I have recently completed another long course triathlon where my bike performance was well below par, power off by about 35% from race plan and what i have been doing in my long training rides with ease. I have looked at all areas and the one common factor that comes up is the swim beforehand. Whilst i am not physically tired leaving the swim i am finding my legs “empty” from the start of the bike and right the way through, just cannot seem to get the power down no matter how hard i try as the legs dont respond. Has anyone heard of or could something be impacting me on the swim which is leading to the issues i am having on the bike? 70w off what you do in training seems huge and makes no sense.
I should point out that in the past i would have done no swim/bike brick sessions. Any suggestions most welcome as it is really screwing with my racing right now.
I’m not an experienced long course athlete, but 70w seems fairly high so would guess this was caused by a number of factors. Morning breakfast nutrition adequate and digested? And possibly, FTP marginally estimated too high?
I’m not an experienced long course athlete, but 70w seems fairly high so would guess this was caused by a number of factors. Morning breakfast nutrition adequate and digested? And possibly, FTP marginally estimated too high?
I should add this has happened on 3 races and not a once off. Morning breakfast would be consumed 3hrs before the start so i would not expect to be an issue. FTP would be spot on and if anything slightly understated as i have not tested in about 3 months but have noticed gains. As i mentioned race pace wattage would have been comfortable on long training rides, as it should be for a 180k bike!!
Did I understand that correctly that you are not/have not done any swim/bike bricks? If you actually swim the swim like a swimmer you gotta expect to be taxed. If you bobble around in a wetsuit at Z1 then it probably won’t have much impact. Only you know for sure your effort level.
A bike/run brick is great info if you are doing duathlons only, but it would seem if you want to know how you will bike after a swim that you’d need to do some swim/bike bricks too given a 70w.
I had this thought last Thursday after trying to keep pace with the sick ass freaks I have been swimming with lately. I hopped out of the pool…after a nice long cool down…stood up and WOW. Gravity said hello. I immediately thought what it would have been like to trot on over to my bike for a bike split. I woulda suffered.
Run/bike bricks in as close to race conditions as possible (nutrition, time of day, transition, etc). There’s no reason to be that far off on race day if you train properly.
Did I understand that correctly that you are not/have not done any swim/bike bricks? If you actually swim the swim like a swimmer you gotta expect to be taxed. If you bobble around in a wetsuit at Z1 then it probably won’t have much impact. Only you know for sure your effort level.
A bike/run brick is great info if you are doing duathlons only, but it would seem if you want to know how you will bike after a swim that you’d need to do some swim/bike bricks too given a 70w.
I had this thought last Thursday after trying to keep pace with the sick ass freaks I have been swimming with lately. I hopped out of the pool…after a nice long cool down…stood up and WOW. Gravity said hello. I immediately thought what it would have been like to trot on over to my bike for a bike split. I woulda suffered.
Yes i would have done no swim/bike bricks in training. I am not a swimmer and would be swimming at a steady effort, physically i would not be feeling tired after the swim but it would seem my legs have an empty feel to them when i get on the bike. Really at a loss at what could be causing such a drop off in power.
Just curious…have you tried eating a gel or something after you swim long and then get on the bike in your races?
What’s different about your swim?
Have you made improvements there recently? It is possible as you get better at swimming to finally reach the point where you can actually put some energy into it rather than just paddle along. That takes some discipline to manage.
You did not do something crazy like decide it was a good idea to start kicking did you? -
What were the exact lengths of races?
What was the water temp in each case?
What was the air temp (at the start of the bike) in each case?
Sounds like you need a lot of hard swims at faster than target race pace in your program with lots of kick sets too and then dial things down on race day. If you can’t do swim-bike bricks, I’ll suggest you go run for the same time as the target race swim and then get on the bike and see what your wattages look like. Many people underestimate the swim “TSS” and think they are taking it much easier than they are in the water. It shows up if not in the back half of the bike, then certainly on the run.
Did you guys ever notice that many of the top Ironman athletes also come from a swim background an almost NONE of them come for a pure running background? There is a good reason for this. Get serious about the swim, or hurt on race day after the swim.
Once a week I do 10 x 500 with a 1 minute rest interval. I push the 500’s a bit, which is about 8:40 for me. Also, once before every Ironman I do one straight 5,000 meter swim at Z2. I’m a very mediocre swimmer, but this gets me through the swim, usually, with energy to spare. If you are a lousy swimmer, the swim can take a lot out of you. At IM Cozumel, after last year’s swim, quite a few people dropped out on the bike leg or shortly after because of the difficult swim. You probably need to have some serious swim focus training.
-Robert
Shocking news - swimming is hard work and it makes you tired. It takes a huge amount of energy to move a human body through water. It is harder if you are not good at it. It takes you longer and you are not very efficient. The killer is that if you are good at it, it is hard too. Now you are actually trying to go fast.
Actually, swimming is quite insidious since, unlike running it does not pound you into a submission. You don’t feel bad, just tired. The gradual decent into fatique is similar to cycling but, unlike on the bike, you have no electronic aids to manage your pacing and you can dig yourself in a hole really quickly.
The only way to make the swim not dramatically affect the the rest of your race is to get good enough at it so you can dial it back a bit and still hit a decent target time. Or, swim hard and factor that in on your pacing for the rest of the race. There is no free lunch. Triathlon is a 3 sport race, not water play time plus 2 sports.
Just curious…have you tried eating a gel or something after you swim long and then get on the bike in your races?
yes, normally 10-15mins after gettting out on the bike i would take a gel. Problem is i am talking from the minute i get on the bike the legs feel empty. Please note physically coming into T1 i feel fine and the effort in the swim would be easy/low steady, very one paced swimmer
What’s different about your swim?
Have you made improvements there recently? It is possible as you get better at swimming to finally reach the point where you can actually put some energy into it rather than just paddle along. That takes some discipline to manage.
You did not do something crazy like decide it was a good idea to start kicking did you? -
As i said i am not an exceptional swimmer, in fact fairly average. With regards to improvements first IM was 1:33, 2nd was 1:19 and third was 1:10. Whilst i am getting better i would normally be swimming easy/steady. No kicking as wetsuit swim in all of them 
What were the exact lengths of races?
What was the water temp in each case?
What was the air temp (at the start of the bike) in each case?
IM distance
around 20-22 degrees
High teens low 20s
Sounds like you need a lot of hard swims at faster than target race pace in your program with lots of kick sets too and then dial things down on race day. If you can’t do swim-bike bricks, I’ll suggest you go run for the same time as the target race swim and then get on the bike and see what your wattages look like. Many people underestimate the swim “TSS” and think they are taking it much easier than they are in the water. It shows up if not in the back half of the bike, then certainly on the run.
Did you guys ever notice that many of the top Ironman athletes also come from a swim background an almost NONE of them come for a pure running background? There is a good reason for this. Get serious about the swim, or hurt on race day after the swim.
I need to learn how to swim hard, unfortuneatly my current swim limiters show up when i start to go hard and up the effort, form turns to sh1t. I do currently have a lot kick sets in my sessions and would swim 3 to 4 sessions a week for about 10k a week. I should be able to organise a few swim-bike bricks albeit a lot harder to organise, i suppose this will show up if in fact something from the swim is affecting my power on the bike. I have started to read a bit about POTS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postural_orthostatic_tachycardia_syndrome with all these things trying to self diagnose can be a dangerous game.
if you are dropping 70 watts on the bike after a swim it suggests to me that you are either just no trying hard enough on the bike, or you need to zero the power meter on racing mornings =)
shit is gonna hurt. Being down ~20 watts is pretty normal.
Those are big time drops and pretty sigificant improvements. Imagine you had a 20% improvement in average speed on the bike leg. You’d be in a whole different world in terms of race planning/pacing and it would now be possible to really set yourself up for a nice 20 mile walk as you smile away averaging 25 mph+ having the time of our life
Now your swim is in an area where if you are not careful, you can go too hard. Once swimming actually gets a little fun instead of pure torture, people tend to push themselves a little harder. You have to start pacing it like you do the other legs, not just getting through it.
Now that you can go 1:10 in the swim, you need to do some experiments and figure out if you can ride sufficiently faster after swimming swimming 1:20 to get to the overall time you want.
if you are dropping 70 watts on the bike after a swim it suggests to me that you are either just no trying hard enough on the bike, or you need to zero the power meter on racing mornings =)
shit is gonna hurt. Being down ~20 watts is pretty normal.
Trust me i am trying hard enough, the legs and muscles simply can not put the power out that i can easily hold on long training spins, i am talking 220-230watts as supposed to struggling to push out 160-170watts. Power meter always gets zero’d, the fact this has happened 3 times and only after a swim (common factor) in all of this is that something else could be at play. I have no problem hurting but such a large drop off as 60-70w is hugely concerning especially when you feel like you are fighting with the bike to get any sort of momentum going.
Did you mean swim/bike bricks?