Im doing my 1st IM on Florianopolis this may
ive been training 5months really hard and consistence, but Ive never ride 180km…max 130km
but Ive been doing lot of bricks for example this saturday i will do 3k swim, 16k run, 100km bike, and then again 11km…all these works ar different efforts
Do you think is necessary to do a 180km before race?
My long rides are ~130km. Longest 150km.
I ride sub 5
Take from that what you will
The fact that you’re asking the question is your answer. You don’t want to be asking this question come 150km into your event. Answer it now not on race day, the confidence muscle is quite an important one to maintain.
No.
4 or 5 hour rides at low intensity are ok. So 120k maximum is not wrong.
It should however also not be wrong to do a 180km ride, if you want, but not necessary.
Florianapolis is an easy bike course and with the almost unavoidable drafting there things will be easier
My view:
you don’t need to ride 180 km as long as you are doing enough accumulated during the week and your 3-4 h rides are not filled with stop and gos and ideally they also have some sections with at or above race pace drpending on where you are in your training
however, doing it to build confidence, mental strength, test nutrition and dial in your effort is very valuable so I would do at least 1 180 km ride
also if you plan to complete and not compete or go for a in your view good finish time there is less need to do a 180k
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Physiologically no.
Psychologically yeah, potentially.
For me worst thing about 180km is pain in the butthole ballsack regions. Worth being ready for that.
At least that’s what I reckon.
Im doing my 1st IM on Florianopolis this may
ive been training 5months really hard and consistence, but Ive never ride 180km…max 130km
but Ive been doing lot of bricks for example this saturday i will do 3k swim, 16k run, 100km bike, and then again 11km…all these works ar different efforts
Do you think is necessary to do a 180km before race?
Overall weekly load/mileage is more important than single rides. What you want to do is jack up your physiology through training and recovery for the highest threshold you can get and then on race day just cruise through 180k at 70% of that. Doing weekly dress rehearsals of the race is not the most optimal way of improving your physiology, although to some degree it will work. It’s just horribly time consuming and makes everyone around you pissed off. One or two dress rehearsals is fine…5 hours bolted to the aero position with no stopping and no coasting and no drafting. Other than that, do whatever weekly training load that adds up to a lot of mileage/load to improve your FTP.
Necessary? No, a lot of people managed to complete an IM without such a ride.
Should you, though? Maybe. It could be useful mentally. It could be good training. But I’ve got a 200km ride scheduled for this weekend, and my first IM is at least a year or two away.
Necessary? No, a lot of people managed to complete an IM without such a ride.
what if you are interested in competing instead?
Necessary? No, a lot of people managed to complete an IM without such a ride.
what if you are interested in competing instead?
You’d have to ask a coach, pro or some other expert to get an answer for that. That’s why I chose the word complete - because people *have *completed an IM without riding 180km.
If we’re arguing semantics, again there’s a poster above me who said she goes sub-5 hours without rides longer than 150km. So strictly speaking it’s also not necessary in order to post a respectable split (one that would let you compete in most age-groups). However, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe “over-distance” rides aren’t beneficial. I do them, and all of my faster teammates and friends - those who hover in the 9:20-8:45 range for an IM - ride longer, and often.
It all depends on how you structure your training rides and schedule.
It is not necessary. It is even less necessary to run 26.
This really depends on where your at in your program, what your background is, and what your riding during the week look like. The long ride is one piece of the puzzle only.
That said, here is my view (not a coach but have some FOP experience and KQed - although based more on a very good run and pretty okay bike) if you want to compete in an ironman and you are not some sort of genetic freak, have huge time limitiations or many years of experience and accumulated volume:
ride 10-12 hrs per week on 4-6 rides
make sure that during those rides you work all energy systems, but ideally without mixing energy systems in each ride too much => each ride should have only one key purpose but a secondary
the key purpose of the long ride is mostly endurance and making you ready to crank out approx 70% of FTP for 180 km. In my view you are not getting much endurance unless you ride more than 3 hrs. Around 4 hrs is probably better and can extend to 5 hrs. Endurance intensity is easy but it is not so easy that after some hours in the saddle you dont should feel the accumlated work. Depending on what you have done during the week and where you are at you can throw in some intervals but never hammer it. You will just mess up your system if you week after week ride 4-5 hrs with intensity.
for a few rides, race specific training becomes the key purpose and to get that you want to extend to 5-6 hrs mostly around race pace but do not do that to frequent of this as it will wear you out mentally and physically. Now, some people already have race specific experience either from several races and ironman builds and they do not need this type of training to compete and can get a long with the 4-5h rides
Specifically, for me this translates into long rides like this:
– most of my rides in the 3-4 months leading up to the race are 4-5 hrs. Depending on what I have done during the week, I vary the intensity (I never go hard though, instead I sprinkle in some 10-30 min intervals at IM, HIM or sweet spot) and the rides are all pretty much without stops and coasting. This is real training, not goofing around. If you train to complete, I think 3,5-4 hrs would be enough.
– I do a few 5h and/or +5h rides where I average race effort. Not sure I really need it physically after 5 ironman races but it gives me confidence so I do not need to ask myself questions 120 km into the ride on race day if I can ride 180 km at effort X. I also focus on practicing nutrition and running a few kms off the bike to dial in bike and run pacing. Needless to say this is also real training without stops and coasting, no goofing around. I think in my future ironman builds I will cut back on those and do only 1. These rides are what I like the least about Ironman training and when I am ready to cut them out, I will 
– the rest of the year my long bike ride is 3-4 hours at whatever intensity and route I feel like. This involves some coasting, stopping, chatting with friends but try to get at least 3h effective in the saddle.
It is not necessary. It is even less necessary to run 26.
I agree with there being no need to run 26.2, but every IM I went into I wished I had biked more. Now that can be split in to shorter rides, but having 6 continuous hours in the saddle is something most “in training” athletes need to experience.
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As others have said, physiologically you can get the right adaptations without riding the full distance regularly/at all beforehand.
However, it’s worthwhile doing it once or twice just to break the mental barrier of having never done it before.
I did 200km rides with a 5km brick runs two weekends in a row 5/6 weeks before my first IM just to minimise the amount of uncertainty.
It did wonders for my confidence but wasn’t necessary from a training perspective.
I never felt the need to do it afterwards.
I would suggest that the mental value is very low.
The true value is in making sure you are not going to pace it like an idiot.
Like everyone said, it depends…mainly on your fitness on the bike and how you train. You want to make sure you do continuous rides with minimal stopping, since you will be pedaling for 5-7 hours in an IM.
By “mental barrier” I wasn’t referring to mental strength or building tolerance to pain/effort (although I’m sure that there is some benefit there). I was referring mainly to the idea that there is hesitation or uncertainty in attempting something harder/longer than you have before.
I personally found it useful that at no point during the IM ride was I “stepping into the unknown”.
You’re absolutely right re: the pacing experience.
I think riding 180K is unnecessary in IM training. But I think doing 160K is critical; I would typically put 2-3 rides of 160K into my IM training program, roughly one per month. One time I did 170K ride was only because the July 4th parades had road closures and I had to re-route around the parade route!
I think having a max ride of 130K is too short; and it’s not just about the endurance but also about your muscles spending that much more time on the bike and being comfortable. I would recommend far less of a gap between the longest training ride and the actual IM ride.
Good luck!
BrokenSpoke