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Normally I'd suspect that I overdone the bike too, but these watts/paces are not quite what they should have been on paper / what I could do in training. That bike split was 195W NP / 185W avg, with mid-Z1 average HR.
I started the bike with ~225W (Z2), and it took 10mins for HR to settle after the swim but it was all stable, low Z2 watts and matching HR. Then after an hour of this I just felt that lingering feeling that I might cramp up if I continue that pace. As for my normal running pace, in training I could consistently do 4:50/k off a bike session in Z2 hr, but the bike sessions were shorter of course. Thats why I dont think the pacing was the issue here, everything other than the cramps felt perfect, I didnt feel exhausted getting off the bike at all.
Im kinda torn if I should try to get in as much time as I can on the TT bike before challenge London and tweak the position, or do it on my road bike to see if same issue came up.
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kiskubai
That’s a very fast bike split compared to your run and swim splits… part of the challenge of middle distance and above is finding the pacing strategy that gets you to the finish line in the fastest time and that might mean backing off the power 20 watts and losing 10 minutes but not cramping, and running 30 minutes quicker….
There’s a useful phrase bike for show, run for dough!
Other thoughts are that it might be that your position is quite far back and quad heavy, shifting everything further forward has meant I recruit my glutes more which means I can run pretty comfortably off the bike, I spent a good few years with a tt type position that was super fast but meant that I ran like a donkey and lost all the time I’d made up on the bike and more on the run..
And finally hydration, have you weighed yourself before after a practice swim and bike in race kit… it might be that even if you’re doing well on salts etc you’re just getting really dehydrated through sweat loss…
Good luck with challenge London!