Post 136 - Ripped to shreds

Well, another disaster. Another DNF. It’s becoming the norm to be honest. In the build-up to race day, I was almost waiting and expecting something to go wrong. I could hardly believe that I made it to the start line in great shape and in a great frame of mind. I really thought it was going to be my day. Even the weather was good. And then it went wrong…

The final taper week was good, I did what I had to do and felt good. My knee cleared up. I had to change my chain in the final week, but this was OK. The old one had stretched a bit, so I got a new one put on. No problem.

I knew I was in good shape. Based on previous Ironmans, and based on comparing my training to previous years, I thought as best and worst cases that I’d swim 55-65 minutes, ride 5:20-5:30, and run 3:20-3:35. Adding 10 minutes for transitions, this would give me a finishing time of somewhere between 9:45 and 10:20. I really expected to go under 10 hours. I was fairly certain that 9:45 would qualify. I thought it was reasonably likely that anything under 10 hours would have a good chance of qualifying, and anything between 10:00 and 10:30 would still have a chance, but not as good a chance.

The drive up on Friday with my brother was a nightmare. What should have taken less than 5 hours took 8 hours. Too much traffic and not enough road space. We drove up in convoy with Chris and Kim – Chris was also racing, in his first Ironman. I made registration with 5 minutes to spare. I went for a short bike ride when we got to our hotel, and then had dinner and went to bed. The hotel staff were great about microwaving my dinner and porridge. One less thing to worry about.

On Saturday I got everything ready, my mum and dad arrived from Northern Ireland, and we all went and racked our bikes and bike bags at T1, and our run bags at T2. The transition by the lake was an absolute muck bath, ankle deep in mud. I’ve never seen it as bad. With everything set up, we went back to the hotel, I went for a short run, Matt arrived, and we went to sleep early.

Optimism the day before

Sunday morning was no problem. I didn’t sleep too badly, I had my breakfast and we drove to the start. I loaded my drinks and Garmin onto the bike, and made a mental note to carry my bike out of transition. I didn’t want to get it covered in mud, and I didn’t want any mud to get onto the braking surfaces.

I put on my wetsuit, went for a short jog, did some arm windmilling and stretching, wished Chris a good race, wished everyone else a good day, and went to join the long queue of Ironman athletes snaking back from the swim start. Ironman UK used to be an in-water start. An in-water start at Ironman UK is no problem – it’s fresh water, not particularly cold, there’s no swell and no waves, there’s a lot of space and no mad dash to a close first turn buoy – it’s a long 800m to the first turn.

But for whatever reason, they’ve changed it to a land-based start. It’s a 2-lap swim and by the time they get over 2000 people in the water, the faster people are coming through to lap them. This isn’t particularly safe because slow swimmers often do breaststroke, which means the faster swimmers can get “mule kicks” to the face, and it can’t be very safe or enjoyable for the slower swimmers to have the faster people swimming over the top of them.

Anyway, it is what it is. I lined up very close to the front, hoping for a sub-60 minute swim. The pros started in the water at 5:55am. We were away at 6am. I was really calm in those 5 minutes. Here I was, unbelievably, against the odds, in great shape, with a great day and good weather ahead. Let’s do this.

The starting hooter went and we went down to the pontoon and jumped in. I noted the “no diving” signs. I was on the right hand side and jumped off the front right of the pontoon. It wasn’t even a “jump”, just a step down from the pontoon into the water. Nothing more or less than would have reasonably been expected. And with that, my day was ripped to shreds. The water couldn’t have been more than a foot deep and there were massive sharp rocks. About 15 or 20 people all piled in on top of each other before anyone realised what was going on. There was no warning, no pontoon marshals, no water marshals, no canoe marshals, nothing. Pretty bad organisation.

There was a lot of swearing and yells of pain. Everyone starting at the front would have been racing for a world championship qualification slot, and would have put a hell of a lot of time, effort, money and sacrifice into their preparation for this day. I know what I’ve been through to get to the start line. It was just unbelievable.

The shock and pain of it, and having people behind stumbling and suffering the same fate, meant we all just fell over, onto more rocks. I hurt/cut/injured the soles of my feet, my left shin, both knees, and both hands. I literally could not believe what had just happened.

I staggered my way out to deeper water and I swam on, but deep down I knew my day was ruined. My initial thoughts were that the sole of my left foot was cut, which would mean I’d struggle to cycle and run. As I continued to swim, I realised that when I kicked, my knees were sore and my shin was sore. I couldn’t kick properly. The palms of both hands were sore. But I couldn’t really look at the damage when I was swimming, I just battered on.

The first lap of the swim passed for me in around 29 minutes. If I hadn’t been injured, maybe it would have been a minute to two quicker. This would have been a great first lap. As I exited the water and ran over the timing mats, the sole of my left foot was really sore. I didn’t fancy a full marathon…

I got back into the water, and almost immediately started to lap the slower swimmers. Many were doing breaststroke, and I got two mule-kicks to the face. I can’t understand why Ironman UK doesn’t do an in-water start. You could be injured really badly by a breaststroke mule kick. The second lap was no fun, and I exited the water in 61 minutes. This wasn’t a bad swim to be honest, but my mind was full of dark, dark thoughts. I was raging. Race ruined. It should not have happened. Would I be able to cycle? Would I be able to run? I was also pretty sure that my wetsuit (worth £500, yes crazy money, I know) would also be ripped and ruined.

I made up my mind to get on the bike and try. In transition, I realised I had badly cut my left hand and it was bleeding a lot. I did what I had to do in transition and got away on the bike. To cut a long story short, the bike was 6 hours of misery. Because of where my hand was cut, there was pressure on the cut every time I got up off the aero bars (which was often, given the hilly and twisty nature of the course), so it never got a chance to congeal and stop bleeding. I had a cut on my right knee too. I literally bled for the whole 6 hours. To try to stop the bleeding and wipe away the blood, I had to wipe my hand every few minutes on my brand-new white aero triathlon top (worth over £100, yes, crazy money, I know).

Matt was watching from the first climb on Sheephouse Lane, having cycled out after the swim. He was cheering really enthusiastically, and I showed him my hand as I passed. He realised that things were not going good, and his reaction was like a balloon being deflated. He just went “Ahhhhhhhhh.”

I realised that the worst injury was to my right knee. It had a small cut, but I was more worried about what the impact on the rocks had done to it. It hurt every time I made a pedal stroke. It didn’t hurt to the point where I had to stop, but it didn’t help matters. I biked just under 6 hours, which was 30 minutes slower than I wanted. I got to the second transition area, got off the bike, and pretty quickly realised I wouldn’t be able to run.

Well-supported, in parts

I spent ages in transition and the medics insisted on cleaning out my cuts. Talk about pain… I took stock of the damage. The soles of my feet, although sore, weren’t cut. My calf compression tube was ripped, and I had a big cut on my left shin. My left hand was a mess. My right hand was sore. Both knees were sore. I tried to run out of transition and quickly realised that I would have to abandon. I wasn’t surprised.

I used a marshal’s phone to call Matt (a good lesson here is to always write the names and phone numbers of your spectators and emergency contacts on the back of your number). He had cycled into the centre of Bolton to the run course. He cycled out to meet me and we went to the finish area together, where I picked up my bags, got changed and ate junk food. Then we went to meet up with everyone else on the run course and cheer Chris on.

By now it was hot (this would have suited me), but Chris was going well, and he finished in just over 13 hours. A great effort. I was pleased for him, he had put a lot of effort in. I went through the motions for the rest of the day, getting back to the hotel, eating dinner (I couldn’t even be bothered with a pint) and then trekking back to the transition area to pick up our bikes, getting showered and cleaned up, going to bed, and driving back to London. I just was completely fed up. My injuries were sore.

Ironman Chris at the finish

I’ll probably write a letter to Ironman about what happened, but I doubt they’ll do anything. The clock can’t be wound back. There’s no compensation for all the time and effort and money and sacrifice that’s gone in. I don’t know what I will do now, but I really, really want to get out of London, and a big, big part of me wants to never do another Ironman race and build-up again because a big, big part of me is sick to death of it at this stage. So much effort and time and sacrifice and money, for what...?

It was even more galling to find out that the final Kona qualifier in my age group did 10:39. If you'd told me before the race that 10:39 would qualify, I would have smiled a giant smile.

Here’s the full misery story, with a new chapter to be added, entitled "Ironman UK 2016..."

Ironman UK 2011 (pre-London) – done on entry-level cheap bike, didn’t have a clue, 11^th in age group, good enough to plant the seed but ran out of money and couldn’t afford to try again.

Ironman UK 2013 – now working in London, got a new expensive bike (3 years to pay it off), was winning my age group with 10 miles left to run, started explosive vomiting and diarrhoea with no warning. Likely food poisoning from the hotel. Collapsed, game over, ambulance etc.

Ironman Wales 2013 – a few weeks later, not fully recovered, finished 5^th in age group. 5^th had been good enough at Ironman UK a few weeks previously. But slots only went to 4^th in Wales. Some slots “roll down”, because some people decline their slots for whatever reason – already qualified, for example. Usually a handful of slots roll down. Went to the awards ceremony. No slots rolled down. Gutted.

Ironman UK 2014 – I moved up to a tougher age group. I trained hard and was very fit, far better than in 2013, was looking to mix it with the pros. 2 weeks before the race, had a sports massage. Ended up in hospital for 3 days with horrendous leg infections. Went to the race anyway. Had nothing. DNF (Did Not Finish).

Ironman Wales 2014 – not fully recovered, went in desperation more than anything, I faded halfway through the marathon when I was in 6^th. 6^th would have done it. I couldn’t hang on. I don’t know where I finished.

Ironman UK 2015 – went through the 7-month build-up again, was optimistic going into the race. Monsoon conditions, freezing cold, windy. I was frozen, and my power output was terrible. Could not get going. Bad circulation in my frozen hands meant I couldn’t feed myself nor drink (both essential…) This sounds like excuses, I’m not making excuses, it wasn’t my day, but I’m skinny and don’t go well in the cold (6 feet 1 and only 66kg, I was "too skinny" for the conditions). I usually train indoors in 25-30 degree heat, I go well in warm conditions, not in cold.

Ironman Wales 2015 – trying to salvage my season, didn’t feel well the week before the race, ending up vomiting in the swim hanging off a lifeguard canoe, got frozen, got brought ashore, game over.

Training done in the final week before the race was as follows:

Mon 11 July: Rest
Tue 12 July: 1 hour turbo, 15 minute run
Wed 13 July: 30 minute bike, 15 minute run
Thu 14 July: Swim 1.5km
Fri 15 July: 15 minute bike
Sat 16 July: 10 minute run
Sun 17 July: Ironman UK

Post 135 - First week of tapering

This was the first of two taper weeks before the Ironman. All the hard training is done. All the work is done. There’s nothing more to gain. I just have to keep ticking over and maintaining, and get through two more weeks. Arguably these last two taper weeks are the toughest two weeks because although I don’t train hard when tapering, if anything goes wrong then there’s very limited time to put it right.

Anyway, being offered the opportunity to work from home for the final two weeks before race day removed a huge amount of stress – no commuting, no germ-infested trains, no germ-infested air-conditioned offices, more time, more sleep, things would be better all round. Every little helps, every marginal gain helps, and working from home is a big help. It's not something I would have been especially comfortable asking for (maybe I'd have asked for unpaid leave for a week or two) but it was offered and I was happy to accept - I think my local management team are sympathetic after some of the unwarranted stuff I've had to deal with this year. 

Fairly (very) true

It’s strange that after having been so focused, relentless and disciplined in training, for months and months on end, that tapering feels so lethargic and sluggish. It’s a big mental and physical relief to do the last tough training session and then to know that’s it, no more tough training, just a two-week taper and then a race. You expect to feel great in the taper, full of beans, full of energy, like an aircraft sitting on the end of a short runway with the engines on full blast but being held by the brakes. And with working from home, and the extra time I have due to not having to commute, I’m getting 10 hours in bed every night too, so I should be well-rested.

However in reality, I’ve found when tapering, you feel tired, you feel sluggish, it’s difficult to find motivation to do those remaining easy training sessions, and your body seems to not be your own – you feel niggles appear that you’ve never felt before, you feel washed-out, you almost feel like you are coming down with an illness or a bug.

But I suppose all this is a natural reaction to removing all the physical and mental stresses of training (and in my case, removing the commuting and working in an office too), the body just goes a little bit haywire and doesn’t really know what has hit it, and probably a lot of energy is diverted into repair and recovery from all the training done. And I said in previous posts, before I even started my taper, I had felt a bit sniffly and I had a bit of a niggly knee.

I read triathlon internet forums from time to time. I read with interest some of the comments on tapering :

Several times now, once I have physically & mentally taken a big sigh of relief as the long training ends, I get cold-like symptoms as the body starts trying to repair itself. The first time I was worried, but then it happen the next time too, and I was familiar with the way my body worked. Knowing your own body is very useful, something that comes with years of experience.

I remain bitter about how bad taper feels.

Going through my first proper training programme 5 years (?) ago I imagined how great taper would be, thinking I'd have a satisfied smile on my face with all the hard yakka banked, that I'd feel sleek, fit and confident and would be fizzing with energy and vitality - in the peak of health and barely able to hold myself back until the start. I couldn't wait for taper to start, especially during the last heavy block.

When I got there I spent the whole time feeling #@?#, full of doubt/worries, cold like symptoms and entered some sort of lazy mode where I'd not want to do even gentle sessions - and even when done they'd seem hard, clunky and make me feel even worse...

Learning to expect this, and see through it sufficiently to trust the training and know that this is part of the process took a while (and a few cock ups). I remain annoyed that it just feels so unpleasant though....

Anecdotally, I've heard a lot of this. We both get it, and I've heard of others guys talking of 'taper fatigue'. It's basically the body sorting itself out, and using a lot of 'energy' doing it. I can almost imagine all the little 'doozers' (remember fraggle rock?!) in my body focussing on repairs & stockpiling energy, at the expense of being able to 'operate normally'.

I've also had twinges all over my legs the days before an Ironman, then done a PB! I think some of it is psychosomatic.

I too am going through the taper madness currently. I feel like I have been 12 rounds with Mike Tyson! I am knackered, everything aches, I feel heavy legged, out of breath going upstairs etc.

I cannot be bothered. I think with taper you switch off and you start to think well it doesn't really matter. It is really hard to drag yourself out I find.

I’m glad it’s not just me who feels like this…

And then, when you finally get through the taper and get to the race, and you get through the swim and the adrenaline is pumping and you’re on the bike and really getting into the race, finally your legs will feel good, and the output will feel easier because you have tapered and are well-rested. This is a dangerous time. It’s all too easy to push a bit harder, even just a little bit harder than you should, and ruin your race. Any degree of overcooking on the bike will come back and bite hard in the second half of the marathon.

I plan to ride at around 220 watts for the Ironman bike. When I finally get onto the bike on race day, I expect 220 watts to feel easy, certainly for the first couple of hours. I’ll have to force myself to hold back, and not creep up to 230 or 240 watts. This would ruin my overall finish time. Indeed, for the first half-hour, I’ll try not to go much over 200 watts.

For context, for my 100-mile time trial last month, I averaged 263 watts, but for the first couple of hours, 270-280 watts felt absolutely fine. It wasn’t fine though, as my fade in the final 20 miles proved, when I was struggling to produce 240 watts. And it’s the same idea in the Ironman swim and the run. “Pace it, don’t race it.” And, paradoxically, “The slower you go, the faster you’ll go…”

Having finished off my tough training last weekend with a bit of a sore right knee, I decided that Monday and Tuesday this week would be complete rest days, to give the knee a chance to recover. And also to give the body in general a chance to rest and recover after all the training done. I did some foam rolling, took a couple of anti-inflammatories, and went to the osteopath as usual.

I mentioned to the osteopath that I had a bit of a sore right knee, and he had a look at it. I wish he’d told me what he was about to do because I’d have told him no way, but he got into the back of my knee and I almost jumped off the table in pain – the back of the knee is a delicate place and I didn’t want anyone touching it. I only had a minor niggle in the front of my knee that would probably (hopefully) clear in a few days by itself, but after this osteopath visit I now had a sore back of the knee too…

Thankfully, about 4-5 days later, both the front of the knee and the back of the knee seemed to have cleared up somewhat, so hopefully they will be OK for the race. They haven’t restricted me in terms of the training I’ve done this week, but I’ve been aware that they don’t feel 100%. Hopefully the final easy week before the race will see them back to normal. Fingers crossed.

I got on the turbo on Wednesday and did an easy hour, but with 5 sets of 2 minutes going a bit harder. I need to make sure I incorporate a little higher-intensity work into what I do while tapering. I went out for an easy run on Thursday, on grass around the park to reduce the impact on the body. I had an easy swim on Friday. I didn’t do much on Saturday – a few weights, some core work, foam rolling, and a lot of watching of the Tour de France on TV. With some cake… and some Guinness… tapering is about relaxing, right? It's about carbo-loading?

Nice-looking cake, but "sneaky bites"?! 

The whole thing was gone in about 2 seconds,

I literally can't stop eating...

Saturday’s Tour de France stage was in the Pyrenees, around where I worked in the summer of 2006. That’s ten years ago. Crazy. I worked in Saint-Lary-Soulan, between the Col d’Aspin and the Col d’Azet in the Aure valley. A magnificent part of the world. On my days off I was able to rent a bike and do some cycling – some of the mountains I rode up included the Col du Tourmalet, the Col d’Aspin (where I had my bad crash), the Col d’Azet, then Col de Peyresourde, Piau-Engaly and the Pla d’Adet.

I watched the 2006 Tour de France from the Col de Peyresourde and took a young, keen French kid (when I say kid, I mean kid – I was 21 and he couldn’t have bene more than 13) named Guilhem with me, who was staying at the holiday village where I worked. We cycled over the Col d’Azet and up to the top of the Peyresourde. He did really well, at such a young age, to get up those hautes montagnes en vélo. As we went up the Col de Peyresourde, a French TV crew drove alongside us and asked a few questions, then they stopped us and interviewed Guilhem. He was on the TV later that night. Pretty cool.

So I watched Saturday’s stage of the Tour with interest as it wound its way along the roads and over the mountains that I got to know pretty well back in 2006. Below is an antique photo from the top of the Col du Tourmalet – I had no cycling shoes, no cycling jersey, no mobile phone, no digital camera, and no clue or idea what I was doing. 10 years later, I might have all the gear now (bike shoes, bike jerseys, gadgets), but I still have no clue what I am doing…

I had planned to do a 2-hour turbo session followed by a short run on Saturday but I decided to have a rest day on Saturday to give my knee a bit more time to get better. It seemed to be on the mend, and an extra day would do it no harm. So on Sunday I got through 2-hours on the turbo, with a few short higher-intensity bursts thrown in. I followed this with a 25-minute run on grass. And that was week one of the taper.

I’ve been thinking about how much to carry on the bike in the Ironman. The lighter the weight, the faster I will go – the course is hilly and twisty. I’ve always carried two spare tubes, two inflation cartridges, one small hand pump, 2 x 1-litre bottles and 1 x 900ml front aero bottle. If I get a flat tyre, I’ll lose 5-10 minutes. If I get two flat tyres, I’ll lose so much time that qualifying will be off the cards. So I think I’ll only carry one spare tube and one inflation cartridge. Leaving out a cartridge, a tube and the pump will save me 250 grams (yes I checked). Also, instead of carrying 2 x 1 litre bottles, I’ll carry 2 x 750ml bottles, which will save 500 grams. And instead of a 900ml aero front bottle, I’ve got a new 750ml aero front bottle. So that saves 150 grams. This means I will have to do one extra water bottle pick-up at an aid station, but the total weight saving of almost 1kg will hopefully save me a couple of minutes.

I’ve also been doing my sums. Realistically, I think I will do the swim and first transition in 65 minutes. I hope to average between 20.5 and 21mph, which will be between 5:20 and 5:27 on the bike, so I hope to be starting the marathon after 6:25 or 6:30 or so. If I average 8 minutes per mile, I’ll finish in just under 10 hours, and if I can hold 7:40/mile then it’ll be around 9:45. I think 9:45 will have a chance of qualifying. 9:55 will have a lot less of a chance.

I’ve been on the juice this week, and will be on it next week too… the beetroot juice that is. Studies have shown that it can enhance athletic endurance, it’s good for the blood, is full of nitrates, and it is becoming popular. Every little edge helps… I’m still playing around with gear and kit, but fortunately the long-range weather forecast for Bolton looks good at this stage, so hopefully I won’t have to contend with rain. That’s a big plus for me. I don’t go well in wet and cold conditions. Hopefully race day will be a good day all round.

I ordered a few stickers from the internet.
I'll stick a few of these on the bike, 

they will obviously benefit my speed and fortune...

One week left… Come on body, give me one more week. Give me one good race…

Training done this week was as follows:

Mon 4 July: Rest
Tue 5 July: Rest
Wed 6 July: 1 hour turbo (5 x 2mins harder)
Thu 7 July: 25 min run
Fri 8 July: Swim 2.1km
Sat 9 July: Rest
Sun 10 July: 2 hour turbo (10 x 1min harder), 25 min run

Totals: Swim 2.1km, Bike 65 miles, Run 8 miles.

Post 134 - Ironman race performance thoughts

So far this week has been decent – working from home has been brilliant, I have lots more time, I’m easily getting 10 hours or more in bed every night now, I go out and sunbathe at lunchtime (getting sunlight on your skin is really important for health and wellbeing), there’s a lot less stress, and I’ve even managed to follow quite a lot of the Tour de France in the background.

My sniffles seem to be clearing up, which is great, but I can still feel something is not quite 100% with my right knee (and usually it’s my left knee that gives problems!) Saying that, I’ve managed an hour on the turbo trainer and a 30-minute run so far this week, and my knee didn’t restrict or limit either of these, so hopefully it will be OK.

The main topic of my blog this week is to post about a question I put to a couple of different internet forums at the end of last year, when I was thinking about 2016 and making plans, and wondering how I could improve.

Basically, I’m trying to work out how I can improve my Ironman running. I believe that if I could run to my potential in an Ironman, I would qualify for Kona. My standalone running PBs are as follows: 5K – 15 minutes. 10K – 32 minutes (OK, I lie, 33 minutes, but I have no doubt I was in 32-minute shape). 10 miles – 54 minutes. Half marathon – 71 minutes. Admittedly most of these PBs were done in 2005-2006, but I was back in 32-minute 10K shape in 2015. I’ve also run a 35-minute 10K in an Olympic-distance triathlon in 2015, and this was on an undulating trail. So I’m not a bad runner, but I’m really not a great Ironman runner and not a great long-distance runner.

I know a bit about Ironman bike pacing and nutrition, but not much is ever said about Ironman swim pacing. So I wondered if I was swimming too hard in the Ironman, and if this was coming back to bite me later in the Ironman race. I put this to a couple of different online triathlon forums (TriTalk and SlowTwitch). I had no idea what sort of response I would get, but I ended up with 16 pages of thought, advice and ideas…!

I condensed the 16 pages down into what I thought was the most useful or relevant (for me) information, and it is summarised in the blog post below (edited into sections). It's all interesting, and I have taken some of it on board and applied some of it. Thanks to everyone who replied!

QUESTION (written at the end of 2015)

Hi all. I am assessing next year and how I can improve in an Ironman.

My question is, how “hard” should you swim an Ironman swim? I am wondering if I swim too hard, and then pay for it later in the Ironman race.

Background and information relevant to this question:

I am trying to qualify for Kona and my previous splits look like this:

IMUK 2011: Swim under 58 minutes, bike 5:55 (on a cheap, badly set-up, poorly-fitted road bike), run 3:22 (course about 1.5 miles short).

IMUK 2013: Swim under 56 minutes (course probably a bit short), bike 5:30 (on a good well fitted TT bike), DNF run (got to 16 miles and then uncontrollable diarrhoea)

IM Wales 2013: Swim 61 minutes, bike 5:53, run 3:34

IMUK 2014: a write off

IM wales 2014: Swim 64 mins (rough sea), bike 5:43, run 3:50something (fell apart in second half)

IMUK and Wales 2015: both write offs

My 1500m pool time (in-water start, 25m pool, no tumble turning) is just under 23 minutes.

In normal Ironman training I manage to swim twice a week, 3000-4000m per session.

On the bike, you can work out your FTP and then ride to a pre-defined percentage of that value to optimise your bike-run split times, but swimming is not factorised into this. I guess over-swimming could ruin your day and you wouldn’t even know it until well into the marathon.

If you were to take your 1500m swim time as a “swim FTP” (in my case, 22:50 for 1500m = 1:31 per 100m), how much slower should an Ironman swim pace per 100m be? Obviously this would assume a non-wetsuit Ironman swim, without wearing a swim skin, in calm, warm-ish fresh water. How would wearing a wetsuit affect this Ironman swim pace?

Or another crude way to measure it would be to say that if I rode 3:59 for a 100 mile bike time trial and notionally designated that 10 out of 10 for effort (i.e. rode as fast as possible, tank completely empty by the end), I’d say my Ironman bike effort level would be about a 7 out of 10. If my 1500m swim time trial was 10 out of 10 for effort (i.e. destroyed at the end of it), what level of effort would the Ironman swim feel like?

Any thoughts would be welcomed, many thanks!

Some people asked for more information, so I did go into more detail about different aspects of my Ironman racing, pacing, nutrition, hydration and training. Some of the responses below are based on having this further information. The "full treatment" is below:

MORE INFO PROVIDED (again written at the end of 2015)

Thanks for all the replies everyone. To answer the main queries that people were asking (and this is going to be quite a long post, so please stick with it) 

Full Ironman history: 

Ironman UK 2011 (before a full-time job) – M25-29 - done on rubbish, cheap bike, badly fitted, didn’t have a clue, 11th in age group, good enough to plant the seed but ran out of money and couldn’t afford to try again. 

Ironman UK 2013 – M25-29 - now working full-time, got a new expensive bike, was winning my age group with 10 miles left to run, started explosive vomiting and diarrhoea with no warning. Possible food poisoning/body not liking hotel food (greasy roast potatoes, sloppy veg and greasy chicken). Collapsed, game over, ambulance etc. Lesson learned, bring own food. Also likely I started too quick in the run – was on 3:20 pace at half distance, so probably started the run at 3:15 pace… lesson learned again. 

Ironman Wales 2013 – M25-29 - a few weeks later, not fully recovered, finished 5th in age group. 5th had been good enough at Ironman UK a few weeks previously. But slots only went to 4th in Wales. Some slots “roll down”, because some people decline their slots for whatever reason – already qualified, for example. Usually a handful of slots roll down. Went to the roll down ceremony. No slots rolled down. Gutted. Marathon pacing slowed, but this was probably my “best” Ironman marathon. 

Ironman UK 2014 – M30-34 - I moved up to a tougher age group. I trained hard and was very fit, far better than in 2013 (I know this from the numbers in training and warm-up events), I was hoping I’d be close to the pros. (2013 100TT in 4:14, 2014 100TT on same course in same conditions in 3:59. So 5:30 IMUK bike from 2013 would translate to sub 5:20 for 2014 I thought. 2 weeks before the race, had a sports massage. Ended up in hospital for 3 days with horrendous leg infections. Went to the race anyway. Had nothing. DNF (Did Not Finish). 

Ironman Wales 2014 M30-34 – not fully recovered, went in desperation more than anything, trying to salvage something from the season, the wheels came off halfway through the marathon when I was in 6th. 6th would have done it. I couldn’t hang on. I don’t know where I finished. I was 29 when I raced this race (was 30 a couple of months later) and my finish time would have qualified me in the 25-29 age group… 

Ironman UK 2015 M30-34 – went through the 7-month build-up again, was optimistic going into the race. Monsoon conditions, freezing cold, windy. I was frozen, and my power output was terrible. Bad circulation in my frozen hands meant I couldn’t feed myself nor drink (both essential…) This sounds like excuses, I’m not making excuses, it wasn’t my day, but I’m skinny and don’t go well in the cold. I train indoors in 25-30 degree heat, I go well in warm conditions, not in cold. 

Ironman Wales 2015 M30-34 – trying to salvage my season, didn’t feel well the week before the race, ending up vomiting uncontrollably for about 15 minutes in the swim while hanging off a lifeguard canoe, literally thought I was going to barf my guts up, got frozen, got brought ashore, game over. 

Other triathlon history – 2 x Olympic triathlons. 2:04 best on good bike but had a problem with my pump so rode at 70psi rather than 110psi. Swam 22 minutes, biked just over an hour, ran 35mins (it was a trail run and was mucky and wet). 

Other running history – ran 1:11 half marathon without a clue, off 25 miles per week, and no taper, on a freezing cold wet day in north Scotland. This was 9 years ago. Got my running back to this level earlier this year and ran 33 minute 10K on a cold and wet and hilly course in north Scotland (so would have been sub-33 on a better day/course). I can run 60/70 minutes hard, with no problems. Anything above that wrecks my legs and takes ages to recover from. I haven’t got great biomechanics and seem to get leg fatigue quite quickly after half marathon distance (maybe I’d be better suited to half ironman, but Kona is the goal). 

I’ve never been coached but have read a lot and listened to running clubmates before I became a triathlete and have tried to apply theory and lessons learned to refine my training to do what I think is necessary with the time I have available (not in a tri or cycling club due to time constraints). 

I’m just a fraction over 6 feet tall and race weight is approx. 68kg (I don’t aim for this weight, that’s just what my equilibrium weight is when I’m training properly). I don’t limit my food intake when I train but I do eat very good and clean food). So I am very lean. Maybe a reason why I seem to struggle with the latter stages of the run in an Ironman, but can blitz an Olympic from start to finish and run really strongly (34-35 minute 10K in an Olympic tri). 

In “full” ironman training I would average 6-8k swimming per week (2 sessions), 8 hours on the bike (4 sessions), and 25-30 miles running (4 sessions per week), I’d do this for 2 weeks than have an easier week, then repeat the cycle for 6-7 months. Rarely have massage, but do lots of stretching/core/weights work. 

In previous years (2013, 2014, 2015), I was basically doing: 

2-3 hard swims per week (1 continuous, 1 intervals/drills with paddles/floats) 
4 bikes per week (1 hour hard, 1:20 intervals, 4-5 hours and 1 hour single leg drills) 
5 runs per week (1 fartlek or tempo (30-50 minutes), 1 long (2 hours), 3 easy) 
Weights, core and stretching about 4 times per week. 

I did this in 2013, 2014 and 2015 for 6-7 months starting in January and ended up being completely burned out by the summer. And have never put it together in a summer Ironman. 

In 2016 I intend to do the following: 

2 swims per week (1 hard, 1 easy) 
2-3 bikes per week (1 hard (intervals or hard tempo), 1 long, 1 easy) 
3 runs per week (1 hard (tempo or intervals or long), 2 easy) 

I will be eliminating 3 hard sessions per week, my key in 2016 is to stay fresh and trust that what I do will be enough. Let's see how summer 2016 will go... 

Ironman UK and Ironman Wales have very slow, hilly bike courses, poor roads, loads of tight twists and turns, no rhythm, often windy, no good aero stretches. Don’t underestimate how slow they are. Sub-5 for a pro would be a very good time on these courses. I reckon if 2014 had gone to plan, I’d have done 5:20 at IMUK bike. Sub-10 at Wales would give you a shout of winning your age group. Sub-10 at Bolton would give you a shout of an age-group podium. 

My Ironman race calorie intake is based on roughly 50 calories per gel, 350 calories per energy bar and 500 calories per litre of energy drink. I have never talked with a nutritionist but I have read a lot online and based my Ironman race intake on stuff I have read. 

Pre race breakfast – porridge with honey, raisins, chia seeds and a few nuts – approx. 400 calories 
Pre-start gel – 100 calories 
T1 gel – 100 calories 

Bike (let’s say 5 and a half hours on the hilly UK/Wales course) 
2 x gels per hour and one portion of an energy bar per hour = 1100 calories from gels and 1500 calories from bars. Plus another 700 calories from energy drink (2 small bottles), plus 2 small bottles of water, plus 2 small bottles of zero-calorie electrolyte drink. 
Total bike calories = 3300 calories 
Total bike liquid intake = 4-5 litres 

For the bike, I seem to be averaging around 600 calories per hour, and 700-900ml liquid per hour (mostly water) 

Run (let’s say 3:20 run) 2-3 gels per hour with water = 833 calories, plus let’s say another 500 calories from pretzels and energy drink = approx. 1300 calories for the run. Probably would take on board something like 1.5 litres of liquid (mostly water, some energy drink/coke towards the end). I am always absolutely so horribly hungry on the run, but I’m almost always very hungry, food just seems to burn off immediately. I eat dinner and 20 minutes later I’m hungry again. 

For the run I estimate that I average around 400 calories per hour and 500ml liquid (mostly water) per hour. 

Total calories for the Ironman from liquid and gels and bars from just before swim start (not including breakfast) until race end = 4800 calories. 

Data for my bikes is sketchy. I have no data from 2013 as I didn’t have a heart rate monitor nor a power meter. I had a heart rate monitor in 2014, but no power meter. I had both in 2015. 

In 2014 I did 3:59 for 100 mile TT and my heart rate average was 160bpm. Pacing was very slightly off (average went from about 25.4mph to 25.0 in the last hour) but it was a good showing. 

The only Ironman bike power data I have is for 2015 at IMUK but this was a total write-off as there was a freezing monsoon on the bike and I completely froze (don’t deal well with cold and do most of my training indoors on the turbo in 23-27 degree heat – I do what I have to do). 

In 2015 I biked 5:58 in IMUK. In 2013 I biked 5:30 on basically the same course, and in 2014 I thought I would bike 5:20 or better based on the 3:59 100TT in 2014 and 4:14 100TT on the same TT course in identical conditions in 2013, but the 2014 IM was a write off. TSS for IMUK 2015 (for what it’s worth which isn’t much) was 292, IF 0.70, normalised power 215 watts, average power 201 watts, average HR 142bpm, variability index 1.0697, normalised w/kg = 3.16w/kg, average watts/kg = 2.96w/kg. But this was so far from a true reflection of a “normal” Ironman bike that it is almost useless data, because I was so cold and could not get warm. 

My FTP in April earlier this year after 3 months of focused training was 324W in the 20 minute test, which gives 307W for an hour. This was on a turbo trainer indoors. I’d like to think I improved on this by May/June, but I did another test in the summer time in my room and despite the fan and the open window, the room temperature was 28-30 degrees and the test didn’t go well, and I dropped off dramatically. One thing I need to do for 2016 is more biking outdoors on my road bike. 

For the IM bike, usually the pace doesn’t drop off too much in the second half, when I have done a “good” IM bike, I have felt pretty good throughout, but obviously you are keen to get off the bike after 70 miles etc. One thing I have noticed is that my heart rate drops 10bpm when I get up from the aero bars into a more upright position, but my power stays the same. I don’t know why. My bike was fitted by a really good fitter and my position is a conservative Ironman position, not a ridiculous aero position. I’ve posted about this on forums, and most people say that their heart rate drops when they get down into the aero position. I’m the opposite… I have recently widened the elbow pads to try to open my chest up and I will see if that makes a difference. I hope it will, because there’s a big difference between riding at 145bpm and riding at 155bpm. 

I don’t have a 200m pool time, but based on interval sessions I have done, I would like to think I could do 200m from an in-water start without tumble turns in a 25m pool in 2:40, but this is purely an estimate. If I remember right, I’ve done a 400m time trial in something like 5:40, no tumble turns, 25m pool, in water start. 

The second half of the IM run is always horrendous for me. Standalone, my running is pretty good. My Olympic tri running is also pretty good. I’ve never done a half ironman. My Ironman running is terrible (IM marathon PB is 3:22 but the course was 1.5 miles short, so my actual ironman marathon PB is 3:34 (albeit on a hilly twisty Wales course). But in one of my Olympic triathlons, I outran a guy who has run sub 3:05 in an Ironman. 

Any further opinions would be welcomed… 

Responses are below:

SWIM

I would increase your swim frequency if you can. IMO swim frequency beats out one or two big days of swimming each week. And make sure you do work in the water, don't waste time with too much easy easy swimming.

If you draft well in the swim that can help a lot too. That's a lot of free speed.

It is not good if you are tired after the swim. And it becomes even worse if you are also a little undertrained on the bike as well. Good FTP and running speed might not overcome the tiredness!

As for the swim, it’s a low tempo. It's slightly harder than easy, so is the bike, and to a lesser degree the run. You not going easy, but it should never ever feel hard at all until the last 10 miles of the run when fatigue sets in. Through the whole swim and first 80-90 miles of the bike, you should be telling yourself to slow down.

In particular this guy asks: "Am I swimming too hard?" My answer is yes. "With the swim volume you are doing- almost any speed (even slow) would be a little too hard. And you are not going slow." I was a collegiate swimmer. But- if I did a 56 minute swim, and was only doing 8000m/wk (on my hard weeks) - I would be pretty tired afterward. And if I then did a hard bike? - I would be even more tired. (And every 112 mile bike is hard for me- I only do 8 hrs of mostly easy cycling per week). I might be able to hold shit together, if I had ultra-marathon running type run training under my belt. (But a max of 30 miles/wk doesn't meet this requirement).

I typically swim in the 1:05-1:08 range for IM but I'm literally just going through the motions to get to the bike. I could invest another 3-5hrs per week training to get down to 60min but I think that time is better spent elsewhere for me. The IM bike shouldn't be HARD for anyone that has put in the training time. It may be boring and tiring but if it feels like you are going hard then you're in trouble come marathon time.

Honestly just one extra hour a week of swimming would probably be enough.

People really don’t pay the swim the respect it’s due.

You're not coming out of the water in the lead so it's a time to not lose any time, find a decent small group and draft. Be prepared to put in a good effort at the start to find that group and maybe put in an effort to jump up a group, but you don't really want to tow others, so probably a steady 6/7 with periods of 9.

But as a coaching point and judging by what you say I’d spend a lot of focus on going at 1:30ish pace but making it as easy as possible. So work on efficiency at that pace and so that your 3k sessions are all at 1:30 pace. Then hopefully it will be easy to hold it for 3.8k.

You should practice your open water skills to death. Drafting, sighting and making sure you swim in all weathers is absolutely essential.

Make sure you learn to swim in a group comfortably and accept sometimes it’s better to draft in a group and be a bit slower than to go it alone and have them catch you before the exit.

My penny's worth is that you should swim the first 300m/400m or so 'hard' then the rest 'moderate', with the odd 'hard' bit to catch good drafts going by. The idea of swimming the first bit 'hard' is that you will be swimming with people who are faster than you and so you will get a better draft.

What does hard mean? If you can do 400m in 5:40 all out then I'm guessing 'hard' is just under 6:00 per 400m and 'moderate' is around 6:20 per 400m.

My guess is that you are short on both the bike and the swim training volumes.

Your swim effort will have a limited impact on the rest of the race,...as long as you don't red-line all the way through.

BIKE

Even with power monitoring you still may be over-doing it on the bike.

I suspect even pacing on the bike is a major factor and going out too fast on the run. IM is often about discipline.

The number one culprit when someone with good running ability runs poorly is execution on the bike. Nutrition could also be a factor. He has a power meter so that is unacceptable.

You shouldn't need to pee on the bike at all. When I KQ'd at Frankfurt in 2013, I didn't pee at all during the race, I drank to thirst, but obviously my thirst reflex seem to work.

As for peeing on the bike, I would suggest a max of 1 if you really hydrate

I think you should carry less weight on the bike

I've always viewed the first 45 mins - 1hr on the bike more critical than the swim intensity.

Get the nutrition going early, get the HR down ASAP and settle into smooth, efficient pedalling with no hard efforts and you will probably 'recover' from slightly overcooking the swim.

IMO going 10-15 watts below race intensity over this first hour pays you back over the duration.

Doing a couple of fasted, low intensity morning runs (1 for 30 mins, and 1 for 1hr 15 or so) and then starting my long weekend bike fasted was one of the key changes to my qualification by giving me a new ability to use fat as fuel. I kept the number of hours (average 12 per week the same) and only other change was a weekly over-geared turbo session. Before, despite normally having a cast iron stomach, I was always too reliant on carbs. You definitely increase your fuel quantity by being more fat enabled.

RUN

Point being, your Kona success or failure is not going to depend much on your swim, but rather how well you run off the bike.

You have to figure out how to nail a strong run.

Change your whole race focus to: "the race begins at mile 15 on the run" up to that point, cruise... If your last 11 miles of the run (really your last 6) are strong, you will make up a bunch of places and THAT'S where you will KQ.

Relative to your half marathon run training, are you putting the miles in to allow you to run a marathon close to your potential?

Putting together a good run is the key.

Are you doing enough long training runs as your 100TT seems fast compared to your IM times, so over biking doesn't look like an issue. This only really leaves nutrition or lack of run conditioning to explain your poor running. Running a 1:11 half is excellent, but it doesn't predict a fast marathon unless you've conditioned for the longer distance. This will be even more important when running a marathon after the swim bike. In essence, I doubt the problem is with the pace you swim at.

25-30 miles per week running seems extremely light for someone trying to KQ.

This guy should be able to run low 3 hours or faster in the IM if he reaches his potential.

I also reckon that rather than banging out swim/bike/run all year, you need to put in a run focus to develop your run endurance. Now is a good time to start. The key to this is not to run fast, google Maffetone to get an idea, but don't be a slave to his arbitrary rules. When I've done it, I've run every day, building up to an hour, but capping my average HR to 120bpm (my max is 172, IM run HR 130). You will find that your speed gradually creeps up over the weeks. Once it stops creeping up, you have probably got a decent aerobic endurance for running and can build in more swim/bike. I've found that once you've built this endurance, it stays with you for quite some time, so just repeat each winter.

Build up some run specific strength to help with the tail end of the ironman run. It’s about not slowing down and being strong is what helps there. Run every day. Even 30mins.

The leg fatigue could just be that you're not well conditioned for more than half marathon.

NUTRITION

You could be over-doing the nutrition, so I would experiment with less.

Your bike Calories at ~ 2.2g/kg of CHO are on the order of at least 50% if not more than most would consider reasonable. The liquid may well be high as well for cold conditions. Your experience with diarrhoea might be related to over-consumption of both.

If you’re hungry starting the run, then you didn't eat enough on the bike or weren't pacing evenly and burned through a lot of glycogen.

He is taking 600 cal (I thought 300) per hour on the bike, likely with very high protein in the energy bars…probably 600-700 calories of protein and 1500 of solid food…that is crazy, and unnecessary.

Related to the nutrition advice here - your race nutrition plan is something you should absolutely have developed and dialed in during training. I do very few long steady rides at IM effort but I take advantage of those opportunities to practice my nutrition using the same products and amounts I would for racing to see how it works. You want to find the max calories your body can handle comfortably but that takes some trial and error. It's best not to find those errors during a race :) I go into IM with a very specific nutrition plan knowing how many calories and how much fluids I'm targeting throughout the bike. That doesn't guarantee nothing will go wrong but at least I know it SHOULD be okay because I've done race simulations to develop the plan.

You appear to be having too many calories on the bike, which will result in your body rejecting them when you get to the run. You need a calorie range from 272 - 467 per hour.

It does seem a lot of energy intake on the bike. 467kcal/hr is ~117g/hr which still seems quite high when you consider that most people would top out at 60-90g/hr when trained on a product.

3300kcal over 5.5hrs is 600kcal/hr = 150g/hr. Bleurgh.

I have done similar and paid for it!

I'm using the simplest possible calories in Maltodextrin/fructose. Start including bars and fruit in that and it probably lowers the possible intake as the stomach has more work to do. I too learnt this the hard way, a portaloo is not where you want to be on a hot day in Lanzarote.

I'm no expert but isn't that a lot of liquid to be taking in on the bike?

You clearly have the bike and based on TT times are not nailing it too hard that should have a detrimental impact on the marathon. However that is what is happening. Therefore, my tuppence is your nutrition.

Your carb intake is very high. Unless you have a cast iron stomach, it is likely too high. Hence why you likely can not execute the run you are capable of.

But yes, somewhere you are doing something wrong given those stand-alone times for the bike and run. Nutrition? Eating too much? Running too hard too soon? Hilly courses where you pushed too hard on the hills?

Regarding nutrition, you have to understand some of the physiological limitations to digestion during exercise. Your body needs blood to digest food. But it also needs blood to carry O2 to your muscles and to cool your body (or warm it in v cold races). The harder you work, the less blood you have available for digestion. So what happens when you have too much food in your stomach when the body has not enough blood available for digestion, is it just rejects the food out the back door which is what you've experienced.

All I have read/heard on podcasts over the last three years would suggest that you are over eating/drinking.

I'd second the suggestion to read Waterlogged to at least start thinking about your actual need for water and electrolytes. And just maybe the run might get to be more comfortable

TRAINING VOLUME

I don't see the need for rocket science.
Here we have a guy who is doing:
1) Less swimming than he probably should
2) Less running than he probably should
3) He might be doing enough cycling. But certainly not more than enough. (Does such a thing even exist for the Ironman bike).

Sure - if he perfects his nutrition, pacing, etc., etc. he MIGHT be 30 minutes faster.

But if he just added an extra 1 hr of swimming, one extra easy run and maybe increased his long run a little (or added a second run that day)- he would be 30 minutes faster anyway.

THEN - if he were to perfect his pacing, nutrition, etc- he might win the AG race- not just merely KQ.

I don't necessarily agree. Sure he COULD be training more but I don't think his training volume is the primary reason why a 1:11 half marathon guy (granted it was 9 years ago) is running 3:30+ for IM. He should be able to easily go 3:20 off the training he outlined assuming he doesn't completely dick up his bike pacing and nutrition.

If you want to KQ, you need to aim for double your volume at peak times.

Maybe you need double that volume but I certainly don't and wouldn't blindly prescribe it to any athlete I coach. His average is about exactly what I do for my 8-10 week race prep block. Of course we know nothing of the specifics of those workouts but that is sufficient volume for me to podium and KQ.

I'm pretty confident he can improve his performance significantly without any increase in volume. I'd want to improve the quality of his training and maximize his race execution first and then decide if more is necessary. That's just my personal approach. Some people feel it's all about volume. I simply don't have time to train 30hrs, plus work full time, maintain my relationship, and still be able to recover and absorb that much work so I focus on quality over quantity.

15-18 hours per week should be enough, so tweaking a few things here and there should be all you need to do regarding training. It sounds like a coach could help, but you also seem to be training pretty sensibly too, especially knowing your limitations re injury. It really does seem to mostly be coming down to race execution therefore.

15-18hrs per week is plenty. It has to fit within the rest of your life.

EXECUTION

This has nothing (ok very little) to do with training Swim Bike or Run. He is a 1:11 HM and 32 10km but can't get below 3:30 at IM marathon. That's execution, he's bonking.

It's all about execution, which is poor, because you just don't know, which is what a coach is for.

To me based on your information, it's solely based on lack of experience. Your stand-alone numbers are so much faster than your IM numbers, you just need more experience. I would start playing with your nutrition and pacing for both bike and run during your long training sessions to find something that works better for you. As a stud runner, you should be able to bike your brains out and still just cruise and easy 3:15 marathon. If you're actually in 32 10k shape, 7:10s are cake walk and shouldn't even feel like you’re running at all for first 18 miles. Heck that's probably your easy training long run pace...

Of course, weather is a huge factor for you so if possible pick a better more reliable weather race that suits you. Or if you're stuck with crappy weather stuff, train in crappy weather to prepare yourself mentally and determine your best attire for the conditions.

IM is a long day even if you are going under 10hrs and it definitely takes some mental toughness and focus to take advantage of your physical abilities.

You have a lot of latent talent, and are a coach's dream. I'd love to coach you.

With your speed, you will qualify for Kona. You just need to find the formula right for you.

I have nothing to contribute to this, other than to say that when he pulls everything together in a single race, a Kona spot looks nailed on.

So, my advice would be:
- consider a coach
- learn to draft in the water
- dial in your nutrition
- ease up more on the bike
- start the run no faster than 3:30 pace for the first 15 miles
- find a warmer, flatter IM to race
- slightly up your run training volume while lowering some of the intensity

ALL THE ANSWERS

And for anyone that’s interested, the full 16 pages of replies, unedited, are below. Food for thought!

I would increase your swim frequency if you can. IMO swim frequency beats out one or two big days of swimming each week. And make sure you do work in the water, don't waste time with too much easy easy swimming.

In general - you don't want to burn too many (or any) matches in the swim. I would make your goal to get as fit and fast as possible in the water and swim at a pace and more importantly and effort that leaves you feeling fresh coming out of the water.

I did my first Ironman this year and training wise I was able to hit 20 x 100m on a 1:40 interval coming in around 1:24 and would do a lot of my easy swimming around a 1:32-1:35 pace. Swam a 1:00 and felt very in control the entire time.

You are clearly a pretty good swimmer. As such, as long as you are swim fit, you could push reasonably hard in the swim without much detriment to your overall race. Equally, however, as long as you swim sub-60 mins you will still be comfortably in the mix (come T1) for a Kona slot. Point being, your Kona success or failure is not going to depend much on your swim, but rather how well you run off the bike. You have had some solid IM runs, and the ability to run fast is key for a KQ. "Strong swim-bikers" (who are weaker runners) generally do not qualify for Kona. Great runners who can avoid losing too much time in the swim and have strong bikes will KQ.

So I understand your focus on the swim - you want to trim time wherever you can, without burning matches - but really your swim won't play a major factor in your effort to KQ, IMO. Instead you have to figure out how to nail a strong run.

Sure - maybe you could back off the swim effort a touch, but this is not likely your issue. If you draft well in the swim that can help a lot too. Are you a good swim drafter? I swam 65 mins in my last IM and I was cruising at a very easy pace, mainly because I drafted teh whole way.

As to your run, I think 3:15 would be a more realistic marathon goal that should still give you a good shot at KQ. But yes, somewhere you are doing something wrong given those stand-alone times for the bike and run. Nutrition? Eating too much? Running too hard too soon? Hilly courses where you pushed too hard on the hills?

"Reasonable hard" is the right pace for an Ironman swim.
You could do 4000m reasonable hard without having good swim fitness. But you will be slower than a fit swimmer who is taking it easy AND you will be more exhausted than the guy who wins the age group swim.

I would train so that I can swim 4000m easy.
But race it "moderately hard."

Def learn how to draft well in the swim. That's a lot of free speed, esp in a mass start IM.
You could be over-doing the nutrition, so I would experiment with less.
Even with power monitoring you still may be over-doing it on the bike.
If you're a 1:11 half marathon runner you can't have too bad biomechanics!
Change your whole race focus to: "the race begins at mile 15 on the run" up to that point, cruise... If your last 11 miles of the run (really your last 6) are strong, you will make up a bunch of places and THAT'S where you will KQ.

Have you ruled out pacing/nutrition on the rest of the race?

Re nutrition, you have to find your own balance, but try experimenting when you do, say, a metric IM in training. A friend of mine who's now close to turning pro went sub-9 hours on 830 calories. He takes on no solids and only drinks UCAN, and take very few calories on the run (he's a bit of a freak!). You probably need more, and it will depend on other factors such as temperature, hills etc. but you may be over-doing it. Consider consulting with an experienced sports nutritionist. If you're trying to KQ you should not be guessing on nutrition.

Agree. My vote is for significantly over cooking the bike overall, regardless of not spiking power on climbs.

You do reference using power and not spiking the hills, so I assume your VI would have been a bit better than mine, but could it be improved? Burn a few less matches?

*Edit* - relative to your half marathon run training, are you putting the miles in to allow you to run a marathon close to your potential?

There is a minimum training volume theory for Ironman.
And that if you do less than that volume, the easiest way to improve is simply to reach that volume.
Do you think you are there?


I think for me the minimum volume is around:
Swim - 13,000 m/week
Bike - 8 hrs
Run- 70 k

My guess is that you are short on both the bike and the swim.

The swim is not very important. (It is only 1 hr in the race).
But it is not good if you are tired after the swim - not just a little out of breathe.
And it becomes even worse if you are also a little undertrained on the bike as well.
(8 hrs is a lot of cycling!)
Good FTP and running speed might not overcome the tiredness!

I can't recommend a strategy not knowing anything more about you. One is to take in as many carbs as you can (without causing GI distress); the other is training your body to be fat burning and then take in few carbs during the race. You'd have to try both to know what works.

For shorter races I use power a bit more than heart rate, but for longer races I tend to use heart rate a bit more. Either works as long as you pick a realistic target. There's plenty of posts on here about pacing

-are you properly training for the ironman?
-have you looked at your hidration/nutrition?
-what are your Olympic/HIM results?

Regardless of your ability and fitness, there are several possible strategies to employ on race day.

1. Go hard and hang on as long as you can. (possible, but stupid, trust me :-( )
2. Go at a moderate pace that you're comfortable with. Not too fast, not too slow, just right.
3. Cruise the swim, save your energy for later in the IM. You won't lose much time compared with 1 or 2 above, so chill, ease into the day and hammer the bike and/or run.

I've used all 3 strategies at various times. Twice I tried to go sub 60 minutes but conditions on the day meant I missed out by 2 minutes each time. My T1 time was 10 minutes, punishment for being an idiot. Other times I've cut back the effort and ended up just 2 minutes back, more than saving those 2 minutes in T1. You do the math ;-)

This has nothing (ok very little) to do with training S B or R. He is a 1:11 hm and 32 10km but can't get below 3:30 at IM marathon.

That's execution, he's bonking.

Putting together a good run is the key.

Maybe I've missed this earlier in the thread, but are you doing enough long training runs as your 100TT seems fast compared to your IM times, so over biking doesn't look like an issue. This only really leaves nutrition or lack of run conditioning to explain your poor running. Running a 1:11 half is excellent, but it doesn't predict a fast marathon unless you've conditioned for the longer distance. This will be even more important when running a marathon after the swim bike. In essence, I doubt the problem is with the pace you swim at.

For the bike, I seem to be averaging around 600 calories per hour, and 700-900ml liquid per hour (mostly water)

Your bike Calories at ~ 2.2g/kg of CHO are on the order of at least 50% if not more than most would consider reasonable. The liquid may well be high as well for cold conditions. Your experience with diarrhea might be related to over consumption of both.

you have a lot of latent talent, and are a coach's dream. I'd love to coach you. Easy low hanging fruit to get you to where you want to go.

Lots of good advice on this thread, but the most important point is MauriceMaher's .... it's all about execution, which is poor, because you just don't know, which is what a coach is for.

To me based on your information, it's solely based on lack of experience. Your stand-alone numbers are so much faster than your IM numbers, you just need more experience. I would start playing with your nutrition and pacing for both bike and run during your long training sessions to find something that works better for you. As a stud runner, you should be able to bike your brains out and still just cruise and easy 3:15 marathon. If you're actually in 32 10k shape, 7:10s are cake walk and shouldn't even feel like your running at all for first 18 miles. Heck that's probably your easy training long run pace...

Of course, weather is a huge factor for you so if possible pick a better more reliable weather race that suits you. Perhaps, IMLOU which is almost always HOT or IMTX rather than getting screwed by freezing cold conditions. Or if you're stuck with crappy weather stuff, train in crappy weather to prepare yourself mentally and determine your best attire for the conditions.

25-30 mpw running seems extremely light for someone trying to KQ.

I suspect even pacing on the bike is a major factor. Going out too fast on the run. IM is often about discipline. Gauging what your capable of based on training metrics, evaluating how you are feeling during the race, then adjusting accordingly. IF your hungry starting the run, then you didn't; eat enough on the bike or weren't; pacing evenly and burned through a lot of glycogen.

As for the swim, its' a low tempo. It's slightly harder than easy, so is the bike, and to a lesser degree the run. You not going easy, but it should never ever feel hard at all until the last 10 miles of the run when fatigue sets in. Through the whole swim and first 80-90 miles of the bike, you should be telling yourself to slow down.

The number one culprit when someone with good running ability runs poorly is execution on the bike. Nutrition could also be a factor. He has a power meter so that is unacceptable.

I don't see the need for rocket science.
Here we have a guy who is doing:
1) Less swimming than he probably should
2) Less running than he probably should
3) He might be doing enough cycling. But certainly not more than enough. (Does such a thing even exist for the Ironman bike).

Sure - if he perfects his nutrition, pacing, etc., etc. he MIGHT be 30 minutes faster.

But if he just added an extra 1 hr of swimming, one extra easy run and maybe increased his long run a little (or added a second run that day)- he would be 30 minutes faster anyway.

THEN - if he were to perfect his pacing, nutrition, etc- he might win the AG race- not just merely KQ.

I don't necessarily agree. Sure he COULD be training more but I don't think his training volume is the primary reason why a 1:11 half marathon guy (granted it was 9 years ago) is running 3:30+ for IM. He should be able to easily go 3:20 off the training he outlined assuming he doesn't completely dick up his bike pacing and nutrition.

In particular this guy asks: "Am I swimming too hard?"
My answer is yes.
"With the swim volume you are doing- almost any speed (even slow) would be a little too hard.
And you are not going slow."

I was a collegiate swimmer.
But- if I did a 56 minute swim, and was only doing 8000m/wk (on my hard weeks) - I would be pretty tired afterward.
And if I then did a hard bike? - I would be even more tired.
(And every 112 mile bike is hard for me- I only do 8 hrs of mostlt easy cycling per week).
I might be able to hold shit together, if I had ultra-marathon running type run training under my belt. (But a max of 30 miles/wk doesn't meet this requirement).

I'm definitely not a swimmer. I swim 2-3X per week and rarely go more than 3500ish per session. I typically swim in the 1:05-1:08 range for IM but I'm literally just going through the motions to get to the bike. I could invest another 3-5hrs per week training to get down to 60min but I think that time is better spent elsewhere for me. The IM bike shouldn't be HARD for anyone that has put in the training time. It may be boring and tiring but if it feels like you are going hard then you're in trouble come marathon time. Most of us should be in the 72-78% FTP range and that just isn't riding hard. That's why I'm curious to see where the OP rides - something just isn't right with his run splits unless he is completely mentally weak. IM is a long day even if you are going under 10hrs and it definitely takes some mental toughness and focus to take advantage of your physical abilities.

I see what you're getting at but mistakes in training and mistakes in execution aren't mutually exclusive, he said he ran 1:11…I missed that it was 9 years ago, I also misunderstood that he is taking 600 cal (I thought 300) per hour on the bike, likely with very high protein in the energy bars…probably 600-700 calories of protein and 1500 of solid food…that is crazy, and unnecessary.

So….it should be pretty easy to understand THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS what kind of shape you are in, there are a thousand ways and workouts (in all sports) to understand exactly where you are at and where you should/want to be going.

IE having a measurable outcome which validates process is important whether or not you train 6 or 30 hours a week. Once you understand this then you can (hopefully) manipulate training process in your favour. The choice of 6 or 30 hours is up to you depending on your goals and commitment/time available etc.

Basically I see mistakes in execution during races having a pretty strong correlation with mistakes in tracking and mistakes in training/rest/sleep/nutrition/desire etc.

Honestly just one extra hour a week of swimming would probably be enough.
8000m/wk - is like 15 miles of running, or 2 hours of cycling.
What's another hour?

Well- in this case a 33% increase in volume and frequency.

An additional hour of running would increase is run frequency and volume 20%.

If you want to KQ, you need to aim for double that volume at peak times. You also need to structure your season better (you shouldn't just repeat the same thing over and over for 6-7 months). Happy to discuss more over email just PM me if you like.

Maybe you need double that volume but I certainly don't and wouldn't blindly prescribe it to any athlete I coach. His average is about exactly what I do for my 8-10 week race prep block. Of course we know nothing of the specifics of those workouts but that is sufficient volume for me to podium and KQ.

This guy should be able to run low 3s or faster if he reaches his potential.

Don't swim it as hard as I see maybe 1/3 or perhaps more of a typical Ironman field swim it. I see many staggering out of the water, eyes rolled back in the head, looking absolutely waxed! I'm thinking, "Good grief - just over an hour+ into this 10 or more hour day and they look maxed out already"

So you'd just tell him to start running 60mpw and riding 15 hours? You think just ramping up volume is the cure? I'd want to dig into what he's doing with the current volume before jumping to any conclusions. I know for a fact you don't need to train 30hrrs per week to KQ. I'm pretty confident he can improve his performance significantly without any increase in volume. I'd want to improve the quality of his training and maximize his race execution first and then decide if mire is necessary. That's just my personal approach. Some people feel it's all about volume. I simply don't have time to train 30hrs, plus work full time, maintain my relationship, and still be able to recover and absorb that much work so I focus on quality over quantity.


To be fair, I guess I train a bit more. Probably 10hrs on the bike and 35ish miles running per week but that's peak. maybe I'd be faster with more but that's a comfortable balance and it is absolutely sufficient to race IM well if you execute.

15-18 hours per week should be enough, so tweaking a few things here and there should be all you need to do re training. It sounds like a coach could help, but you also seem to be training pretty sensibly too, esp knowing your limitations re injury. It really does seem to mostly be coming down to race execution therefore. Re nutrition, you have to understand some of the physiological limitations to digestion during exercise. Your body needs blood to digest food. But it also needs blood to carry O2 to your muscles and to cool your body (or warm it in v cold races). The harder you work, the less blood you have available for digestion. So what happens when you have too much food in your stomach when the body has not enough blood available for digestion, is it just rejects the food out the back door which is what you've experienced.

So, my advice would be:
- consider a coach
- learn to draft in the water
- dial in your nutrition
- ease up more on the bike
- start the run no faster than 3:30 pace for the first 15 miles
- find a warmer, flatter IM to race
- slightly up your run training volume while lowering some of the intensity

15-18hrs per week is plenty. I'm not saying there might not be any additional gains to be made from upping the volume some but I'm willing to bet my paycheck that I (and many other coaches) can have you racing significantly faster without changing your current volume at all. Again, would 20-25hrs be even better if done smartly? Perhaps, but as you mentioned, it has to fit within the rest of your life.

Related to the nutrition advice here - your race nutrition plan is something you should absolutely have developed and dialed in during training. I do very few long steady rides at IM effort but I take advantage of those opportunities to practice my nutrition using the same products and amounts I would for racing to see how it works. You want to find the max calories your body can handle comfortably but that takes some trial and error. It's best not to find those errors during a race :) I go into IM with a very specific nutrition plan knowing how many calories and how much fluids I'm targeting throughout the bike. That doesn't guarantee nothing will go wrong but at least I know it SHOULD be okay because I've done race simulations to develop the plan.

You're not coming out of the water in the lead so it's a time to not lose any time, find a decent small group and draft. Be prepared to put in a good effort at the start to find that group and maybe put in a effort to jump up a group, but you don't really want to tow others, so probably a steady 6/7 with periods of 9.

The swim's not your problem. It's your run.

Either 1) you're not fast enough on the run because you're not a fast runner or 2) you're not fast on the run because you've overbiked or 3) you fall apart on the run because you've run out of energy.

You can perfect your swim to the point where you're getting out as fresh as a daisy, but if you smack yourself on the bike it's all for naught.

But in answer to your question, I believe it should feel comfortably hard

people, really dont pay the swim the respect its due.

Like for like Id say if you can "only" do 1:31/100 in the pool for 1500m then you should be looking at the hour mark at the very fastest (1:34 pace) and potentially anything up to 1:38 pace. Add a couple of seconds as its just the first part of a long race and you are looking at 1:40s! do you have a 200 and 400 pool time I can look at? I have a calculator to work this sort of stuff out!

But as a coaching point and judging by what you say Id spend a lot of focus on going at 1:30ish pace but making it as easy as possible. So work on efficiency at that pace and so that your 3k sessions are all at 1:30 pace. then hopefully it will be easy to hold it for 3.8k. plan to improve for the race, not what you can do now

Are you doing enough long training runs as your 100TT seems fast compared to your IM times, so over biking doesn't look like an issue. This only really leaves nutrition, poor run pacing or lack of run conditioning to explain your poor running. Running a 1:11 half is excellent, but it doesn't predict a fast marathon unless you've conditioned for the longer distance. This will be even more important when running a marathon after the swim bike. In essence, I doubt the problem is with the pace you swim at.

Open water in a wetsuit surrounded by other athletes, course distances not accurate, different water and wind conditions, different course challenges like current and wave changes etc and the pressure of starting the race - you do not want to focus on what times you should be doing. Your paradigm of the TT being 10/10 and 7/10 is a much better measure than timing.

You should practice your open water skills to death. Drafting, sighting and making sure you swim in all weathers is absolutely essential. Race day could see anything and I see from your races you got caught in the 2014 IM Wales swim just like I did!

Solid 1 hour open water swims on a lapped course should enable you to gauge your efforts in training so you can get your splits from each lap and see if your pace drops off. If it does you are putting in too much effort early on. Only you can learn your correct PRE - ?/10 - pacing strategy whatever you want to call it.

Find the level of effort that lets you get out of the water without dropping the pace, and find that level of effort in good and bad conditions. make sure you learn to swim in a group comfortably and accept sometimes its better to draft in a group and be a bit slower than to go it alone and have them catch you before the exit.

You appear to be having too many calories on the bike, which will result in your body rejecting them when you get to the run. I assume you haven't got a Powermeter, but would guess you IM power at about 200w. If you plug this into:

http://www.graemestewart.com/cycling-nutrition-calculator/

It give a calorie range from 272 - 467 per hour.

I also reckon that rather than banging out swim/bike/run all year, you need to put in a run focus to develop your run endurance. Now is a good time to start. The key to this is not to run fast, google Maffetone to get an idea, but don't be a slave to his arbitrary rules. When I've done it, I've run every day, building upto an hour, but capping my average HR to 120bpm (my max is 172, IM run HR 130). You will find that your speed gradually creeps up over the weeks. Once it stop creeping up, you have probably got a decent aerobic endurance for running and can build in more swim/bike. I've found that once you've built this endurance, it stays with you for quite some time, so just repeat each winter.

OK as thought a little over the hour should be ideal pace, like for like based on current times.

With wetsuit and good conditions you could probably get under.

on the run work on hills for some of them, do Cross Country of something similar. Build up some run specific strength to help with the tail end of the ironman run. Its about not slowing down and being strong is what helps there.

oh and run everyday as nobbie says. Even 30mins.

It does seem a lot of energy intake on the bike. 467kcal/hr is ~117g/hr which still seems quite high when you consider that most people would top out at 60-90g/hr when trained on a product.

3300kcal over 5.5hrs is 600kcal/hr = 150g/hr. Bleurgh.

I have done similar and paid for it!

That's just a range to indicate what might be possible for different people. I manage towards the top end of that range, but I'm using the simplest possible calories in Maltodextrin/fructose. Start including bars and fruit in that and it probably lowers the possible intake as the stomach has more work to do. I too learnt this the hard way, a portaloo is not where you want to be on a hot day in Lanzarote

I'm no expert but isn't that a lot of liquid to be taking in on the bike? I biked imuk in 6:26 and drank 4 litres and weighed 82kg.

My penny's worth is that you should swim the first 300m/400m or so 'hard' then the rest 'moderate', with the odd 'hard' bit to catch good drafts going by. The idea of swimming the first bit 'hard' is that you will be swimming with people who are faster than you and so you will get a better draft.

What does hard mean? If you can do 400m in 5:40 all out then I'm guessing 'hard' is just under 6:00 per 400m and 'moderate' is around 6:20 per 400m.

My favourite session for learning these paces is to do 10x400m as 400m easy, then 3x 400m as (400m fast, 10s rest, 400m moderate, 10s rest, 400m easy, 30s rest). If you can only do two sessions per week, I'd also suggest something like 30 or 40 x 100m with 10s rest. Other than the first 5/last 5, do them at the fastest pace that you can sustain for them all (i.e. start sensible and don't slow down).

I have nothing to contribute to this, other than to say that when the OP pulls everything together in a single race, a Kona spot looks nailed on.

Now although IMUK and IMW are slow bike courses if you want to get faster you will either have to up the FTP (and that is likely to take more than 3 sessions a week ), and stay at a similar IF, or get more aero. Getting aero doesn't have to impact your run, overly aggressive and it is likely to but even so I would expect you at 68kg and a similar FTP to me to actually be faster on a hilly course but looking at your times it doesn't seem to be the case and I can only put that down to aero as I race at 5kgs over your weight.

For a pointer on that power (IMUK 2015) I would expect a sub 5:20 at IMUK.

For a little bit of comparison, between 2008 and 2010, I went sub 9 hours 5 times. Ok these were fast courses, Austria, Roth, Barcelona, Outlaw but at that time, my swim was around 56 mins, had a 100 mile TT of 3.50 and half marathon time of 1.15

Average times for the runs were: 56 swim, 4.40 bike, 3.05 run.

So, in reading your stats....it seems you are finishing rather than racing and pushing the pace.

Swimming, I was pretty much flat out...trying to hang onto feet. Ok not sprinting, but could not go any quicker.

Bike: Easy first 25 miles, but then was pretty much flat out

Run: 30k as fast as poss, then hold on.

It also sounds like a lot of fluid intake on the bike for UK-based races that probably aren't going to be blistering hot. I think if you rely too heavily on liquids for your fuel then you can have problems on a cooler day when you either aren't feeling thirsty because you're not sweating too much or you're forcing yourself to drink when you don't need to and it's just sloshing around in your stomach.

The leg fatigue could just be that you're not well conditioned for more than half mara, but if your biomechanics are poor then sort that out before increasing the mileage. The Primal3 guys in Dublin/Wickow are really good for that and they have a weekend workshop at end of Jan (I have no connection other than being a satisfied customer).

You shouldn't need to pee on the bike at all. When I KQ'd at Frankfurt in 2013, I didn't pee at all during the race, I drank to thirst, but obviously my thirst reflex seem to work. Do you feel thirsty and drink, or are you drinking because you feel you should 'stay hydrated' ?

all I have read/heard on podcasts over the last three years would suggest that you are over eating/drinking

If you were sitting around at home or in the office would you be peeing every hour which is approximately what this is? I think any sedentary person peeing this much would probably be due a test for diabetes

I'd second the suggestion to read Waterlogged to at least start thinking about your actual need for water and electrolytes. And just maybe the run might get to be more comfortable

IF is based on NP so that was near the 220 watts, even so the extra 19 watts isn't going to give you 40 mins +

Instead of looking for the cold weather as a reason, look at the data. 0.70 is a decent IM IF figure going harder on the bike might make the complete race even worse. I am not 100% sure it is wise to compare a 100mTT with an IM bike leg, you just might have done the improvement on the 100m TT with a higher power which you don't do in an IM.

As for peeing on the bike, I would suggest a max of 1 if you really hydrate, and to be honest this could be a cause of a bad time. Are you getting off the bike to pee (this wastes a min or so each time you do it), you are obviously drinking massive amounts (always means a heavy bike, and lots of time possibly out of the aero position, stopped at aid stations to refill).

I hydrate well on the bike and I am annoyed if I have to stop and pee just once. I would aim to need a pee in T2 and not before.

I think I should carry less weight on the bike,

Your swim effort will have a limited impact on the rest of the race,...as long as you don't red-line all the way through. As mentioned, concentrate more on good drafting skills and let those in front do the work. Sometime you might find yourself having to put a short effort in to 'hitch' a lift off someone else as you lose a draft or your draft drops back.
As a rough guide I'd say put an RPE of 90% TT (for lack of live data feedback). Also prep for the fast start with sprint intervals, so you can get on that draft.
Negligible affects on bike/run unless you TT the swim.

I've always viewed the first 45 mins - 1hr on the bike more critical than the swim intensity.

Get the nutrition going early, get the HR down ASAP and settle into smooth, efficient pedalling with no hard efforts and you will probably 'recover' from slightly overcooking the swim.

IMO going 10-15 watts below race intensity over this period pays you back over the duration.

Firstly, with your speed, you will qualify for Kona. You just need to find the formula right for you.

You clearly have the bike and based on TT times are not nailing it too hard that should have a detrimental impact on the mara. However that is what is happening. Therefore, my tuppence is your nutrition.

Your carb intake is very high. Unless you have a cast iron stomach, it is likely too high. Hence why you likely can not execute the run you are capable of.

Do you do any of your training fasted or with a bulletproof coffee and therefore capable of using fat reserves on the Mara ?

Doing a couple of fasted, low intensity morning runs (1 for 30 mins, and 1 for 1hr 15 or so) and then starting my long weekend bike fasted was one of the key changes to my qualification by giving me a new ability to use fat as fuel. I kept the number of hours (average 12 per week the same) and only other change was a weekly over-geared turbo session.

Before, despite normally having a cast iron stomach, I was always too reliant on carbs. You definitely increase your fuel quantity by being more fat enabled.

All the best. I am sure you will find what works for you.