Drafting or not during triainig rides?

No drafting allowed at Ironman races.  Here are the rules

1. Position Rules:

a. Absolutely NO DRAFTING of another bike or any other vehicle is allowed.

b. Athletes must keep 7 meters (4 bike lengths) distance between bikes except when passing. Failure to do so will result in a drafting violation.

c. A pass occurs when the overtaking athlete’s front wheel passes the leading edge of the athlete being overtaken.

d. Overtaking Athletes may pass on the left for up to 20 seconds, but must move back to the right side of the road, after passing. Failure to complete a pass within 20 seconds will result in a drafting violation. Athletes may not back out of the 7 meter draft zone once it is entered (drafting violation).

e. Overtaken athletes must immediately fall back 7 meters (4 bike lengths) before attempting to regain the lead from a front running bike. Immediately re-passing prior to falling back 7 meters will result in an overtaken violation.

f. Overtaken Athletes who remain within 7 meters (4 bike lengths) for more than 20 seconds will be given a drafting violation.

g. Athletes must ride single file on the far right side of the road except when passing another rider, or for reasons of safety. Side-by-side riding is not allowed and will result in a position violation.

h. Athletes who impede the forward progress of other athletes will be given a blocking violation.

i. Athletes committing rules violations will be notified "on the spot" by an official.

j. Do not attempt to discuss the penalty with the official.

The official will:

i. Call out your race number and/or notify you that you have received either a RED CARD for drafting and intentional littering or a YELLOW CARD for any other penalty. The official will show you the corresponding colored card.

ii. Instruct you to report to the next penalty tent (PT) on the course. There will be at least two PTs on the course. THE EXACT LOCATION OF THE PTs WILL BE STATED AT THE PRE-RACE MEETING.

The athlete will:

i. Report to the next PT and tell the PT Official whether you were shown a RED CARD or a YELLOW CARD. If you fail to report to the next PT, you may be disqualified.

ii. Have race numbers marked by the PT Official with a "/" for drafting or a "P" for all other penalties.

iii. Register, via the sign-in sheet.

iv. Resume the race immediately, upon having your numbers marked with a "P" and registering, for all non-drafting violations (YELLOW CARD).

v. Remain in the PT for the time indicated in the table below, for each drafting and intentional littering violation (RED CARD):

1st Offense- 4:00 minutes

2nd Offense- 4:00 minutes

3rd Offense- Disqualification (DQ)

vi. Be disqualified if you receive any combination of three penalties. If you are disqualified, you may finish the bike course but may not start the run.

vii. Be disqualified for not reporting to the PT.

I'm wondering that too. Hoping what's meant is that a draft is going to happen simply from the sheer number of people out on the course. Especially earlier in the bike. Not holding directly on someone's wheel.

Still don't think hammering the bike is a good idea for an event of this duration. Even if you're ok with run/walking a lot of the run, it's not going to be easy if you're shelled from the bike. You'll feel like garbage from the start and it won't really get better.

For your training, the drafting isn't really the issue in and of itself. It's how hard you may be working. If the other riders are notably stronger, you'll have to work to keep up with them. Riding hard is riding hard and you'll improve. However, you will want at least some riding more out on your own to be familiar with having to power yourself and not having to key off other people. You'll see people around all the time at the IM, but you're not actually going to be riding together quite like in the groups you're doing now. You'll want to know how to ride your own race. That will include good size periods of time of you pushing into the wind without having a break coming up from sitting in back of the pack.

For developing your cycling power, use whatever means you have available. If the group rides push you, then by all means use them to do so.

what do you mean by this?  If you are putting in the effort it doesn't matter if you are sucking a wheel or not.  Also try not to intentionally draft the first 40 miles of your race... just because the race is known as a draftfest doesn't mean it's ok for you to make the problem worse. 

Not to pile on... but I will.

1. Group riding has it's benefits but also it's drawbacks. The very nature of group riding is counter to tri riding. In a group you are either in a flowing paceline where you are taking hard pulls then backing way off and drafting and never keeping a steady effort, or you are sucking wheel in the back and slacking. There is a big difference between interval work in a group ride and long steady state riding that you need for IM. You have 9 weeks which means you should be in the meat of your really long rides. Do these rides by yourself or with the group but don't draft. I am a huge fan of group riding but when I got into the serious prep for my IM I skipped the weekend group ride and did my long ride by myself (or with one buddy and I towed him the whole time). You need some good long rides at a steady effort rather than the work hard then rest style of group riding.

Also don't expect to keep the kind of pace you do with your group in the IM. I group ride between 20-25mph, my long rides solo were closer to 17-18. My IM was windy as all get out and I only managed a 16.3 average, a far cry from my usual group ride pace.

2. I suffer from the same disease as you, I love cycling, I swim so I can get to the bike and I run because I want to finish, the fun is the cycling. After 2 HIMs and 1 IM I can tell you this... It is a TERRIBLE idea to go hard on the bike in an IM and hope to "survive" the run. Yes we all hope to survive the run, but a marathon is serious business, an IM marathon is a whole nother beast. You will be flat out miserable from the get go on the run if you hammer the bike. I went easy and then backed off from there on the bike in my IM and I still did a lot of death marching on the run. It was about all I could do to get myself to go back out on that second 13 mile loop. The last 6 miles are a fog in my memory, it was not fun. I am glad I did it, but it was not fun. Imagine feeling that way with 20 miles to go. That could be enough to make someone drop out of the race all together.

Consider this. The amount of power and energy it takes to go from a 16mph average on the bike to an 18mph average is a big number. But over the course of an IM it does not save you a ton of time overall. Now the difference between running and walking a marathon is huge and will save you tons of time for relatively less output. Better to go easy and average 16mph on the bike so that you can maintain somewhere in the 10-12 minute mile range, than the blow up the bike at 18mph and then walk the marathon at 15 min miles. 

There are times to go hard on a bike, they are called Sprint or Oly tris and bike races. IM is not the time to go hard on the bike unless you are supremely confident in your marathon. Good luck and have fun!

Not nearly as much as you think.  You either put the work in or you don't.  People can slack off just as easily on their own as they can in the back of a group.  And depending on the group, staying at the back could be an effort that is well above what a given person may be willing to do on their own.

The overall key, like Ben mentioned, is knowing what effort you can sustain for 112 miles and still run well.  So yes, some solo rides may be needed to dial that in, but other than that, it doesn't really matter how you ride as long as you are putting in an effort that will build bike fitness.

Do some motor pacing and tell me that drafting doesn't make you faster.

Exactly.

Like. X2

I haven't heard of this.  Is it a training ride behind a car going at a steady pace?

Motorcycle

Yeah, a motorcycle or scooter, or someone going really really fast. 

I have motorpaced on the street, but motorpace weekly on our local velodrome. Sets are different speeds and different drills that are mostly track specific, but often we just do straight up motorpacing, i.e. 3 sets of 10 minutes at 50km/hr.

I've also motorpaced off a car, but that is usually just to get back into a group after fixing a flat. It's more dangerous behind a car.