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What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?"
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Curious. Particularly:
-your bike RPE for the first 56 miles.
-your bike RPE for the second 56 miles.
-your bike RPE for the last hour.

Because you'll ask:
-by "run well" I mean "running the IM run to the best of your general run capabilities / run fitness on the day."
-by RPE, I mean:





Thanks. Any other anecdotal information is also great!
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Re: What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?" [davetallo] [ In reply to ]
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I am replying so that you have at least one respondant at the absurd end of the spectrum.

I have never run a marathon well after biking 112 miles. I have never put in the required work. I never will.

I think I have done 3 or 4 Ironmans. Maybe 5. Over the past 30 years. Typically, this is how it plays out since I have a severe RPE : reality mismatch.

a) bike RPE first 56 miles: 10 very light : "I might win this"

b) bike RPE second 56 miles: 18 very hard : "I hate this"

c) bike RPE final hour: 20 very very hard : "please let the suffering end"

Context/Anecdote:

Back when I felt like I could claim to be fast, about 20 years ago, I trained 6-10 hours per week maybe 36-40 weeks per year. Usually biked 50-100 miles per week. If I was doing an IM, then I would jack the bike volume up to 150-180 per week for a month or two. I could perform well in events lasting 1-4 hours. For instance, I have gone under 2 hours for Oly and under 4:20 for 1/2IM. In general, biking 100 miles puts me on the couch, then and now. I admire the people who can handle the training. Not me.

My conclusion: There is no RPE low enough for anyone to run well if they refuse to prepare appropriately.
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Re: What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?" [davetallo] [ In reply to ]
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I have run well, for me at three of my 16 Ironmans, so that's the basis for my answer. I also do not use any devices (power meter/ gps watch etc.) so use rpe all the time. First half of bike, 10, second half of the bike 12, first half of the marathon, 12, last half 14. Good luck and have fun!
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Re: What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?" [davetallo] [ In reply to ]
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I’ve found a surprisingly low correlation with bike effort and run outcome. For example, at Chattanooga 2019 I had a run injury and was instructed to run 4mi max, so I rode very hard. Ran 8mi off the bike pretty well, which was my longest run in months.

In my HIM experience, where I have more data, I just haven’t found any correlation. If I’m feeling good and naturally pushing on the bike I’m probably going to run well too.

The one sure way I’ve found to run poorly is to have a power target that for whatever reason I can’t hold that day, then trying to anyway. But if I can’t get that power target, I was probably going to run badly anyway.

Dimond Bikes Superfan
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Re: What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?" [davetallo] [ In reply to ]
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I think on this forum you're best looking for an IF or %/FTP. So for example where on your RPE chart would you put an all out hour ride? I believe most people are looking to ride around 60-70% of FTP to have a 'good' run.
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Re: What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?" [habbywall] [ In reply to ]
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habbywall wrote:
I think on this forum you're best looking for an IF or %/FTP. So for example where on your RPE chart would you put an all out hour ride? I believe most people are looking to ride around 60-70% of FTP to have a 'good' run.

Interesting answer. "On this forum" because we're mostly average/MOP? Or slaves to our PMs? or we don't generally talk or think in terms of RPE?

Definitely looking for what people's self-report of RPE during those times are, though, which is why it's interesting to me (and more interesting than IF). For example, to your question, my RPE in an all-out hour ride for the first half is going to be a very different than my RPE for the back half, and I'll have yet another very, very different RPE for the last 15 minutes. Even if I do this at a stable power output.
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Re: What was your IM Bike RPE for races you went on to "run well?" [davetallo] [ In reply to ]
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davetallo wrote:

Interesting answer. "On this forum" because we're mostly average/MOP? Or slaves to our PMs? or we don't generally talk or think in terms of RPE?

Definitely looking for what people's self-report of RPE during those times are, though, which is why it's interesting to me (and more interesting than IF). For example, to your question, my RPE in an all-out hour ride for the first half is going to be a very different than my RPE for the back half, and I'll have yet another very, very different RPE for the last 15 minutes. Even if I do this at a stable power output.

Yes, very interesting. My understanding of this forum is that most users are in the top 5% at most races and as such follow the PM pretty closely, I think a lot are highly trained and riding at 60ish% of FTP even for 5 hours is going to be a pretty easy effort.

I am just getting back into tri seriously after a few years break, but I do know that about 5-10 years ago the unspoken thought amongst people in the industry was that the slowtwitch forum was a very vocal minority of people at the pointy end of the field and kinda a joke to the 'real insiders' of the sport.
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