I did my 1st half over the weekend. Unfortunatly after about 1:55 of the 92k I blow up on the bike making the rest of the race a struggle. My average wattage was 217 with my NP up around 228. The average for the last 50mins was under 200watts. My FTP is around 275-280 mark (I am around 67kg). If I had ridden a better paced ride would I have been able to have recorded a better bike split or at least the same split and run quicker?
The guy that set the quickest bike split rode passed me and I noticed he was really working the hills, is the ablilty to ride hard and not blowing up some thing you develop with more expereince of racing these distances / better endurance? How hard do people push on the bike in a half? At the moment I have been trying to work on my speed before I move more into the longer stuff - I don’t think I have ever riden over 100miles (in one ride).
How hard I push the bike in a half depends on my fitness. When my fitness is high, I ride a half at just under my Oly bike pace. One year I was riding a lot (200+ miles/week) and I did my first 1/2IM ever and rode only ~3% slower than my Oly pace. In races where my fitness is low (like the first half of last year), I’ve ridden 6-8% slower than Oly pace.
Ride 100 miles. Get the endurance, then worry about the speed. How far have you ridden on one ride?
Where were you distance wise on the 92k? You say 1:55 in, but for some people that is (damn metrics, uh…) 40k and for others it is 80k or more.
I am not a power guru, so I will probably hang myself with my own rope for even trying to interpret your numbers, but what the heck…
If your NP (Normalized Power?) for the ride was 228 and your FTP (Functional Threshhold Power - the power you can hold for 60 minutes?) is 278, then you were riding at about 82%. I don’t think this seems like a power output that should blow you up, but that is because if I compare it back to HR, 82% of Anaerobic Threshhold should put you at an effort you can hold all day long. I am sure my HR comparison is not a good one, but if not “all day long” at least “for a few hours” would be reasonable. Seems to me like the power level was reasonable but you didn’t have the endurance to hold it. Or, it could have been a fuel thing…
that is a lot of watts at FTP for your weight. you should have not problem holding the watts you did. if you subtract 5% to double the time, you get 260W for two hours. but you are riding longer than two hours and you have to run after wards. so you can subtract another 5% to 7% that would give you about 240W that you can hold on the bike. So either you over estimated the FTP Watts from shorter test. or you just pushed to hard at first and where tired by the 2nd half. I don’t think endurance has much to do with it. as 56 miles on the bike is not very long. and most people will bike for at least two hours on a bike for a training ride. I don’t necessarily think you have to over distance the bike. But you do have to put time in at Threshold and above threshold that is for sure!!!
the bike is supposed to feel easy, because you still have to run.
I always check my watts and heart rate. if watts are up and heart rate is down, i am having a good ride, if watts are down and heart rate is down it is ok, if watts are up and heart rate is up that is ok, but if watts are down and heart rate is up not good!!!
I did my 1st half over the weekend. Unfortunatly after about 1:55 of the 92k I blow up on the bike making the rest of the race a struggle. My average wattage was 217 with my NP up around 228. The average for the last 50mins was under 200watts. My FTP is around 275-280 mark (I am around 67kg). If I had ridden a better paced ride would I have been able to have recorded a better bike split or at least the same split and run quicker?
The guy that set the quickest bike split rode passed me and I noticed he was really working the hills, is the ablilty to ride hard and not blowing up some thing you develop with more expereince of racing these distances / better endurance? How hard do people push on the bike in a half? At the moment I have been trying to work on my speed before I move more into the longer stuff - I don’t think I have ever riden over 100miles (in one ride).
There’s some information missing. Was the avg of 217 and NP of 228 for the entire ride or just for that first 1:55? When you say average wattage for the last 50 minutes was “under 200 watts,” exactly how far under? 199? 150?
What I’m getting at is what others have already alluded to, namely, that the 217/228 really shouldn’t be enough to blow you up if your FTP is indeed accurate. However, if that is your avg/NP for the entire ride, then that means that the actual avg/NP for the initial 1:55 was much higher, and, yes, that COULD have been enough to blow you up.
Without the details above, though, it’s difficult to get specific.
One thing to take a look at is your max torque on the hills. In my spring half this year I was targeting ~210-220W for an average power, but did 2 stupid things. First is I got stuck in traffic on the swim and had to breaststroke too much, and ended up cramping my sartorii bad on the bike. Second error was riding too low an RPM up the hills and exceeding my comfortable torque limits. I can easily put out 300W at 90ish RPM, but not being in the right gear meant 300W at 75RPM which is tough.
Regarding overall power output and a projected wattage for a half, the CW is to be ~80-85% of your FTP. If that’s 275ish then you should be able to handle 220-235W for an AP over that kind of distance…but only if you have actually trained at it. I did a lot of my longer distance training at lower power levels, and SURPRISE it was difficult to hold 210-220W average for the entire 56mi. I’d recommend doing some 2-3hr standalone rides at ~250W to see if your FTP really is that high. Depending on how you determined that number you might be way off. I know when I started doing a lot of 2x20min rides I found out real quick that my FTP was 20W or so below where I thought it was…YMMV.
I am not sure distance wise (I lost my magnet in a wet time trial the week before) – My bike split was 2:36 (I think this was still the 3rd fastest though a massive 14mins behind the quickest time – don’t you just hate those uber quick guys ).
I think my FTP is pretty accurate – I did a number of lab tests pre-season for a time trialling study and this is the figure reached in those, plus it is around the watts I hold in a 25mile TT (I have been averaging 295-305 for 10miler’s this year). The NP and average were for the whole ride so think I was probably riding too hard at the start. I rode a 24.5+ mile TT the week before and had one of my best rides clocking a 56:30 in wet blustery conditions on a course with 14 tight turns. For much of it was riding at very near 10mile intensity which I think made me a bit too cocky on the Half – and also made the effort seem really easy.
With my power data is there a way of working out what sort of time I could have posted with a better balanced ride (in a condition that would have left me something for the run)?
It sounds like you just need to get the muscular endurance piece covered. When I first switched from short course to long course I couln’t hold the intensity that I wanted like you at halfs. It just takes getting some really long rides in and also getting accustomed to to hammering for a long time—for 56 miles. My avg HR now at halfs is within 4-5 beats of my oly dist avg hr. You just get used to it. I think the Joe Friel’s and Gordo would call this muscular endurance. Just work on this limiter and it should come around for you. Just keep hammering at the distance eventually your body will be able to handle and still run well after.
Did you train to ride 240w for 2 1/2 hours? You should be able to hold 240 based on your FTP, but if you’re training to ride 1 hour TT’s and now you more than double it you’re going to hurt.
No I didn’t really do enough specific training, it was basically off my normal Oly Duathlon focused training (including 2 or 3 swims of course).
I do think many of my long rides are probably done at a far to easy effort. In the late winter I did a far amount of 1:30-3hr rides on the turbo with good sections holding a reasonable “tempo” like pace - which really helped my early season pace, but since the Summer started I have done fewer of these sesson but lots more TT and shorter interval work.
No I didn’t really do enough specific training, it was basically off my normal Oly Duathlon focused training (including 2 or 3 swims of course).
I do think many of my long rides are probably done at a far to easy effort. In the late winter I did a far amount of 1:30-3hr rides on the turbo with good sections holding a reasonable “tempo” like pace - which really helped my early season pace, but since the Summer started I have done fewer of these sesson but lots more TT and shorter interval work.
Yeah, I’d have to agree with most of the other posters at this point, since it sounds like a simple matter of building endurance for the distance. In order to build tolerance for work at appropriate HIM effort, you need to approximate the effort and duration during training. This means at least several weeks where you include a longer ride (say, 3-4 hours) spent at or around HIM effort (80-85% of FTP). This doesn’t have to be one long TT, though. I like to structure my rides with the first 25% or so at an easier “warmup” pace, then spend the meat of the middle of the ride (the middle 50% or so) working at around HIM effort. The last 25% is where I’ll wind it up for some FT intervals, then cruise home at a good steady effort.
If your FTP is accurate (and, based on the evidence you’ve provided, it seems at least in the right ballpark), then there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to sustain the effort you put out in your HIM. You may simply need to build the endurance under your existing power.
A couple of other questions to ask: How was your swim? Did you take it out hard? How would you rate your swimming abilities? If you really worked the swim, that could have affected the resources you had left on the bike (or didn’t, as the case may be). Also, what was your nutrition like pre-race and during the race? Did you start off with your stores topped off? Did you skip breakfast?
Re: estimating a “could have” split from your given stats is difficult, considering the variables, but in all likelihood, you could have shaved at least a couple minutes off with even pacing that resulted in the same overall avg/norm power.
You need to look at your power file in more detail. What stands out at the moment is that you rode around 83% of FTP but your average for the last ~1hr was under 200 watts. That tells me you probably rode quite hard early in your ride. As everyone has stated so far, 83% of FTP for the time you were on the bike shouldn’t be an issue but take a look at your 1st hr or so. Break it down by 3rds or 1st vs 2nd half and share the data with us (both AP and NP). We can probably offer more help then.
Swim wise I have done lots of pace work concentrating on a nice sustainable pace staying long and relaxed which worked out - so I got out pretty fresh. I have only done 3 previous open water tri’s so i decided to try and keep out of trouble, I think if I had got into the mix abit more I could have got on some feet and either save a bit more effort or gone a little quicker - finished in 34mins not supper quick but I am a Duathlete . Nutrition wise I had a bit of porrage and a bannana for breakfast with an SIS gel about 10mins before the start. I got through one profile bottle of High 5 enegy source with a Nuun salt tablet in, I had another SIS gel after about 1hr and an SIS smart gel (caffine) after about 1:30, i had another bottle with high 5 and Nuun in that I started on but didn’t drink that much of. I think I might have had another gel somewhere between 2-2:30hrs - by then I was in need of a pee and probably should have stopped but decided to wait until the run which was a mistake as it stopped me drinking.
Unfortunately no HR data wasn’t sure if I should wear my HR strap or not. I have never swam in it so wonder if it might rub under the wetsuit- none of the guys near me had them on so I decided not to which was probably a mistake.
Most often it’s a combination of at least 2 things that causes someone to blow up on the bike but I’d say that part of your answer probably lies in the 1st 1:30 of your ride. I believe that someone with the appropriate amount of race-specific fitness can still ride quite hard early on the HIM bike and won’t likely feel the effects of their effort until the run. And even then it only impacts their ability to not run well (eg >85% of FT pace). So, I suspect the answer to your question goes beyond bike pacing.
Not to worry about the lack of HR data. Personally I think it’s always good to wear an HRM for this very reason though. It doesn’t mean you have to use it when racing, although, I always use RPE, power and HR in combination. In addition, if you’re the type to do post-race analysis then it can only help to have HR data to reference. Something to think about next time…
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