Fast newbie needs Oly advise (Page 2)

I think it's great that many of you give newbie's advice about how elite racers run their races without addressing the OP's specific questions.

I made the mistake of assuming that the OP's athlete is a decent runner.  So, to the OP, how competitive is his 10k in a stand-alone race?  It's possible that a previous poster is correct and he just needs to improve his running. 

However, if he's capable of a good 10k, then he's probably pushing the bike too hard which, as I've experienced and observed in several threads on BT, is a fairly common problem.

Ignore the folks who never swam who think they understand D1 swimming (or D2, or D3, or even High school).  When I was a competitive swimmer, I could rip off a great 100 or 200m and a 20:00 1650 but couldn't run 2 miles without dying.  Swimming is completely different than triathlons.  Period.


Edited by oldntrin 2009-09-16 2:36 PM

exactly.  being a swimmer and coming from a swimming background...one of the hardest adjustments to racing tris is that your aerobic systems is way more developed than your legs (in regards to the bike and run).  with a year of training this will probably be a different story.  yes, he can push shorter distances at a high rate but the object is to not blow up on the run and finish strong.

wouldn't it be better to slightly hold back on the bike and run the entire time, then to push the bike to the limit and then have to walk?  im not saying to bike like he's out for a sunday stroll but he should also not be standing in T2 wondering if he can finish.

I agree that you need to worry about race tactics, position, etc but I find that a PM helps me in a Oly. I use it to make sure I don't crush myself early, never push too hard at any point in the race and make sure I dont go to easy. If I see below 250 I need to push more, if I see above 400 I need to back off. Anything in between is fine and yes I monitor it during my race.

Of the 4 guys that went sub 2 at my last Oly 2 are ex D1 swimmers and the other two were very good club swimmers. Of those four I would say 3 of them are superb runners so the typical fish can also be a very good runner.

Edited by docswim24 2009-09-16 2:50 PM

x2

you know what, we're all wrong.

OP, tell your buddy to just go race.  period. 

Go race with all the knowledge and information and aerobic base he has.  Hopefully he fails, and in the process, takes the opportunity to learn.

because really, everything we are all saying as individuals is the results of us all going through the learning process, and failing at different stages within the event.  Those of use who have grown, and have found success, whatever that may be, was most likely the result of us learning from the experience.  Maybe going out too fast, or going out to slow or maybe just not training enough or maybe training too much.   

We can give the OPs buddy all the advice we want on how to pace.  In the end, the only thing that is going to get him faster and to learn how to pace is to train and race.  And learn from the failures that follow.  And unless he crosses the line in first place, fail he will.

With that, I say dont pace yourself.   Go race and in the process, learn for yourself. 

^^^agreed.  that is the best way to figure it out.

Well, if you know anything about elite racers you will know that many of them come from ...........

Wait for it .........

D1 elite swim backgrounds.

Shocker!!

So the comments are relevant.  Especially when the OP is asking about a friend who clearly has remarkable talent and abilties and has the potential to be a serious threat in the sport.  So the talk of how elites race is MORE than appropriate here.

Knowing he is a good athlete but inexperienced I would tell him to go out, go hard and have fun. Who knows how much training he has done for him to know how hard he can push and developed his RPE pacing. I would suggest him to think of 3 racing speeds:
1) easy -  one he could do all day
2) this hurts - one he could only sustain for 2-3 hours all out and
3) I am going to die - one he could only sustain for 1 hr or less

Then I would tell him to race the Oly around "this hurts" speed. Of course, I would endourage him to push harder on the swim (his strenght), hold back a bit on the bike and let it rip with whatever he has left on the run; most of the time he should think "dude, this pace hurts, but I am not going to die", at least not until the last mile or two of the run 

Besides the above he'll have to figure it out through experience...

I think we actually agree.  You're using your PM in a sensible manner -- just making sure you don't do anything completely stupid and still leaving yourself plenty of leeway to actually race.  It can seem like most of the PM evangelists on this site suggest completely throwing the "racing" aspect out the window and becoming a slave to the numbers, which may be perfectly sensible for someone who's goal is to "just finish" (or for long course, but that's not really relevant to this discussion) but is totally absurd for someone who is actually trying to race at the front.

Also, I hope I didn't come off as saying that swimmers can't also be fast runners, because we all know they obvisouly can.  But they usually don't just hop out of the pool and start killing it on the run.  It generally takes a great deal of effort.  Kind of like how guys that are more natural runners tend to struggle in the water.

Back to the OP's friend... Obviously we don't have much info to go on, but going from 2nd to 7th on the run doesn't sound like an epic meltdown (unless there were only 7 people in his age group or something), it sounds a lot more like he just got chased down by faster runners.  If that's the case slowing down on the bike won't help much, they'll just have less of a gap to close.

He's a fast runner in my book!  His first sprint in May he ran 7:24 pace for 3.3 miles after the 15.3mi bike were he was his slowest (after only 2 weeks of riding).

Found one of his Aug races, 10mi 21mph bike, 3.25mi run in 7:12.

Looked up his last tri race run, 3.7mi at 7:59 pace, 23/46.  What he told me was that his 1st mile was painful with his calf's cramping, I think he said he stopped to stretch them.  There's no way one can do the Oly bridge run with cramping calf's! 

We are all training on the race course this weekend.  I'll tell him to TT the bike and see what he has left for the run afterward.  Yup, he's gotta learn the hard way!

Those are ok paces, certainly he has potential, but 10 miles @ 21mph, unless it's all uphill, isn't very quick and a 3.25 mile run in the 7's is way off the podium. But I'm sure he will get better if he sticks with it, but he is not a fast Jedi...yet.

Yes.  Yes, you did.