their metabolically destroyed legs from cramping.

Next race I'm definitely going to attempt to maintain somewhere around 95% ftp and see what happens on the run. Just hoping it doesn't impact my run too much

One tip that has helped me after a big 30 minute bike effort in sprints is to spend the last 1/4 mile into transition in an easy gear at a high cadence. Provided it’s not an uphill finish you can flush some lactate from your legs by Spinning it up and they will help coming out of transition to the run.

I swim very slow, cycle reasonably well and run a bit slow.
When I get out of the water, my concern is solely to do the fastest bike split I can while still being able to run decently afterwards. The pace of the bike in front of me has zero impact on my effort except in so far as I have to manoeuver around them. Why should my only concern be the bike ahead of me and whether I'm catching them?....serious question

good idea.

Depends on your race goals I suppose. If you only want to do the best bike split you can then run decently, keep your effort where you feel most comfortable. But if you want to podium and come out of the water mid pack, you don’t have much of a choice other than hunting down the bikes ahead of you to close the gap before the run. Could it backfire and blow up you’re run - sure. But you’re more than likely not going to sit in at 90% or whatever of FTP and then catch up on fresh legs in a 5k.

I guess the whole wave start in a sprint is the hard thing here. Most of the sprints I have done (and won 2 OA last year) were mass starts but they were smaller fields of 100 or less. In both I came out of the water behind and had to make it up on the bike and hang on for the run.

I always come out of the water later and have to make up a bunch of time on bike and run. I do a this sprint race series of 5 races most of the time I'm have to chase down guys for 2nd or 3rd. I have won once or twice but usually there is somebody up there who I lose way too much time on the swim. But the others I usually can make up some time on my bike and then a mile or two into the run I ended up passing them. But it's definitely a challenge losing so much time in the swim. This year my swim fitness is lacking which adding poor technique to that makes for a very slow swim. Offseason I need to swim a bit more just to move up from BOP on swim.

I've had the same issue annually myself. 100th or higher out of the water then top 3 on Bike and Run. For me I don't think about placing or anything by the time I'm out of the water because there is no telling who's in what wave and how much actual time you are in arrears. That's why I focus on attacking the course and racing not pacing. If you aren't familiar with your max effort for the 20k / 5k then pacing could be useful until you have an acute awareness of how hard and how long you can go for.


Out of curiosity where are you located?

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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"

I don't really see the difference unless it's a draft legal race.
I'm going to do the best overall race time I can manage either way..... unless I'm trying to disrupt another competitor who I think is susceptible to having their pace influenced to my benefit. I'm certainly not going to intentionally let someone else dictate mine.

Ever watched junior itu or itu in person? I couldn't tell you how many of the kids spew on course or at tje finish line. If you want to win you have push harder than the guy next to you and they're willing to push until they spew.

Draft legal is even worse, ever seen some of Richard Murrays posts ? You do what you have to do to stay with the group, that means massive efforts above ftp. Yes it's not a 100m race where you go 100%, but your just being dense on the pacing issue.

Its a sprint, you dont save anything on any leg, each leg of the race is 100% if not your doing it wrong. You should finish a sprint in totally cardio exhaustion.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

well, in tonight's sprint tri-bike, I decided to see how close I could come to my FTP. Hit 99%, a new high, and still did marginally better than last year on the R. Maybe I had extra energy after s*cking on the swim so badly...Add a 0.99 IF to my 'real data'.

Now that’s the way to race!!! Good job
Love the tactics of a sprint race, so simple go as hard as possible nothing to save make it hurt.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

That's big praise from you, Dr Loehr. Thx-I'll take it.
Now to go rest my old aching bones...I need advil...and a drink, no both!
Sprints hurt...