Episode 142: Ironman Lake Placid Insights, Strava Segment Hunting, and Bicarb for Heat Tolerance
In this week's episode, we discuss our biggest takeaways from Ironman Lake Placid, including the importance of race simulations, nailing race-week preparation, and the small details that can make a big difference on race day. We also dive into the art of Strava segment hunting, trading insights on how to use segments to build fitness, sharpen your racing instincts, and have more fun in training. We wrap up with a fascinating discussion of new research on sodium bicarbonate as a potential tool for improving performance and reducing perceived effort in the heat. Along the way, we also share our thoughts on recent endurance sports news, including changes to Boston Marathon qualifying and Garmin's acquisition of TrainingPeaks. Check it out!
Some relevant-to-The-Endurance-Drive news people have shared with us recently!
Boston Marathon Adds a Random Drawing for Qualifiers Who Miss the Cutoff
Have talked about this with some friends. I’m confused as to why they wouldn’t just relax the cutoff slightly to let the next fastest 1000 runners in? Regardless, I would not bank on this as your strategy for getting into Boston given that last year almost 9K runners hit the BQ standard but didn’t get into the race; 1 in 9 is not great odds. Still try, but don’t make that your default plan!
In general, if you have run fitness that is in the ballpark of BQ but potentially close to the cutoff, Boston participation tends to come down to (1) course selection and (2) weather. Choose wisely! Later in the fall or earlier in the spring for cool temps + flat and or slightly net downhill (but not too much) are favorable.
“The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) applies a "downhill index" time penalty to qualifying times earned on steep net-downhill courses: adding 5 minutes for 1,500–2,999 feet of drop, 10 minutes for 3,000–5,999 feet of drop, and banning courses with 6,000+ feet of drop.”
Jim’s Conspiracy Theory: This transaction started 9 months ago or more. When TPV broke last winter, TP was very slow to react to fixing a fundamental problem. This led me to believe something bigger was going on in the background. Why else would they not respond when TPV was competing with Zwift/Rouvy/TrainerRoad and seemed to be a major product push for TP.
I also noticed that TP was not talking about AI and was not signaling any kind of new data analysis tools for athletes or coaches. TP has long approached data analysis as one more chart but those days are quickly coming to a close and competitors are now providing real data analysis tools.
TP has probably the best set of physiological data than any company as most users are using a power meter, real heart rate monitor and a host of other sensors. Their data probably has WAY less noise than say Strava which has a TON of data but a lot of it is garbage.
This all points to TP being a major player in AI / data analysis but thus far the have not signaled any of this intent. This is extremely odd and leads me to believe that this transaction with Garmin was in the works for a long time.
The transaction itself is good for TP owners / shareholders. They sell at their high point and don’t have to find the money to invest in new data tools. It’s going to be expensive for TP to keep up with all the new startups in this industry.
Garmin itself is a great hardware company but has proven barely competent at software. And they often brag about how abusive their software is to their users. Unproductive!
They don’t bring anything to the table for TP users except additional capital. But I doubt Garmin will see the value in investing in the TP platform to keep up with the new data analysis era. Software is not in their DNA and culture. Don’t expect a zebra to change its stripes.
Will TP remain a solid swiss army knife for coaches and athletes? I expect it will for the next few years. But moving down the road to 2027 - 2028, TP will have many sophisticated competitors that will run circles around them in terms of useful and actionable data analysis. (They are already getting beat by users connecting their TP with OpenAI or Claude.)
This is the beginning of the end for TP. They will hold on for a number of years as the incumbent. But unless Garmin has a serious U turn on software development, it’s TrainingPeaks to TrainingPeaked.
A few quick takeaways from Ironman Lake Placid weekend:
Course Etiquette & Representation
Don't ride in the middle of the lane during course practice — use the shoulder when it's available.
You're an ambassador for the sport any time you're in your tri kit. Represent the tribe well and respect the host community.
Plenty of people already dislike these events — don't hand them more reasons. (The good news is hockey and lacrosse events have taken over Lake Placid during other weekends and they are disliked way more than triathletes according to many locals!)
Cycling: Cadence
A triathlete is easy to spot from a distance by pedal stroke — usually low cadence, grinding even on flats.
Train both low and high cadence; don't default to grinding.
Most Ironman bike splits are ridden at 70–80 rpm, but you should be able to spin up to ~90 rpm on flats.
Higher cadence work engages different muscles and energy systems — rotate the workload across leg muscles and the aerobic system.
Equipment Prep
Show up on race day with a 100% functioning bike. Check tires. Every Ironman bike should be checked by a professional 1 - 2 weeks out from race day.
Lock in gearing, tires, and wheel choice ahead of time — no game-day decisions.
Target: all equipment decisions finalized by the Week 3 Race Simulation.
Race Simulation Framework
Use race simulations at Week 11, Week 7, and Week 3 out from the "A" race. Principle: training specificity — figure out what the race demands, then recreate those exact demands in training.
Ironman distance:
2K–4K swim → 100–112 mile bike → 75-minute run off the bike
Next morning: 90-minute run
Half Ironman distance:
2K swim → 50–60 mile bike → 60–75 minute run off the bike
Next morning: 75-minute run
Nutrition & Hydration
Arrive with a nutrition/hydration plan tested on your actual race bike.
Know your bottle count, bottle/holder type, and how the hardware integrates with your fueling plan.
On the 2nd bike loop, carry ~25% more fuel than you think you need to combat flavor fatigue.
Race Morning / Swim Corral Logistics
Be in the swim corral by 6:10 AM.
After 6:25 AM, you can no longer move up in the corral.
Shoutout to athletes who ate and drank while waiting in the swim corral — smart move.
If you're confident (or proven) you can run the marathon, you can afford to run — not sprint — from swim exit to T1. Too many athletes burn matches sprinting to T1 right out of the water. I saw many athletes shoving people out of the way on the first hill coming out of the swim to T1. It was both hilarious and horrifying.
Strava Segment Hunting
For biking: Wind is the wildcard — and often the deciding factor
If you're in the same ballpark power profile as the leader, any segment over 2 minutes is often governed by environmental conditions. Watch the weather and go after the segment on a favorable wind day — and ideally a warm day, not a cold one. Warm pavement rolls faster than cold pavement.
For runs: crisp and cool is your friend! High humidity/heat, as in racing, will make it harder
Become an obsessive weather watcher
Most areas have a predominant wind direction. In our area, that's from the west and north. But on days when storms roll in, the wind shifts south — and on even rarer days, it comes from the east. I used to keep a list of segments to try on those odd wind days.
In Anchorage, we rarely got north wind, since the predominant wind came from the southeast, off Prince William Sound and the glaciers. On the rare north wind days, I'd go after south-facing segments. In one case, I put a segment out of reach for 10 years — it was only broken last year. The combination of a tri bike and a strong, rare north wind made it nearly unbeatable.
Was the KOM/QOM set solo or as part of a group ride?
Many segments — especially long, flatter ones in areas with strong group rides — get set during a group effort. It's very hard to retake that kind of segment solo. Unless you've got a ride posse, it may be well out of reach.
Grab a strong friend
For any segment, try to get a friend to lead you in — a 30-second to 1-minute draft going into the effort can save you energy for the back half. The goal is to bank just enough to go all-out for the last half or quarter.
At minimum, have a friend help you hit the bottom of a climb at high speed, even if they can't help on the climb itself. Hitting the base of a hill at 25 mph beats hitting it at 20 mph — every bit of speed and saved energy helps.
Gain time on the flats
If a segment goes hill–flat–hill, conserve on the first climb so you can drill the flats. Many segments are won on the flats, not the hill, contrary to what you'd expect. Hold the flat section around threshold. Think of the whole segment more like a time trial than a stochastic effort (drill the hill, recover, drill again) — your fastest time will come from even power across the entire segment.
Target segments that fit your power profile
What kind of rider are you?
Strong 1–2 minute power: go after segments in that range. A lot of weekend riders have a strong short-power output but lack a deep FTP (20–30 minute power).
Triathlete with even power, less above-threshold strength: go long, especially on a tri bike. A good aero position with a strong, steady pace will move you up the leaderboard.
Pure sprinter: target segments under 45 seconds.
Practice the segment
You'll learn its nuances and find where you can gain valuable seconds.
Visualize the effort and have a plan.
Most segments are short enough to fully visualize and plan ahead of time. Then it's just execution when you go after it.
Katie - I’m a big fan of segment scouting rides/runs, or trying a segment at say 95% FPT effort (sweet spot) before you go all out to put a time on the board and mentally assess how much harder you would have to go!
How to find segments
Look at your rides/runs after the fact and see what segments you crossed, then see how competitive they are. If you know yourself well as a rider/runner you may be able to look at someone else’s speed/power/pace/HR and assess it against your own capabilities
Do you need to get the QOM/KOM/CR? No! PRs are a big deal too or even just getting in the top 10 for many competitive areas!
Bonus tip: load segments onto your Garmin for countdown/real time data; for runs I instead usually just note the time when I start and finish.
Two quick recent segment stories:
Follow up on the 2.5 min climb segment athlete
Katie recent CR push in Maine
Incentives to treat it like a B/C race day with respect to fueling, previous day activities, hydration, warmup, etc. → notice the mindset shift particularly around fueling
Great way to make a long run adventure spirited and really fun within my current time constraints, plus extra race-day-like endorphins boost after
Bicarb & Heat Study
If fueling is the great unlock then heat is a giant sledgehammer to performance.
We have touched on, and you’ve probably heard / read, that bicarb is a performance enhancer for both short and even longer endurance events. Its primary purpose is to help neutralize the acid buildup (hydrogen ions) produced in the blood and muscles during high-intensity exercise.
If you aren’t already playing with bicarb, you might want to from a performance perspective and now there is new study that found it can help quite a bit in the heat.
When you exercise in the heat, your body starts breathing faster than it actually needs to. (Think about how to start to breathe after being in a sauna for 10’-15’.)
That over-breathing drops your CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels, and when CO2 drops, blood flow to the brain drops with it. Less blood to the brain means more of that heavy, "I'm done” feeling — and it has nothing to do with your fitness. Your brain is just getting less fuel.
Researchers in Japan tested whether sodium bicarbonate — could prevent that from happening. They had subjects exercise in a hot chamber, one group with bicarb, one without.
The bicarb group breathed more efficiently, maintained better blood flow to the brain, and — here's the kicker — the effort felt easier. Same heat, same workload, lower perceived exertion.
What does this mean for you? A few things.
*Hot race days feel harder than they should partly because of this brain blood flow issue. It's not just dehydration. There's real neurological stuff happening that is driving the suffering.
*Sodium bicarbonate has been used as a performance supplement for years — mostly for buffering the burn in hard efforts. This study opens the door to another use case: hot weather racing.
*Any risks? Yes! Bicarb can wreck your stomach if you get the dose wrong. Not something to try for the first time on race day! But if you do struggle in the heat, it’s worth trying out during your big, hot training days.
I recommend Maurten Bicarb. I tried FlyCarb and did not like it.
Swim Cap Giveaway
I have several dozen high quality Endurance Drive neoprene swim caps to give away. All you need to do is send me your name and address and I’ll pop one in the mail for you! Jim@TheEnduranceDrive.com
Challenge or Resource of the week
Katie: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/ for all things gadget reviews
Jim: Fun entertainment: Hans Troyer YouTube channel
Gear pick of the week
Katie: Osprey Poco Pack
Jim: Bike Box Alan