Split Plans

Hey y'all! I've just been calculating out my ideal (and hopefully realistic) splits for Ironman 70.3 Kansas (if I ever make it there!) While doing this, I realized there isn't a whole lot of good information on how to do this online so here's what I've learned so far.

So to accurately plan an Ironman, you need to figure out your time splits for each event and train to achieve the correct pace to hit your ideal overall time. To further complicate mattes, in Ironman triathlons you have cutoff times for each event, ensuring that you can't slack off in, say, the swimming portion and take forever in your swim only to try to blow the cycle and marathon out of the water. So you need to figure out your training times.

Doing this is pretty simple.

The Swim:

First, head over to http://www.swimbikerun.net.nz/sbr/Calculators/SwimmingPaceCalculator to figure your swim times. Just enter the distance for the race your entering (in my case, 1.2 miles for Ironman Kansas or 2.4 miles for my eventual Ironman) and then enter the time you want to finish in. Hit calculate and it will spit out your needed pace per 100 yards for the duration of the swim.

Now for my ground-breaking tip. Whatever your desired pace, remove 10 seconds and train for that. The reason? Ironman starts are either mass or wave starts but both involve a significant amount of people trying to swim in a very small space at one time. That means that your going to spend the first ten minutes of the swim getting the crap kicked out of you and trying to jostle your way to open water. That takes time and means your not going to be able to keep the fastest pace you want. So therefore, by training faster, you'll hopefully be able to catch up to your time once you can finally open up the throttle.

The Bike

For the bike, head to http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/bike/speed_distance_time_calc.html and input your pace and distance to get your overall time. You can also reverse it to calculate what pace you need for a desired time. Remember to include estimated transition times in your overall time, you have T1 and T2 and they both factor into it. Remember, the Ironman is a long race, you need to don quality chamois and plenty of lubricant, which takes time. Plan that in. This will keep you from annoying shocks when your bike split doesn't finish when you want. 

The Run

Hop on over to http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/4/4_1/96.shtml and do the same as above to calculate your needed pace per mile. Then train for faster but remember, no matter how hard you train, brick workouts are what is going to save your run. Your legs have to learn to shunt blood from your hamstrings and quads to your calves and you have to learn to run on dead legs. I'm notoriously bad at this. After any time on the bike, I'll be walking within a mile of the run. This training program is going to have to include more bricks or I'll be done without a fight!

So based on all that, my ideal splits are a 00:45:00 swim for a pace of 2:08/100 yards, a bike split of 03:00:00 for a pace of 18.66 mph, and a run of 02:00:00 (a tad optimistic but hey, with training and all that) for an average pace of 9:06/mile. My hopeful overall race time, plus transitions, 6 hours. That's the average race time for most Ironman 70.3 finishers so it looks pretty achievable, especially since I'm over-distance training, not training specifically for a 70.3.

So with those tips in mind, have fun calculating your next tri-splits!

P.S. For more info see

http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2013/09/13/setting-a-half-ironman-target-time.