The Ironman 70.3 Pacing System That Stops You Blowing Up transcript

Today I'll share with you the same level-headed approach that took me from late race meltdowns to numerous age group wins so you don't have to learn the hard way like I did. In this video, I'll show you how to pace an IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon from start to finish, so you can swim strongly, ride with discipline, and still have something left for the run. We'll talk about the swim, the transitions, and the bike, and the run, but I'll say this one thing up front.

The bike is the big one. That's where most IRONMAN 70.3 races are either set up nicely or ruined before the run even starts. Later on, I'll give you some simple bike pacing targets using power, heart rate, and feel so you can build a race plan around what you've actually shown in training rather than the split you optimistically want to see on race day. And here's the first thing I want you to keep in mind. The goal of a 70.3 or half distance triathlon is not to feel strong for the first half of the race, 'cause almost everyone can do that.

The goal is actually to still be feeling strong three, four, or five hours in when your legs are tired, your stomach is working hard, and you've still got a half marathon to run. So a half distance triathlon or IRONMAN 70.3 is made up of a 1.2-mile swim or 1.9km, a 56-mile bike ride, 90 kilometres, and a 13.1-mile run or 21.1 kilometres. Depending on your level, that might take you anything from around four hours to eight hours.

So even if you're a strong age grouper, it's still a long endurance event, and over that distance, small pacing mistakes will come back and bite you later. For years I struggled at this race distance, and I actually started to wonder whether I was simply better suited to shorter triathlons. It was only when I got a power meter on my bike and learnt to hold back properly that I started running well off the bike and eventually winning my age group at IRONMAN 70.3 events.

So most pacing mistakes usually come down to one of three things. The first is not having a realistic pacing strategy before the race, and without that, it's very easy to push a little too hard in the first half, especially because it doesn't feel that hard at the time. The second is when you set separate time goals for the swim, bike, and run based on your three best case scenarios. That might look good on paper, but it doesn't allow for race day conditions, fatigue, nutrition, or the cumulative effect of doing all three disciplines back to back.

You can end up chasing unrealistic target times that either leave you feeling exhausted or downhearted if you don't make them. The third is riding too hard, up hills, out of corners, or in short bursts. In an IRONMAN 70.3, you're nearly always better off keeping your effort more controlled rather than constantly surging. Those harder efforts might not feel too bad at the time, but they do create muscle damage that you'll pay for later on the run.

So I've made all of these mistakes myself. Back then, my swimming wasn't as good as my cycling, so I'd consciously spend the entire bike leg trying to catch up all the time I'd lost in the swim. But that's never a good strategy in long distance races like this. Pacing an IRONMAN 70.3 requires discipline and humility. Sometimes you have to let people go. You have to ignore the people who might beat you in the swim or the cyclists who surge past you on the first climb.

In the early stages, the right effort might feel almost too easy for you, and that can be hard to accept, but that's usually what enables you to race properly later on. So let's talk about the swim, and that's the hardest part of the race to pace accurately because you can't keep looking at your watch in the same way you can on the bike or run. And the first few minutes can actually be quite messy. You've got swimmers close to you, bubbles, feet everywhere, maybe someone tapping on your feet, maybe a bit of contact around a buoy.

And in the opening few minutes, you should aim for an effort that feels controlled but purposeful, about seven out of 10 intensity, and it should never feel like a panic. If you're struggling to breathe or you feel like you're fighting the water, you've probably started too hard. One simple cue I always come back to is breathing out properly in the water. A lot of swim panic comes from holding your breath and trying to gasp more air in on top, so I focus on breathing out fully on each stroke and letting the first few minutes pass.

Once the field spreads out, you can ease back a bit. For most athletes, the main part of the swim should feel more like a six out of 10 in terms of intensity. You should feel like you're setting up yourself for the rest of the race, not trying to prove your swim fitness. Once you come out of the swim, it's very easy to start running too fast towards the transition area. In fact, research shows that most triathletes' heart rates peak during the transitions.

You'll see people sprinting through them, wrestling with their wetsuits, fumbling with their helmets, and charging towards the mount line as if the whole race depends on those few seconds. But for most age group athletes, transition is not the place to create unnecessary stress and fatigue. So that doesn't mean wandering around having a picnic, it just means moving with purpose, not panic. So don't race through the transitions, leaving yourself gasping for air, because this is a four to eight-hour race and not a sprint.

So go through transitions at the pace that you want to maintain for the entire race, not like it's a separate race in itself. So the bike is the key discipline in an IRONMAN 70.3, not because the swim and the run don't matter, but the bike is where you have the biggest opportunity to either strengthen your race or damage it badly. A 56-mile bike ride, or 90 kilometres, is long enough to create a lot of fatigue, but short enough that it tempts you into riding too hard.

That's the danger. You feel strong, you're overtaking people, and you start thinking, "Maybe I'm having a really good day." And sometimes it is, but very often you're not gaining time, you're just borrowing it from later on. So the first rule of IRONMAN 70.3 bike pacing is this: don't base your plan on the bike split you'd like to do. Rather, base it on what you've demonstrated consistently in recent training. That means your race pace should come from proper evidence, long rides, race-specific sessions, brick workouts, intervals, similar terrain, similar position, similar equipment, and ideally, your actual race day bike.

If you follow my training plans, you should look at the results of the fitness tests that we include, and then use those results in conjunction with the IRONMAN 70.3 pacing guidelines, which you'll see in the final couple of weeks of your plan. The second rule is to keep your effort smooth. In an IRONMAN 70.3, spikes are costly. Every time you surge up a hill, accelerate hard out of a corner, or push too much into a headwind, you add fatigue.

You might get away with that once or twice, but over 56 miles, those little bursts really start to add up. If you use a power meter, power is usually the best guide because it responds instantly to what you're doing. It tells you what you're actually putting into the pedals, regardless of wind, hills, or road surface. Looking at your speed is less useful because it depends so much on the course, wind, temperature, road surface, and your position on the bike.

Using heart rate is useful, but it responds more slowly. It can be affected by heat, dehydration, caffeine, nerves, and fatigue, too. So if you do use heart rate, treat it as a guide rather than something you chase second by second. And if you don't use power or heart rate, perceived effort is still worth paying attention to. In fact, even if you've got all the gadgets, you should still keep asking yourself, "Does this feel like an effort I can sustain for four, five, or six hours?" So here are some practical bike pacing targets.

If you're using power and you know your FTP, a strong sub-five-hour athlete might aim for around 83 to 84% of their FTP on the bike. FTP stands for functional threshold power, by the way, and in simple terms, it's roughly the best average power you could hold for about an hour in a hard, well-paced effort. If you're aiming for around five to six hours, a more realistic target is around 80 to 82% of your FTP. And if your expected finish time is closer to six to eight hours, you might be better off around 77 to 80% of your FTP.

Those numbers aren't rules that should be carved in stone. Things like course profile, heat, wind, and nutrition will matter, too, but they do give you a sensible place to start. If you're using heart rate and you know your threshold heart rate from a hard one-hour effort, a faster athlete might ride at around 88 to 92% of their threshold heart rate. A five to six-hour athlete might sit at around 84 to 88% of their threshold heart rate, and a six to eight-hour athlete might be closer to 80 to 84%.

If you're using perceived effort, think in very controlled terms. A sub-five-hour athlete might ride at around six out of 10. A five to six-hour athlete might be closer to five out of 10. And a six to eight-hour athlete might be around four to five out of 10. Now, that might sound quite easy at the start, and honestly, that's usually a good sign if it feels that way. A well-paced bike should feel controlled for the first third, purposeful through the middle, and still manageable in the final third.

You should arrive in T2 feeling like you've definitely worked, but not like you've totally emptied yourself. One useful question to ask throughout the bike is this: Would I be happy starting a half-marathon feeling like this? If the answer is no, then you definitely need to ease back. There's also a gearing lesson here as well. If your race is hilly and you run out of easy gears, you may be forced into riding at a high power up the hills, even when you're trying to ride sensibly.

So it's worth thinking about your gear setup before race day. A compact chainset and/or a cassette with a 34-tooth sprocket can help many age group athletes ride more steadily on climbs. The key thing to remember is that you're not doing a 56-mile cycle time trial. You're doing the middle section of a long triathlon. If you've paced the swim and bike well, you've given yourself a chance to run properly, but you still need to be careful because the first few miles of the run can be very misleading.

Most triathletes run too fast from the start. They feel good, they're excited to be off the bike, and for a few minutes it can feel quite easy. But this is usually the fastest they'll run all race. From there, they gradually slow down. A better approach is to back off slightly from the start and give your body a chance to shift from cycling to running. If you use heart rate, a faster triathlete might run at around 90 to 92% of their running threshold heart rate.

A five to six-hour athlete might be at around 87 to 89%, and a six to eight-hour athlete might be at around 85 to 87% of their threshold heart rate. If you use pace, make sure it's based on realistic training numbers and not your half-marathon personal best. Your IRONMAN 70.3 run pace will be slower than your standalone half-marathon or marathon pace. And the hotter the day, the harder the bike course, or the more tired you are, the more conservative you need to be.

If you base your run on perceived effort, a faster athlete might begin at around five out of 10 intensity, a five to six-hour athlete might be at around four out of 10, and a six to eight-hour athlete might run at around three and a half out of 10 perceived effort. Again, that can sound too easy, but it will pay dividends later on. From halfway on the run, you can start listening more closely to your body. If you've paced yourself well, fuelled well, and you still feel okay, you can gradually increase the effort, not with a big surge, but by slowly building into it.

It's a really great feeling when you start overtaking people in the second half of the run section, and usually it's because you paced your race so well. Pacing isn't just about your legs, it also affects your stomach. When you race too hard, it becomes harder to absorb fuel and fluid. Your body is prioritising sending oxygenated blood to your working muscles rather than your gut. This can mean that the gels, drinks, or chews that have always worked really well in training don't feel so good on race day.

If you ride too hard, you make it harder to take in the nutrition you need to finish strongly. So your nutrition plan and pacing plan need to work together. The bike section is usually your best chance to fuel consistently, so try and use that time well. Set yourself reminders if you need them. Practise your race fuelling in training, and don't make the mistake of riding too hard too early, forgetting to fuel, and then trying to fix it later.

Because by the time you feel low on energy, it's probably too late. If you put all of these pacing tips into practice and back them up with consistent training, you give yourself a much better chance of racing an IRONMAN 70.3 strongly from start to finish. I'd be really interested to hear your experience with this, actually. Have you ever ridden too hard in an IRONMAN 70.3 and paid for it on the run? Or have you had a race where you held back and it really worked?

So if you want to keep learning about smarter triathlon racing, I'll put another helpful video on screen right now that builds on these ideas. And if you're preparing for this distance, make sure you check out our How to Prepare for an IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon playlist as well. Finally, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss future videos designed to help you train smarter and race better. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.