Probably both (equally). The only way to tell the difference is in post-hoc analysis. But it's your first IM and there are other (mental) factors to consider here. Nutrition will obviously be a factor too unless you have a well-developed iron stomach. Usually that takes time to develop.



To be frank (and overly redundant), the whole idea of worrying about running too slow in those early miles where it truly impacts your overall run time is just beyond ridiculous in my 15 years of doing/coaching/watching this sport. It just doesn't happen.

Personally, mental preparation is really important, imo. I would avoid the use of words like "guaranteed" and establish goals like, "Don't run the first 3 miles faster than 8:15." Focus on everything you can control and ignore everything you cannot control. You have no idea whether a 3:30 run is going to be required to KQ or not. One example: I ran 3:23 (9:41 OA) at IMAZ '09 and was 16th in my AG but ran a 3:39 (10:11 OA) at IMC '11 and was 2nd in my AG. Who knows who's going to show up and what the conditions might be...

SCH was a (really fast) swimmer. We read heat sheets and we know that we need to take our first 50 out in to the tenth of a second. As they say old dogs have trouble with new tricks!

I do mostly agree with you, though. We might have a pretty decent idea of where we will be off the bike and we can use past results to have a decent idea to know what it will take to KQ, but this isn't swimming!

SCH: I am going to swim 53-54 (I really doubt it will be wetsuit legal) and bike 4:50-55 and I am 3:05 open marathoner. So we will probably see each other out there a lot? I *think* I know what you are going through because I have a tendency to analyze this the way I would a swim meet. It really gets to be overwhelming with an IM because there is so much you cannot control. But for what it is worth, what someone said - no one has ever said that going to easy the opening miles cost them time at the finish line - is 100% truth. I won't presume to tell you what to do but do keep that in mind!

In JoeO's defense, I believe it was me who made that assumption and I apologize for doing so. That said, I wouldn't take it too personally.

As far as the rest of your post, I would comments as follows:

1. Nobody is saying "run the first 20 miles easy" so possibly there's some confusion there. Clearly, I referred to (multiple times) "those early miles" or "first 3 or so miles" or "3 - 5 miles."

2. I was actually the one who mentioned that running faster has an exponential physiological cost and it seems to me that you clearly misunderstand how that exponential factor plays into the equation. It's not that you can leave time on table by running too slow in those early miles. It's almost the exact opposite. Here's a somewhat oversimplified analogy:

You have a finite amount of running resources. You *ideally* want those to be zero at the end of the race. When you run faster than your ideal goal pace, you are consuming those resources at an exponential rate so the resources you need to run well (i.e., the same pace or faster) won't be there when you need them later in the race. In fact, they will be severely depleted, relatively speaking. Running slightly slower than goal pace early on puts you in a much better position to now consume those resources in an exponential manner by running faster later in the face because in those early miles you are running at a pace that does NOT correspond to the steep part of the curve.

The problem is that you're thinking about this problem as if it's more like a linear thing.

Lastly, my observation here is that people will do everything in their power to convince themselves that slowing down in the IM run is inevitable because that's what almost always happens. I wholeheartedly disagree. I just find that those people to tend to struggle with a strong sense of self-awareness. Again, this always seems to be a much more difficult conversation with men than with women. Possibly something to do with patience, or the lack thereof. ;-)

Dude, I love the (over?) analysis! My mantra:

It's much better to overthink it than underthink it.

Good luck to SCH! Now I'm really curious to find out who this dude is and track him on race day.

"Gauranteed? Nothing in an IM is ever gauranteed."

Going to correct you on this...not entirely true.

1) Guaranteed you WILL hurt when it is done.
2) You will pay a LOT for entry fee.

Ha! Thank you, but I am just a lowly AGer trying to split a 3:30 on the run and over-analyzing every bit of it. Something has to fill my time vacuum now that volume is coming down. My bib # is 562 though if you want to see how your advice plays out.


In all seriousness, I already have a plan and I'm sticking too it - it is pretty similar to the advice here (and it's all good advice). Thanks for humoring me.

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Strava

I will probably be with you most of the way, at least on the swim/bike (until my 4:25 marathon split, of course)! Look for an orange suit with a blue PR6... can't miss that combo...

BBS shows my bike split a tiny bit faster than that, but I have only had this bike since the fall, so my CdA input is pretty much a wild guess. I'll just have to stick to my power plan and take the result.

Completely agree with you on the over analysis and that is great advice. I think the one thing that most of us DO have is family/friends with the IM tracker that can give us information about our AG position. We may have a vague idea of who will show up before the race, and anything can happen, but if I am 4 miles ahead of a guy (at mile 4) that is known to split a 3:05, then it's pretty easy to figure out that I'll have to run a 3:30 to finish ahead of him. And the result become more and more certain as the race progresses.

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Strava

Not to change the subject or further hyjack the thread, but I am 45 minutes from the course right now. I came here from Wisconsin. I got here today and did a run this evening. The heat and humidity are for real here. Have you made adjustment in you power targets and running paces to reflect the heat and humidity?

Yea.. that is another big factor. Waiting for the final forecast and will make a decision later in the week as to how much to back off. I am coming from NY so in the same boat. Regardless, i have been inhaling fluids and sodium in training to push the limits on what i can comfortably consume.

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Strava

Have you made adjustment in you power targets and running paces to reflect the heat and humidity? //

THat's what heart rate monitors are for. Oh forgot, no one uses them anymore...(-;

What heat and humidity? Today was a beautiful spring day - if you live here.

Don’t use AC except at night. Try to stay away from it. Should help you acclimate a little. Advice a friend gave me at Chattanooga last year when it was low 90s. Seemed to help. No clue how humidity would change this equation though. Good luck

There are so many people planning trying for that 330 run. In most IM less than 5 % of people achieve that time. Fade is sort of inevitable as we are doing the physically most demanding thing when we are the most fatigued.

For all the aspiring 330, check before you start that run and say would I be happy with 350. That 330 we all calculate in a boring work meeting seems easy at 5 K mark even 10, then by 15 its starting to slow down, we say ah sub 4 then it is a battle from the 30 K mark.

Going out at 530 might not seem as cool, though its different for everyone, If I could take all my IM marathons back I would run slower in the first 10 K

I would agree with this. Obviously, marathon and the marathon at the end of an Ironman are different beasts but all of my PRs have been negative splits from the 1500 to the 10k. I think the same can be applied to the longer races.

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USAT Level II- Ironman U Certified Coach

I thought I would reply to this post with a very small race report since my result doesn't deserve its own thread:

8th place 35-39, 57th overall and a KQ

Overall time of 8:46: 0:53 swim, 4:30 bike, 3:15 run (bike/run files on strava)

Swim - 53 - Pretty smooth and easy. Let a faster pack go, did not want to expend the energy.

Bike - 4:30 on 263 NP (0.75 IF) and a dropped chain that cost me about 1-2 minutes. BBS had me at 4:28 for 110.3 miles at this exact IF, and my garmin had 109.5 miles for the course, so my CdA was even worse than my estimated 0.26. It's sad that I have to make a disclaimer that I didn't draft, but I was pretty much all alone for most of the leg given my swim split. However, I realize everyone is suspect at this race no matter what you say/post. I was passed by one group that I let go after I slowed down for an aid station.

Run - 3:15 The first 3-4 miles I ran soooo easy (about 8 min/mile), because 1) I thought 9 hours would be good enough for a KQ (it definitely wasn't - it took 8:48), and 2) I kept thinking of this thread! I saw my coach at miles 4 and 8. He told me that I was in 9th at mile 4 and then eventually slipped to 14th at mile 8. I thought my KQ was gone.

Since I was feeling good I gradually picked it up to see if I could make up some ground and finish strong - 7:40's and eventually down to 7:30's at about the halfway point. Then at mile 16 - all of a sudden, my coach told me I was back in 11th and I was only 4 minutes out of 5th place and gaining. I was hurting at this point, but was still maintaining pace. At about mile 22 I was back into 9th. This is when I started to hurt pretty bad - the faster pace was taking its toll. Tunnel vision set in but just continued to put one foot in front of another. I knew I had to catch the guy in 8th place and both my friends and coach told me what his kit looked like. When I rounded the corner at around mile 24.5 on Timberloch I finally saw him - my Kona slot, about 100 yards ahead. I couldn't really pick up the pace but ignored my body's commands to slow down. I kept running forward but only looked at him.

Finally, on the out and back near the mall with a little less than a mile to go, I caught up to him. I knew my age was on my calf (no one does this anymore but me, do they??) so I waited for about 10 seconds until we caught some slower runners, and then passed him on the right using them as a visual shield. I used my last match passing him. The last 3/4 of a mile I felt like Lionel looked at Kona - ugly (and a lot slower), but I managed to finish in 8th by about 45 seconds and then collapsed after the finish.

Turns out that Juan Valencia (1st place) already took a slot at an earlier race (what a beast - I guess he just goes around and crushes IMs for fun after he's KQd), and my AG got 9 slots, not 8 as we thought, so I actually had the slot by about 2 minutes.

So that's it - the one other thing I will add is nutrition execution - that was EXTREMELY important and has derailed me before in hot races - I took in >40 oz of fluids per hour and more than 1000 mg of sodium per hour on the bike, and probably at least 3/4 of that total on the run. Didn't pee once, so needed every single drop.

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Strava

Congratulations! How do you think you would have finished if you started off running 7:30s (or faster)?

Yep, I followed you the whole day. I didn't know if you KQed or not. Pretty awesome -- I was damn excited. On the surface, it looked like near-perfect execution to me so I'm glad to hear that it played out accordingly from your perspective played.

The one thing that certainly blew me away were the times. Just crazy fast.

Btw, one thing I never mentioned but is important to point out (since you likely had this experience):

One of the other reasons why I so strongly emphasize the "slow" run start is to put yourself in a position where you are passing people in the last 4 miles as opposed to having that sole focus of just hanging on for dear life. Given how mental those last miles are, passing people provides that extra level of confidence and somehow has this effect of dulling the pain which allows you to run slightly faster as a result. I've also found that you will likely feel much better about your performance when you finish so strong.

Good stuff! Love to hear success stories like this. Big congrats!!

Thanks! That's a really good question and one I am not sure I have the answer to. The "easy" part for me only lasted 3-4 miles until I started to put in a little bit more effort, so it may not have affected me that much. But I think that it helped me calm down after the bike and allowed me to be mentally refreshed for the remainder of the run. If I were to do it again, knowing that I had to run a 3:17 or under, I probably would have maybe started 5-10 seconds per mile faster; 7:30 might have been a little too risky.

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Strava

Awesome, congrats! And that bike file definitely shows you did not draft. Well done. I'd say your run strategy played out perfectly! And yeah, you might want to work on your CdA for Kona!!

Did you feel like you finished with something left in the tank? I'm going to guess not.

Remember, when you start to slow down, it almost never occurs as a small incremental (linear) drop in pace.

Haha, yeah... it might be worthwhile to visit the wind tunnel at some point. I have boxy swimmer shoulders and weigh 175 so it may be a futile effort but worth the try nonetheless.

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Strava

Now that the race is done, I completely understand this statement. I think I got lucky with my pacing and how it turned out. My coach and I had a plan for 3:30 and I forced myself to slow down at the beginning, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm a genius and figured it all out on my first try. I just took input from a lot of experienced folks and happened to find the right pace. When I heard that I was catching the guys in front of me, mentally that was invigorating, despite the fact that I was hurting pretty bad.


I'm not going to say I couldn't run another half mile, or mile at that pace, but I was pretty close to 100% spent. Right before I saw 8th place (maybe mile 24.5) I had this wave of despair wash over me - that feeling you get when you know your body is about to revolt on you and shut down - and I honestly don't know why it didn't, other than the fact that I saw my (perceived) slot right in front of me. I had trouble standing up after I crossed the finish line,and I think the last bit was run on pure adrenaline. I was lucky to have some competitive intelligence on the course though - I probably would not have pushed it to 99.9% had I not had that information.

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Strava

what wetsuit were you wearing. We came out close together (less than 15 seconds I think). Roka? The two guys I was with had ROKAs on. One ditched his cap.

I think I may have run into you coming up the waterway. If it WAS you, I did apologize then and I am doing it again. Moments before I completely lost concentration when I realized I put my prescription sun glasses (IE I had to have them to ride) in my T2 bag.

Oh wow - yea, I was wearing a Roka, but no one ran into me - did you end up getting your prescription glasses? I actually had trouble getting out of the water, apparently there were some "fake" stairs in the middle (i.e. just some railings, no steps) that I was idiotically trying to climb up at first and a volunteer had to pull me over to the real stairs. How did you feel about your race?

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Strava

I had an okay swim and solid run. My quik tally shows it was 18th fastest in my age group. So I have work to do. I have a KQ in me, just not there yet.

I had 246 people pass me on the bike.

My teammate also split a 54 low.

I then pulled away from him:

@ mile 3.8 on bike: ME 1:09:05 HIM 1:10:25
@ mile 16.2 on bike: ME 1:43:51 HIM 1:44:51

Until suddenly I saw him with a bunch of other around mile 35. Then at the next split:

@mile 37.1 on bike: ME 2:38:31 HIM 2:38:13

He ended up out splitting me by 18 minutes. And I am a better rider than him. ANd I proved it for about an hour.

So how am I doing. I am fucking pissed for not drafting.