Formulating a Race Day Strategy

It's now only eleven days out from Ironman Louisville. At this time next week we will have arrived in Louisville and will be preparing for the race on the 31st. I not nervous, having completed it last year and I feel confident and excited. And after 46 weeks of continuous training, I feel ready. There's a certainty that comes with good training, and that is that race day surprises will be minimized! Training is a process by which as many questions as possible are answered before the race and as few as possible during the race.

Many say that successful Ironman competition is based not only on fitness, but almost as importantly on race day execution. The fittest and strongest athlete in the field can be reduced to rubble if they don’t execute a strategic and well planned race. Race expectations and an individual’s potential can only be realized by implementing a smart race strategy.

One of the greatest attributes of any successful Ironman athlete is patience. Whether you plan on finishing before sunset or not until midnight, it’s a long day. And it’s a heck of a lot longer if you don’t pace yourself properly. Patience and pacing are key to a successful race strategy.

It’s often said that the real Ironman doesn’t begin until the last 30 miles of the bike. Given that up until that point, even the top pros have already been racing for nearly 4 hours, that’s a long time to hold yourself back. Yet that is exactly what’s required to race as well as you are capable of. Often, this means that you’ll have to let people pass you during the first half of the bike, even though you know you’re just as good — if not better — of a cyclist. For the whole first loop, you should feel like you’re going too easy. You’re not really going easy, of course, but rather just staying well within your aerobic zone (a pace at which it should be easy for you to maintain a casual conversation).

Going slower than you think you’re capable of can be frustrating, especially since after our taper, you’ll have fresh, rested legs on race day. But by taking it easy during the first 80 miles of the bike, you’ll not only have saved your legs for the hills on the second loop, but you’ll be able to run a much faster marathon than if you had pushed too hard early on in the bike. Just as important, you’ll get a huge psychological boost from the fact that you’ll be passing a huge amount of people during the last 2 hours of the bike who went out much too hard and are paying the price just when you’re starting to feel your strongest.