RPE/Watts/HR/and Numbers, and winging it

Cool quote!

With additional experience, winging it certainly becomes easier.  There are those tough days when you just don't have "it" during a race and have to dial back below plan to avoid a spectacular blow up (or just survive).  There are others when you're "on" (perfect taper or whatever), and you can eek out a bit more than plan for that PR.  I personally can't do that without a few prior goes at a given distance and a solid training block prior (by the time I'm tapering, I can usually guess my HR on a run to within a beat or two).

First time through, though, it's darn tough to tell early on if you have more than expected in the tank (and with a 140.6 I can only guess, but "early" is probably still many HOURS into the race!).  So, I'd approach it conservatively and use what/all signals you can (or are willing to pay attention to) to avoid going even a little too hard too early.

Longer stuff below (as in, TLDR terroir and just my experience)...

From my limited experience (only up through 70.3):  For short course, as I've done more of those races, I use RPE in all three legs, HR on bike and run, power on the bike and pace on the run.  HR on the bike should be matching my RPE target - same for HR on the run.  That's part of how I guess whether to push harder or not.  Power in short course is less useful to me, although at Oly level I do try to limit (not eliminate) my spikes (in number and degree), depending on how the race develops.  On the run, if I can see dudes in my AG on course, then it gets tactical (I love that) - otherwise I just go at an effort that historically would have my shelled at the end.  Hence, experience playing a big role.

In long course (only done 3 HIMs), it's a bit different for me.  I won't redline the swim and only allow myself a couple or three surges to get and then stay on fast feet, if I've found them.  Otherwise, it's all RPE (obviously).  On the bike, I plan to be in a target HR the whole ride, using power to make sure I'm not spiking/surging, no matter who blasts by me yelling, "Nice swim!" or such.    For me, the PM is great in training but mostly an excursion monitor in the race to ensure I don't overcook on a hill or such. For the run, it's mostly HR for me - and usually it's trying to go harder harder harder to get my HR into a target zone (although a couple of times I've pulled back from a pace, it's usually the converse).  Like I said, only done a few of these, but have approached them very differently and find the data (especially on the bike, using mostly HR and power) to have really helped metering out energy to have not much left in the tank on crossing the line - but not bonking 5 miles into the run, either.

So, I suppose I'm saying that IME it's been distance and experience gated.  Short course, then more winging it.  70.3, more by the numbers but a greater degree of winging with each experience.  140.6?  I have no idea, but I'd sure think long and hard about how I'd lay down an even effort and not spike until those last couple hundred meters! 

As always, YMMV...

Hope "your friend" has a great time training and racing.  An Ironman - how cool!

Matt

edited (poorly, still) for clarity

Full disclosure: I've never done an Ironman, but have done quite a few HIM's....I've done some shorter races as well, but I'm not particularly good at short, fast stuff, so I don't enjoy it as much.

Here's the thing (at least for me)....RPE is a big, fat liar when it comes to racing!  Early in the race, everything feels easy....I mean, you're tapered, you're excited, there are people passing you who certainly shouldn't be able to pass you....so you throw down with the false perception that it's "easy" and you're within your planned RPE and whatever other lie you want to tell yourself

Later in the race (and even if you ignored the lying-RPE jerk early on), you start to realize you still have "a while" to go on the bike and you have a big run in front of you....and suddenly, RPE is lying to you in the other way, saying you're totally going to blow up and you can't maintain this effort and you need to back it off.

But if you have HR and power metrics (that you've trained extensively with), you can figure out if RPE is lying to you.  RPE is a tricky SOB and sometimes lies and sometimes tells the truth....sometimes you think it's lying (in one way or the other) and it's telling the truth.  But if you have HR and power to cross check (and have taken into account any environmental conditions....), it's easier to tell if you're going too hard or your sandbagging it.

Like I said, this is how it is for me.  I suspect it's different for others, but for an IM distance race, you have a lot of time to screw up, and once you've screwed up, it's pretty hard to recover from it.  The beauty of these races is that there's rarely (never?) such a thing as biking too easy....because if you reserved way too much energy on the bike, you still have a marathon in which to expend the energy.  But if you bike too hard, you still have a full marathon to slog through, which sounds pretty miserable to me.

So do you need all the metrics?  No.  Can you "wing it"?  I suppose you could, but I wouldn't recommend it....at least get out there and do the training and understand what it feels like to ride for X number of hours and then run for a short period off the bike -- rinse and repeat until you get it figured out.  Or invest time and money into getting all the metrics, but  you still have to get out and ride for X number of hours, run off the bike, and decide if you nailed it or if it needs some work.  And if you really, really want to "wing it", go stupidly easy on the bike and reserve all your energy for the run!

So awesome.  

I would second this ^^^^

I will wing it for a Sprint distance but don't have any confidence in racing on RPE alone for a HIM or even for an Olympic.

The risk of going too hard on the bike and blowing up on run is too big. 

For the HIM in particular, I've only raced one but for the first half of the bike I had to constantly dial back the power because, by RPE alone, it felt too easy.

Agree.  I use power much more in HIM training to know what my target power and HR together are, but race **mostly** off the HR part of that.  That way I'm good even if the PM packs it in.

Only thing I'd add to Marc's comment is that HR can lag your output by enough to spike your power substantially before you'd "know" it on your HRM.  So for a HR only pacing method **for me**, I'd be extra cautious about excursions the first 30" (at least that's when I get most fired up by someone passing me before I really settle in) and then on any hills and turn-arounds.

All that to say, HR is great but you don't want a lot of short spikes way outside your steady effort zone (which can disproportionately hurt your run), so you just need to be careful in situations where those might happen.

Matt