Deconstructing a Bike Profile

So this is mostly me thinking out loud.

In Part I of my attempt to psych myself up for IM Louisville I'm going to take a look at the bike course profile they have posted at their website.



As you can see, the profile is similar to others in intent: Scaring the hell out of each and every one of the participants. This is done quite handily by making the vertical axis to represent vertical feet, while the horizontal axis represent horizontal miles.

Now, 1 mile has 5280 feet in it. The net result is that you appear to be climbing vertical cliffs.

So in order to make the graph correct, you'd have to have the same amount of space for 1000 feet allotted both on the vertical and horizontal axis. Which would make the graph about 10 feet long (Note for the Engineers among you: I have not calculated the exact length of a correct graph, I am merely doing what we in the non-engineering world called, "Exageration" and "estimation." So just CALM. DOWN. )

It looks like the first 40 miles or so is a low-grade climb up out of the river valley, with a few rollers, and then it's about 50 miles of more-or-less flat rollers, and then about 20 miles of slow descent into the valley again. This will be nice because the last 20 miles will be time for my legs to do some loose spinning and get a bit of rest.

According to the website, the cutoff for the swim is 2:20, and for the bike cutoff is 8:10 after that (10:30 after the race starts). I'm pretty sure I can beat the cutoff time for the bike. As several have pointed out, I've been training about a mile above sea level, with hills. Ironman Louisville is nearly at sea level.

I'm can't run 26.2 miles even on fresh legs, so, I've been practicing walking faster. I did this by swinging my arms quickly, since the Jimmy has taught me that when you swing your arms faster your feet move faster. I can pull off a sub-15 minute pace walking while doing that. I also shortened my steps.

This week, the Jimmy has me doing a couple of "shorter" rides (45 miles or so) and another Cochiti swim. This weekend, I'm doing about a 20 mile ride followed by a 3 hour run, and then the next day Sunday, a 4-5 hours ride. At this point, I'm like, "Pffft. 4 or 5 hour ride? COOL!"

I guess the taper has started. Whew. Just in time; I go back to work on August 7th.

According to this web site and this one the average high in Kentucky at the end of August is 85°F and the average low is 67°F. This morning, at noon, there was fog. FOG = HUMIDITY.

I'll talk more about how I feel about this an another day.

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