Race Plan Frankfurt

A few days before the race, it is time to put my race plan into writing. Even though I have a pretty clear plan in my head, writing it down always helps.

Photo taken from the finish line webcam at http://www.ironman.de/live/webcam.htm

General

I know that I do not have the fitness I would like to have. Therefore, any dreams of dramatic improvements can be put to rest (unless I want a spectacular detonation during the run). I will have to execute really well if I want to have a decent run. However, if I manage to do that, I believe that I can end up close to my current PR of 11h58.

There are a number of things that lead to me to be a bit skeptic. I haven’t done enough long sessions, and my weight is about 6 pounds over were I want to be. Also, it’s probably going to be quite hot for the race which will make the race even harder for me.

Swim

I haven’t done much swimming, so I have no idea what my swim time is going to end up. As long as I focus on technique and swimming relaxed, I should end up okay even if my longest swim session was just about 2.5k. The wetsuit swim in Hannover felt pretty good, and I hope it’s not going to be too hot to swim in a wetsuit. [Update: It’s currently very hot and the water temperature is just short of not allowing wetsuits. By race day, we’ll probably be over it – so it looks like a non-wetsuit swim.] I’m guessing that I’ll swim around 1h15, and I’m fine as long as I swim under 1h20. But whatever, a few extra minutes on the swim won’t hurt me much.

I’ll take transition pretty easy, too – just put on my helmet and then grab the bike with shoes and all the rest of my stuff (glasses, gloves and arm warmers if it is cold in the morning). I should be on the bike somewhere between 1h20 and 1h30.

Bike

The key for the bike will be to set up a good run – this requires an “easy” bike. It will be quite hard to keep this thought in mind for the 6h30 or so that the bike will take, especially with my flashy new bike and race wheels.

This year, the bike course will be a bit longer than usual – some construction will add an extra 5k to the bike, about 10 minutes at my speed. At my current fitness, I think that I can manage an average speed between 28.5 and 29 km/h.- this would give a bike split of 6h30 to 6h22. When I told my friends about this goal time, they thought I was low-balling, but I think anything faster would be bad for my run split. The numbers to arrive at this time are HR under 120, and wattage about 125w. (I know that number is probably low, but my Ergomo is off – which doesn’t really matter, I want to ride as even as possible, and absolute numbers are not important for that.)

I hope to be off the bike at under 8 hours – probably around the time that the first pros will have finished. As they start 15 minutes before the age groupers, it might be a goal of finishing the bike before the first pro finishes the race, but that would require a 7h45 and that’s probably a bit fast for me.

As important as not spending too much energy on the bike is making sure I eat and drink enough. For eating, I’m aiming for 250 to 300 cal on the bike, which is about one bar per hour, the occasional banana and then some calories from the Powerbar electrolyte drink they’re handing out on the course.

As it’s going to be really hot, it will be important to drink enough and cool myself down with water over the head. I hope I’ll be able to manage things better than at Hannover when I was overheated when I came off the bike and had a pretty bad run.

Run

Once I get off the bike, change and start the run, it’ll be interesting to see if I manage to keep my HR down. It’ll be in the middle of the day (around 3pm or so), so it’s going to be pretty hot and it will be important to start the run as easy as possible (HR under 130, if possible around 125). This will require some walk breaks, especially on the short steep sections onto the bridges and at the aid stations to make sure that I get some more drinks, water and ice. I’ll also have to try to eat as long as possible in order to be able to have a solid run. I’m going to prepare my FuelBelt and have PowerBlocks and Gu Shot Blocks available. In the past, I got to a point where I didn’t care too much any more, stopped eating and ran out of steam soon after that. So it’ll be mentally hard to keep in the race and make the best of my chances. I don’t think that I’ll be able to run any faster than a 6 minute per k pace, and I hope to be able to keep that up as long as possible. This would result in 4h15 marathon, and a total race time of just a bit over 12 hours.

I’ll count anything under 12:08 as a PR (my current PR is a 11:58 from Roth 2007), and I’ll be very proud if I manage to run in that general area.