Ironman Lake Placid : Official Thread (Page 88)

Im 6'0 - 180 and I have no idea what my power to weight ratio is, but if it was on a meter the needle would be firmly planted in the "you suck" range   

At the moment I seem to be carrying a spare tire around my waist, but hopefully I will lose that one before Lake Placid...

Yep - one spare tire bundled under the seat and a second one in special needs. If you are worried about your current tires, then yes, swap them out for new ones, and there are your two spare tires. If you haven't changed your tubulars very often, then it's is very good practice anyway. You will sFind a lot of information on how to do a "triathlete" glue job (where you basically leave a small part of the tire unglued to facilitate its removal). I don't do it that way - I do a for-real pro glue job and just cut the tire off the rim. The better the glue job, the faster (and I think safer) the wheel is.

I thought it was on here; I will go back and check again.  Thanks!

Ok, I will check that out, too.  Thanks!

I'm with you Cuse, we are almost twins.  I'm 6'0 just weighed in at 177 this morning (lowest I've been since freshman year in highschool).  I don't know how to get my power to weight ratio but I would have to say it probably sucks, but if there is an avg power to weight ratio then I would hit that number no matter what it is. 

One of the most important goals is to get to the Ironman start line HEALTHY.  You'd also rather be 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained. 

Unless you are racing for a Kona spot, the Z4 efforts will do absolutely nothing for you (or very little), except wear you down, increase your fatigue, and increase your risk of injury.  An extremely small tiny of a fraction of your training should be Z4; especially your first Ironman.  

Ironman is an endurance event.  Z4 work is a plus; but far from a neccesity.  Please just trust me on this  

Is there a formula for this? I have a power tap and have done my FTP tests.

5' 2"  - 128     FTP max was 189 last time I did the test and 95% from that is 180. Will I even know how to compare if I find out the ratio?lol

I'm a bit confused as to what everyone is writing as well. Power to weight from my experience is found by taking your current FTP and dividing by your current weight in kilos. Which for me is FTP 300, weight 154lbs = 300/(154/2.2046) = 4.28. Now that is my FTP ratio NOT my planned IM ratio. For Placid, I'm aiming for 70-72% of my FTP of 300 x .71 = 213watts or a watts to kilo ratio or 213/(154/2.2046) = 3.04. 

Whats with everyone giving their height?? Is there a height to weight ratio used?

I dont have a power tap or anything, so all I can go by is what trainerroad shows as my FTP, which just registered as 244W on last weeks 20 minute test.  At 172 lbs, that gives me a ratio just over 3 W/Kg.  When I started on Trainerroad in February, my FTP was 220 and that gave me a ratio of 2.8 W/kg.  But I had no idea how to execute a power test, it was an 8 minute test instead of 20 minutes, and I hadn't done any sort of real interval work on the bike - it was pretty much all Z2 stuff outdoors.

I have no idea what kind of offset that 244W includes though - perhaps only 10W, perhaps something more like 30W.  All I can do is keep my rig consistent - same tire pressure, same tightness of the trainer drum, etc.  

I'm still figuring my bike splits will be in the 3.5-4 hour range per lap, based on when I rode the course last year.  Maybe that is unrealisitic and it'll be better come race day, but I don't want to get myself too amped about it, which would make me prone to going out too fast and burning out for the run.

5 ' 10" 189

Thanks for the info.  Much appreciated!  I feel a little better now.  After SOTR I was thinking I still had a lot of work to do training wise.  Good luck with your training and the race.  Not much time left now.

Thanks again!!

Since we are getting closer I have a few questions.

How many weeks out will be the biggest week for you?

 How many hours do you plan to top out for training?

How many weeks will you taper for Lake Placid? I've always done a 3 week taper for a marathon. Is it different for the Ironman?

HOLY !@#%£#! rye11, I don't care how much you weigh, I just want to confirm that you ARE NOT in the 45-49 age group...

Oh, and welcome to the group! FWIW, I am currently 3.7 w/kg. Last year I raced IMLP at 72% of FTP and found the bike to be very pleasant beginning to end and had very fresh legs for the run. For rides/races over 3 hours, after about an hour on the bike i do begin to bracket Power against HR. This year my FTP is up a bit and am tentatively planning to race somewhere between 75% - 80% of FTP. I will be working that out over the next 7.5 weeks. This weekend's brick is all about that...

If you need a little motivation, you can always do what I did and start talking smack with DC... I am sure he has enough to go around....

Yeah I saw that ratio and my eyes just about popped out of my head.

Is doing the bike somewhere between 65-75% FTP typical for a full IM?

I'm doing the Fink Competitive plan (Though I'm not being competitive) and if I mapped it out correctly (haven't looked at the actual plan from the book since I started,  I have it all written down in an excel calander).  I will max out 3 weeks before the race (Saturday June 30th and Sunday July 1st will be my last long bike and run), and max out at 20 hours.  Then it looks like it goes for a 3 week taper.  I may adjust this because I'm doing a late HIM and may do another longer week, and do two weeks of taper.  It all depends on how I am feeling.  Since this is my first IM I'm doing a lot by feel so we will see how it goes.

I'm going to have to read up on all of this power stuff.  All these numbers sound hard to keep track of.  When I'm riding the only thing I can concentrate on is putting a water bottle in my mouth.  Other than that, I can't do any kind of math on the fly like that.  You guys sound like you are hammering the bike portion though, keep up the good work.

Yeah, math and fatigue don't go well together. At Ragnar, I was running my final leg, with no sleep, on the bike path which had markings for every 0.1 miles and I was trying to add 48 seconds to hold 8min/mile pace. This lasted for only a couple of miles and then I started asking people on the path questions like 'what is 34 plus 48?'...after getting no response to my questions and a lot of looks, I abandoned the practice and just tried to keep my legs moving.

This will likely be my strategy at LP-just keep my legs moving...on the swim...on the bike...on the run

I'm in your same boat. I live in northern Illinois and it is flat as a pancake. But boy do we get winds too! I was hoping that the wind would count a little towards prepping for hills...but I don't think it will prep for mountains :p

We went up to southern Wisconsin last weekend for the long ride to get some hill training in (and do they have hills...tons of them, not mountains though, so no LONG climbs, just steep and hard and repetitive). I think it was beneficial, so we are going to do that a couple more times. I'm still nervous I will get hit hard by LP climbs though...we will see.

Optimum taper length can vary greatly from individual to individual, mine is 10 days, and it still includes some higher intensity but short workouts. Depends on what you would consider a "biggest", last year my last workout before taper was a brick of 4 hours on the bike and 1:45 on the run, all at IMLP Effort. The week before that I had a swim/bike brick that consisted of a 1:10 OWS, 5 hour bike, and 15 minute transition run. That was probably a 15 or maybe 16 hour week. My longest week of the year was actually race week (21 hours) which included 12 hours of actual race time. I don't exactly know how this year will play out, each week gets built out based on the prior, but I know I am supposed to have more doubles in my schedule.

Everything that you want with you on the bike and run should be in your transition bags, incuding your shoes. You can leave stuff attached to your bike: Bento Box, nutrition, computer, etc. However only the pros are allowed to have their shoes pre-clipped to their bikes at IMLP. you can leave them clipped in when you come back in to T2 however. You don't want to leave anything on the ground around your bike that you need - chances are you will never even get close to where your bike is racked - a volunteer will bring it to you unless they are totally swamped when you head out of the changing tent.

rmiller - As a general rule of thumb it is probably more like between 60%-70%. You will usually see 5 hour riders and faster in the 75% - 80% area, as the shorter the time, the higher you can hold your power. Again this is a general rule of thumb and is not true for everyone - by no means am I a 5 hour rider! In training and racing however I seem to be an outlier, that is why I am experimenting with a slightly higher effort than last year. Time will tell though - I would be perfectly happy to race at 70%-72% FTP. And here is a little article by Joe Friel on ironman power: http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2009/04/ironman-power.html

Hi Andy.  I live on eastern Long Island.  We have some rolling hills on the North Shore, but nothing like Lake Placid.  I did quite a bit of riding last year on Dune Rd a 16-mile stretch along the Atlantic Ocean just hammering into an ocean headwind; and a lot of my long rides in the middle of the island are between farms, and I had days last year where I rode into hour-long constant 30mph headwinds.  I remember after these rides I would just ly on my couch feeling so drained and annhilated physically.  I believe they helped me a lot for the Lake Placid climbs because it's a similar effort.  The LP climbs are not steep but they are sustained; kind of like cycling into headwinds.

My suggestion would be to keep riding headwinds and try to plan at least two trips to ride mountainous terrain.  And not crazy "moUnTaInoUs" but something with sustained climbs and around 3,000 feet of gain per 56 miles.