photo by www.asiphoto.com

Like in the articles before about the IronMan in Kona, we want to have a closer look at the pacing strategy. Michi rode with an average power of 288 watts and nearly 41 km/h. Comparing the first to the second half of the bike split you can see the significant decrease in power of nearly 14% (309 to 266 watts) and cadence from 95 rpm to 90 rpm.

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Michi's strategy on the bike was much more active than of the other three riders who have sent us their data. The marker of the climb to Hawi shows Michi's more aggressive riding style. He pushes harder right in the beginning of the climb, up to 508 watts, his cadence drops while his power rises - it seems that he rode out of the saddle to accelerate or keep the higher pace. He was able to ride the 10.6 km climb 10 seconds faster than Dirk Bockel, about 1:15 min faster than Christian Müller and nearly 2 minutes faster than Max Renko.

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An even better example of his pacing strategy is a arbitrarily chosen 10 min excerpt from a flatter section:
As soon as the road started climbing, Michi increased his power, and switched from aero position into standing position to accelerate. He intentionally pushed above the top of the inclines to keep momentum and then decreased power in the downhill to recover. This causes the wave-like power line on the graph. Speed is raised to the second power when you calculate the aerodynamic drag - physically it makes sense to push harder in the slower sections. Physiologically, it might cause earlier fatigue, because you leave the economically best performance level and need more oxygen for energy supply. A higher amount of carbohydrates are burned and earlier lack of muscle glycogen can be expected. This is different for each individual athlete and can also be tackled in training. It is crucial to have the experience to know where is the optimum for the upper power threshold and the best "recovery" threshold in a competition like an IronMan.
Leaving the aero position to push in a standing position is a huge aerodynamic disadvantage. But on the other hand your muscles are stressed in a different way and some are also released for a short time, which can have a positive effect on fatigue.

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Because of his more aggressive riding style, Michi's power distribution curve is significantly flatter than that of the other three riders. He has good motor skills, his cadence is pretty high with a peak at 97 rpm.

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With more experience for the 180km time trial pacing and a better performance on the swim split he will be a serious contender for the top ten next year.